In April 1968, Columbia University faced a campus crisis that bears striking similarities to the recent protests. Students and outside agitators swarmed the campus to protest the Vietnam War and the construction of a nearby gym on racial grounds. They harassed and attacked peaceful students, blockading buildings and occupying them for a week.
The administration’s timid response emboldened the protesters and led to the need for a far stronger use of force. The police eventually restored order, arresting nearly 700 protesters.
Fifty-six years later, history has rhymed. On a Wednesday morning, the police arrested more than 100 protesters after violent scenes in the hallways of the Ivy League institution.
The reason for this repetition is simple: Columbia’s leaders have failed to learn the lessons of the past. They prioritized pandering to a small number of radicals over educating the larger majority of tuition-paying students. They drew red lines, then dithered when protesters crossed them.
Worst of all, they failed to prepare their own students with a proper understanding of both civic rights and duties, especially the duty to respect the rights of others. Freedom of speech comes with a moral responsibility to listen when others talk.
In the wake of the 1968 protests, many alumni, parents, and policymakers assumed it would never happen again. Clearly, we were wrong.
The school’s leadership must make a last-ditch attempt to reorient the school back to true education. Students must be taught to disagree without being disagreeable, to argue vigorously but not violently.
Now more than ever, higher education needs a culture of free speech and open discourse, not cancellation and indoctrination.
But the greatest educational need at Columbia doesn’t involve the students at all. The school’s leadership has failed its most basic test – that of learning the lessons of experience and avoiding the mistakes that have now devastated the school twice in little more than a half century.
If they don’t study their past and present failures, history will surely rhyme for the third time, sounding the end of one of America’s most prestigious institutions.
