President Kirk's letter to students in Hamilton Hall

April 25, 1968

TO: The Columbia Students in Hamilton Hall

This is to inform you that I shall recommend favorably to the Trustees motion five passed by the Faculty of Columbia College on 24 April. The text of the motion is:

That this Faculty respectfully petitions the University Administration

a) to arrange the immediate suspension of on-site excavation of the gymnasium facility in Morningside Park.

b) to be prepared to review the matter of the gymnasium site with a group of community spokesmen; the administration will immediately invite the Mayor to designate a group who will take counsel with the University with respect to the location and character of the gymnasium.

Your attention is especially drawn to Part B of this motion. In order to make explicit the character and purposes of the group to be designated by the Mayor, I shall recommend to the Trustees that the Mayor be asked to secure the approval of leaders acceptable to the Harlem Community of the group's composition, procedures and powers.

If you will leave Hamilton Hall, your names will be taken and you will receive a disciplinary warning for the remainder of the academic year 1967-68 and for the academic year 1968-69. No criminal charges will be made against any person presently in Hamilton Hall. Even with this warning you may participate in all College and University extra- curricular activities, including the Student Afro-American Society. At the conclusion of a student's period on disciplinary warning no permanent record or physical evidence of such status will remain in-his record.

GRAYSON KIRK
President