The pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University reinforce the lesson that a righteous cause does not give students the right to act in a way that adversely affects their peers’ studies, careers, and memories of university life. The resulting feelings of disappointment and frustration, if not intense anger, can last a lifetime.
TOKYO – In 1968, protests against the Vietnam War swept through American college campuses and, in some cases, turned violent. At Columbia University, student protesters were angry about several issues, as James Simon Kunen chronicled in “The Strawberry Statement,” a series that first ran in New York magazine and was later published as a book.
The protesting students opposed Columbia’s ties with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a think tank researching war strategy, and the university’s plans to build a gym in Harlem’s Morningside Park. After students shut down the university and occupied several buildings in April 1968, the New York Police Department (NYPD) forcibly removed them.
But student revolts and strikes, and the resulting campus violence, were not confined to the United States. In March 1968, the commencement at the University of Tokyo, Japan’s most selective university, was canceled due to protests staged by medical students and interns.
TOKYO – In 1968, protests against the Vietnam War swept through American college campuses and, in some cases, turned violent. At Columbia University, student protesters were angry about several issues, as James Simon Kunen chronicled in “The Strawberry Statement,” a series that first ran in New York magazine and was later published as a book.
The protesting students opposed Columbia’s ties with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a think tank researching war strategy, and the university’s plans to build a gym in Harlem’s Morningside Park. After students shut down the university and occupied several buildings in April 1968, the New York Police Department (NYPD) forcibly removed them.
But student revolts and strikes, and the resulting campus violence, were not confined to the United States. In March 1968, the commencement at the University of Tokyo, Japan’s most selective university, was canceled due to protests staged by medical students and interns.