April 30, 1968

AD HOC FACULTY GROUP

Since Tuesday, April 23, Columbia University has been in the throes of the most fundamental crisis in its history. In the course of this crisis, the Ad Hoc Faculty Group came into existence as a force for peaceful resolution of the conflict, as a force for medication and equity.

Our efforts may have postponed for several days the calling in of the police, but it is abvious that in the end our efforts failed.

On Tuesday, April 30, in the early hours of the morning, the University Administration requested the police to clear the buildings of the striking students. These buildings, surrounded by defending members of the faculty and other students, were cleared in a
manner which must be said to have involved, stated most conservatively, unnecessary violence.

Was this inevitable? We doubt It. We all share responsibility, albeit far from equally. There are long-standing responsibilities of all those (trustees, administration, faculty, and students) who failed to reserve time and energy for firm reflection on the nature and policies of this University. We have come to see that its structure is archac and many of its policies have been insensitive to contemporary political and social realities.

More immediately, in the course of this crisis, there has been much intransigence, as we have constantly affirmed. Since those with greater formal power and authority are obligated to manifest greater wisdom, we must first of all condemn the persistent unwillingness of the  Trustees and the Administration to make a rapid and fundamental re-evaluation of the moral ambiguities of their position. This is not to say that others are blameless for the precipitation of the violence. Those who thought that refusal to negotiate was a necessary tactic to promote the radicalization of the University contributed to the debacle.

Nonetheless, the fundamental responsibility of a University Administration in a time of crisis is neither to support past errors nor to place themselves behind formal impediments to the resolution of the crisis. Men who understand the nature of a university community must be able and willing to convince trustees, who may or may not be able to understand the nature of a university community, of what is required at a moment of crisis. Since the Administration
failed thus to persuade the Trustees, it necessarily means that they will receive a vote of confidence from the faculty and the students. Men who placed the requirements of the contination of the form and extent of their powers before the preservation of a university community cannot in good faith come to us now and ask us to support their leadership.

Perhaps the striking students would never have been willing to accomodate to the needs of the situation, but the Administration failed to test this possibility effectively. They failed to weigh the disproportion of the pettiness of the forms of their resistance and the magnitude of the consequent calamity.

One day soon, we must somehow again bind up the wounds of the University and resume its life in a renewed form. As a first step, however, we must immediately move to do the following:

1. A large and representative part of the Columbia University student body has called for a student strike Normally we would regard the use of a strike by students as academically unwise and by professors as professionally dubious. In the present situations however, the student leaders are properly calling for a campus-wide strike. In response to last night's events, we believe we are fully within our professional responsibilities in urging our colleagues to respect this strike.

2. We call for the creation of a Faculty Fact-Finding Committee not appointed by the Trustees or Administration to review the events immediately related to the present crisis:

in particular, (a) to establish the position of the Trustees, including votes taken and failure of the Trustees to present themselves to be available as a body for contact and discussion with faculty and students;

(b) in full awareness of the complexities of personal relations between faculty members and administrators, to review the role of senior administrators in this crisis;

(c) as scholars concerned with establishing, preserving and understanding the historical record, to direct the collection of testimony of individual experience during the police action.

3. While we feel it vital to act now, we reassert our sense that there are means appropriate to every action and every situation:

(a) Most particularly, we urge those of our colleagues who have considered resigning from the University to join our group at least for the next few weeks. Their voice in our body, we are certain, will be a more effective answer to the recent events than a resignation at this time.

(b) We believe it remains the distinctive role of the Ad Hoc Faculty Group to arrest the process of polarization while still working to permit the rapid evolution of a new university consensus.

(c) We urge that it would serve no good cause to recreate the circumstances of this past week. We therefore urge that there be no irregular occupation of buildings so that there can be an early return to a policeless campus.

and several more

We are members of the Columbia University teaching staff, and participants in the Ad Hoc Faculty Group. We affirm the importance of that group in resisting the use of police against students. We feel, however, that it is essential that the faculty also take an affirmative stand on the moral issues underlying the student actions.

1) The University should cancel its plans for a gym in Morningside Park. 2) University connection with IDA should be terminated. 3) No sanctions. should be imposed on the striking students. 4) A tripartite structure must be established to handle future disciplinary issues and should also have substantial authority over other University policies. 5) The Trustees should guarantee affirmative action on the no sanctions demand before the students are asked to leave the buildings'