Protests

Protester David Shapiro sits in President Grayson Kirk's chair during the 1968 protests

Columbia's history has been characterized by many protests, to the point at which it has a reputation as the "Radical Ivy" and has been known for them. This reputation has waxed and waned over the years, being strongest perhaps after the 1968 protests and reaching a nadir in the early 21st century, but has recently revived in the wake of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment protests of 2024.

Pre-1960s

The Bonus Army marches down Broadway

• 1811: the "Riotous Commencement"

• October 1935: Protest against Casa Italiana over the Italian invasion of Ethiopia

• 1930s: Bonus Army marches

• Late 1930s: Anti-war rallies preceding World War II

1960s

Mathematics Hall is "liberated" during the 1968 protests

• April 20, 1967: anti-Vietnam recruitment protest by SDS in John Jay Hall turns into a violent melee with rightwing students

• April 23 - 30, 1968: The protest to end all protests. Not really. The 1968 protests surrounded the construction of the Morningside Park Gymnasium, Government funded science research, and CIA recruitment on campus. It ends with the bloody removal of students from five occupied buildings and a deeply damaged, divided campus.

• May 21, 1968: Aftershock protest leads to the reoccupation of Hamilton Hall and the arrest of participants.

• March 24, 1969: Massive protest for unclear reasons

• April 15 - 23, 1969: Protests against delays in setting up the African American Studies program culminates in SDS occupations of Hamilton and Mathematics Halls

1970-2000

Hamilton Hall during the 1996 Ethnic Studies hunger strike

• 1970: Black students take over ROTC lounge. Administration agrees to make it the Malcolm X Lounge. In the spring, a massive student strike occurs in response to the bombing of Cambodia.

• 1972: Anti-war student strike, including 17-day occupation of Lewisohn Hall; Latino students protest for Latino Studies.

• 1978: First Apartheid divestment protests result in a takeover of the Business School and a partial university divestment from South Africa

• 1985: Renewed anti-apartheid protests culminate in a takeover of Hamilton. Administration agrees to fully divest, although they didn't do so fully until 1991.

• 1987: A mob of white students beat a black student, Mike Jones, and a couple of his friends outside Ferris Booth Hall. Black students mobilize on campus, take over Hamilton. Professor Marcellus Blount was arrested during these protests. The demands led to the creation of the Intercultural Resource Center.[3]

• 1992: Students blockade, and then occupy a part of, Low Library in protest of proposed cuts in undergraduate financial aid.

• 1992: Students again take over Hamilton Hall, protesting Columbia's plans to turn the Audubon Ballroom, the site of Malcolm X's assassination, into a biomedical research facility

• 1996: Students go on a hunger strike, and occupy Hamilton for the establishment of an Ethnic Studies Department. Three years later they get a center with no hiring power

• 2000: Hundreds of students march on a hearing by the University Senate's Task Force on reviewing the Sexual Misconduct Policy and deliver 1,800 petitions calling for change.

Since 2000

Pro-Iraq War demonstration, 2003

• Spring 2003: Iraq War Protest and Counter-Protest

• Spring 2004: Columbia University Concerned Students of Color Protest

• Spring 2006: SHOCC-led protest

• October 2006: Minuteman stage-rush

• September 2007: Protests against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• November 2007: Multi-purpose hunger strike

• Spring 2008: Protest coinciding with the Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq War

• Fall 2012: Protests for a fair UAW Local 2110 contract and against sweatshop conditions at Indus Valley, both organized by Student-Worker Solidarity.

• Spring 2013: Student-Worker Solidarity campaign for a fair Faculty House contract.

• Spring 2024: Gaza Solidarity Encampment and associated occupation of Hamilton

Faculty protests

• 1891: Law school faculty protest over the adoption of the case method over the Dwight method; faculty leave to found New York Law School
• First World War: Protest over silencing of dissenting faculty; faculty leave to found the New School
• 1977: Faculty prevent the endowment of a chair for former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
• 2007 Statement of Concern by the Faculty Action Committee

Strikes

• Spring 2004 and Spring 2005: GSEU Strikes for the right to grad student unionization

Ongoing community protests

• Since 1940s: Lots of tenant protests over Columbia evictions. Today, these are primarily related to the Manhattanville expansion controversy.