Shades of the Sixties

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Students at Columbia University in New York City made national and international news in April of 1968 when they swarmed the campus and took over five buildings including the president's office as a protest against US involvement in the war in Vietnam.  The students were also protesting the university's work in military research, racism and discrimination on campus, and the proposed expansion of the university into a local park with the construction of a new gym.   There were some injuries to both students and police during the protests and campus takeover, but it ended peacefully after several days.   The event was a defining moment of the times which helped to galvanize public opposition to the Vietnam War.

Fifty-six years later and once again in the cruel month of April, Columbia University is back in the news with another student protest, the focus this time being the on-going genocide in Gaza.

This Wednesday morning while the President of Columbia University, Nemat "Minouche" Shafik, was in Washington, DC, testifying before Congress regarding congressional concerns over anti-semitism on campus, students and faculty members were busy setting up an encampment of tents and signs on the university grounds.   Some of those involved in the protest were from Columbia's sister school, Barnard College, a women's liberal arts school that is adjacent to Columbia.

According to an article on CNN.com this morning, the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" was focused on Columbia University's investment in "corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine."   The protest was organized by a student-led coalition of over 120 campus organizations.  A competing group in support of Israel also gathered at the scene.

It was a formidable protest, so significant, in fact, that the university felt compelled to call in the New York Police Department yesterday to break it up - and more than one hundred arrests were made, mostly on a preliminary charge of criminal trespass with Columbia University being named as the complainant.

Shades of the sixties.

There was a news story yesterday stating that three Barnard students had been suspended for their involvement in the encampment and protest, and one of the three was Isra Hirsi, a 21-year-old junior at Barnard who happens to be the daughter of US Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, one of three Muslim members of Congress.  That should certainly give the conservative extremists in Congress something tangible to chew on for a few weeks.

This old hillbilly retiree actually knows a Barnard student, one of my grand-nieces who is finishing her first year at that exceptionally fine academic institution.  I'm sure she is keenly aware of all that is happening around her and learning from the experience.  A major portion of a college education happens outside of the classroom.  Grab it all, Lauren, grab it all!

And damn it, Joe, either rein Bibi in or cut him loose.  I don't want my tax dollars being used for the extermination of a race of people!