Columbia University Restricts Access To Campus During Obama's May 14, 2012 Campaign Speech At Barnard College's Graduation Ceremony

If you’re a neighborhood resident who wishes to protest against Columbia University’s West Harlem/Manhattanville business school construction project, an anti-war student who wishes to protest against the endless U.S. war in Afghanistan or an Occupy Wall Street supporter who wishes to protest against Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs, you apparently won’t be allowed by the Columbia Administration to protest on Columbia’s campus on May 14, 2012 during 2012 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign speech at Barnard College’s 2012 graduation ceremony. As a May 10, 2012 memorandum from Columbia University Vice- President James McShane to “Members of the Columbia Community,” for example, stated:

“On Monday, May 14,…Barack Obama will be on the Morningside Campus to deliver the…address at the Barnard College ceremony, held on the South Field Lawns at 12:30 p.m. This message provides important information regarding the extensive security measures that will impact lower campus operations and access.

“Please know the logistics outlined here may change at any point, subject to White House and Secret Service discretion. Updates will be posted to the Columbia homepage. We ask for your cooperation and flexibility given these extraordinary circumstances. As a precaution, please carry your University ID card with you at all times on Monday.
“AREA OF RESTRICTED ACCESS: MIDNIGHT – 6:00 A.M. MONDAY
"All gates south of 117th Street, Low Plaza, College Walk, South Field and the following buildings must be vacated and locked down. There will be no entry or activity permitted.
“Lower Campus
“Journalism, Furnald, Lerner Hall, Carman, Butler Library, John Jay, Wallach, Hartley and Hamilton
“Upper Campus
“Low Library, Kent, Dodge Hall and Miller Theatre
“LOWER CAMPUS ACCESS: 6:00 A.M. – 3:00 P.M. MONDAY
“Entry to lower campus and its buildings will be limited on Monday. Those permitted to enter lower campus will be required to pass through magnetometer screening. Large bags and liquids will not be allowed. Access will be granted to the below groups at the locations specified.
“Columbia University Faculty or Staff Reporting to Work on Lower Campus
“Faculty or staff must have a University ID card and University-issued letter to verify they work in a lower campus building. If you have been instructed to report to work, but have not yet received this documentation, please see your immediate supervisor.
Lerner Hall and Print Services staff: 115th Street and Broadway, Lerner Hall gate
Hamilton staff: 115th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, Taint gate
“Upon entry to these buildings, staff will not be permitted to exit onto campus.
“Barnard College Ceremony Participants
“Degree candidates and members of the academic procession: Lerner Hall, Broadway lobby entrance
“General Admission ticket holders: 114th Street: Carman and John Jay gates
“Guests with Disabilities, Press and VIPs: 115th Street and Broadway, Lerner Hall gate
"STREET AND GATE CLOSURES: MIDNIGHT – 3:00 P.M. MONDAY
"In addition to areas specified here, there may be intermittent street and walkway closures during the President’s arrival and exit.
"Street Closures
"No parking will be permitted on 116th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive. Additionally, there will be no parking on Amsterdam Avenue from 114th to 125th Street.

"No parking will be permitted on the east side of Broadway from 114th to 120th Street.

"There will be no parking on West 114th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. Additionally, this street will be closed to vehicular traffic.
"Pedestrian traffic on 114th Street will be restricted to the south side of the street.
"Sidewalk traffic along campus on both Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue will be restricted, from 114th to 117th Street.
"Campus Closures
"The 116th Street gates, College Walk and Low Plaza will be closed.
"The Amsterdam Avenue overpass will be closed.
"The Bookstore, Butler Library, Dodge Hall, Furnald, Carman, John Jay, Hartley and Wallach will all be closed.
"Hamilton, Journalism and Kent will be closed, except for personnel already identified.
"The Intercampus Shuttle 116th Street, Northbound stop will be moved to 117th Street.
"Administrative and Student Mail delivery, as well as external couriers to lower campus will be suspended and the Lerner Hall Student Package Center will be closed Monday.
"UPPER CAMPUS ACCESS
"Access to Dodge and Kent Halls will be restricted as described above. All other buildings on upper campus will follow normal University operations on Monday….”

Coincidentally, the Barnard College president who invited the 2012 Democratic presidential candidate to give a campaign speech at the 2012 Barnard College graduation ceremony, Debora Spar, also sits on the board of directors of Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs investment banking firm; and a vice-chair of Columbia University’s board of trustees, Esta Stecher, is also the CEO of Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs Bank USA.

U.S. Political Prisoner David Gilbert's New Autobiography: A Review of `Love and Struggle'

LOVE AND STRUGGLE:
My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond
by David Gilbert
Oakland : PM Press 2012

Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond is a well-written, intellectually and politically exciting, and emotionally moving autobiography. Published by the alternative non-commercial collective PM Press, it presents a more balanced picture of Gilbert than has been portrayed in the U.S. mass media since his arrest in 1981. Most people have previously had the chance to hear Gilbert speak for himself only in Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s 2003 Academy Award-nominated documentary film, The Weather Underground.

Love and Struggle provides its readers with a sweeping history of the growth and development of the Movement of the 1960s that reflects the historical perspective of politically radical anti-racist and anti-imperialist activist/organizers of the 1960s. Gilbert explains how he—the son of a toy company production manager and scoutmaster who grew up in upper middle-class Brookline, Massachusetts in the 1950s, “went on to become an Eagle Scout and also to win the highest religious medal for Jewish scouts” and graduated with a B.A. in philosophy from Columbia University in 1966—ended up, at the age of 37, “handcuffed and getting worked over in the back of a police car” on the night of October 20, 1981; before being, subsequently, indicted, tried and convicted of felony murder and sentenced to 75 years-to-life in prison. Like Dave Dellinger’s autobiography, From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter, Gilbert’s Love and Struggle documents the sweeping life changes experienced by many radicals of the time.

He recalls how the impact of Martin Luther King and the late 1950s/early 1960s Civil Rights Movement led him to approach religious leaders in Greater Boston’s white community about allowing the local NAACP chapter to set up anti-racist education programs for white people. A friend’s acquaintance with a Vietnamese exchange student inspired him to write an article in his school’s student newspaper in 1961 “saying America was in danger of getting drawn into a major civil war in South Vietnam, and on the wrong side at that,” while still a liberal anti-communist high school senior.

Love and Struggle then revisits Gilbert’s political, academic and personal life and the history of the New Left Movement of the Sixties after his arrival on Columbia University’s campus in the Morningside Heights/West Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan . In one section, “The 1960s and The Making Of A Revolutionary,” Gilbert explains why he and other New Left anti-war and anti-racist activists, along with Black Liberation Movement activists, became more politically radicalized, anti-imperialist and militant in their political thinking and street actions during the decade; and he also describes how he went about organizing students into SDS chapters at Columbia, Barnard and the New School for Social Research prior to the historic Columbia Student Revolt that shut-down Columbia University in 1968. He recalls, for example, how, in the spring of 1965, anti-war student activists at Columbia “set-up literature tables on the main plaza on campus, and we’d be there all day discussing and debating with those who stopped by.” He incisively observes:

I don’t want to give the wrong impression that our great arguments immediately turned people around. It is rare indeed that someone will give up on presuppositions in the course of a discussion. Ideas don’t change that quickly, and ego makes it hard for most of us to readily admit we are wrong. Organizers who expect instant conversions will become overbearing. Instead, our educational work, planted seeds and helped people see there were alternative interpretations and sources of information, so that once events developed to create more stress—the war intensified and the military draft expanded—people had a way to see that something was wrong, instead of just becoming more fervent about escalations to `win.’”

Given the decisions of university administrations at Columbia, Harvard and Stanford in 2011 to bring ROTC back to U.S. elite university campuses that had terminated their campus programs in response to late 1960s anti-ROTC campaigns of campus SDS chapters, Gilbert’s timely reference to his participation in a May 1965 anti-ROTC protest on Columbia’s campus may also be of special interest to 21st-century anti-war student activists:

“…We carried out a valuable early example of civil disobedience against university complicity with the war machine. This action was initiated by the civil rights group CORE, which planned to repeat an action done the preceding year, when a few of them sat-in to disrupt a Naval ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) ceremony…The administration moved the ceremony inside and when we marched to the door we were locked out, so people jammed up in the doorway and refused to disperse. The university called in the police, who started to pull people away, one by one…The cops twisted the tie around my neck, choking me, until, fortunately, it broke. They dragged me away and threw me down, ripping my jacket almost in half…

“Afterward, Columbia threatened to suspend the `ringleaders,’ but we were able to rally a lot of support…Some liberals wanted to reduce all organizing to defense of the right to dissent; but we maintained a balance, building a coalition on those terms while continuing to speak out against having the military on campus. And there was a tendency for students to get pumped up about how they had been subject to `police brutality.’…But I knew from my civil rights work that our bruises were minor compared to what was done routinely in Harlem…”

In the following section, “The Most Sane/Insane of Times,” Gilbert looks back in a self-critical way at the 1969/1970 period of New Left Movement history. During this period, the Weatherman faction attempted to mobilize anti-war youth to “bring the war home” to Chicago in the October 1969 “Days of Rage” protests; the Chicago 8 Conspiracy Trial began; Black Panther Party organizers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated; and Gilbert’s best friend, former Columbia SDS Vice-Chairman Ted Gold, and two other members of the Weatherman faction were accidentally killed in a West Village townhouse explosion, while building bombs to target a military base, possibly including civilians. Living in a Weatherman collective in Denver at the time, Gilbert provides readers with an interesting sense of how members and leaders of the Weatherman faction reacted on a political and emotional level to the shock of hearing the news about the deaths of their three comrades.

Love and Struggle’s next section, “Underground,” provides an exciting and vivid recollection by Gilbert of what it was like to be a member of the Weather Underground Organization [WUO] whose members were being hunted by the FBI. He also discusses the internal political differences and divisive debates that contributed to the demise of the WUO by the late 1970s.

The last four sections of Gilbert’s autobiography tell of his life in the nearly 35 years since the collapse of the WUO. He recalls his aboveground life as a furniture mover and Men Against Sexism activist in Denver in the late 1970s; some of the political, emotional and psychological reasons that he chose to resume his underground lifestyle in 1979; his return East and involvement in underground activity in support of the Black Liberation Army [BLA]. Stating that “I deeply regret the loss of lives and the pain for those families caused by our actions on October 20, 1981,” Gilbert also engages in self-criticism and self-analysis about the political appropriateness of his decision in 1979 to begin working in a clandestine way as an ally of a BLA unit “on such a high-risk tactical level with so little knowledge of the political context.” He cites “my corruption of ego” as possibly influencing the political choices he made after the collapse of the WUO, when he “was anxious to reestablish myself as a `revolutionary on the highest level,’ and `as the most anti-racist white activist.’”

Gilbert also describes, in an emotionally open way, how he reunited underground with fellow WUO member Kathy Boudin and their decision to become parents while underground. His account of how they prepared for the birth of their son in August 1980, how he felt at the time of his son’s birth and during the first year of his life and the sadness of his separation from both after his and Boudin’s arrests (she was released in 2003 after serving 22 years) are some of his most moving passages.

Some readers who were politically active in the Movement of the 1960s and 1970s may have a different political view of U.S. white working-class people’s historical revolutionary potential or the primacy of internal national liberation struggles within the US than what Gilbert presents in Love and Struggle. But there’s so much great political and psychological analysis of both U.S. society and the inter-personal dynamics within the U.S. left movement in this fascinating book—which also resembles an exciting mystery novel in some parts—that Love and Struggle should be required reading for everyone interested in 1960s and 1970s U.S. Movement history and how this history relates to current struggles.

Since David Gilbert has already been a political prisoner for more than 30 years he (as well as over 60 other U.S. political prisoners) should finally be released by U.S. state and federal government officials in 2012. In the North of Ireland, Italy and Germany, most of the political activists of the 1970s and 1980s who were involved in armed actions similar in nature to the one Gilbert was involved in were generally released from prison by the early 21st century. So why shouldn’t Love and Struggle author Gilbert and the BLA members who are also still imprisoned now also be released by the government authorities in the United States? For as Gilbert concludes in Love and Struggle’s “Afterward” section: “The book ends here; the struggle of course continues…with love and for the unity of humankind.”

Stop Columbia University Displacement Activists To Rally Against Columbia's West Harlem/Manhattanville Construction Project

COMMUNITY RALLY, MEETING, FIESTA THIS MONDAY, APRIL 23, 6:30PM ONWARDS ST. MARY’S CHURCH, 521 WEST 126TH STREET * HEAR ABOUT THE OCCUPATION OF A BUILDING THAT COLUMIBA WANTS TO EVICT, * COME TALK ABOUT THE NEXT STEPS TO STOP COLUMBIA’S DISPLACEMENT * BRING YOUR INSTRUMENTS, COME JAM, WE’LL HAVE FOOD TOO Community residents, workers, property owners, and students joined in a building takeover of property on historic 125th Street that Columbia plans to evict and destroy soon as part of its expansion. We joined forces again in a way that is reminiscent of the coalition developed during the Hunger Strike of 2007 and Tent City in 2005. During this occupation process, the Coalition to Preserve Community (CPC) and Stop Columbia University Displacement (SCUD) established a strong coalition between the community on campus and the community in the community and we hope everyone can come to St. Mary’s Church on Monday, April 16 at 6:30 to participate in a rally, meeting, and fiesta (food and music featured). Let’s keep our momentum going! We declared 655 W. 125th Street a liberated zone, taking it away from the clutches of the Empire State Development Corp and giving it back to its rightful owner. We slept there, enjoying the night air on the sidewalk for many nights, and brought the sounds of James Brown back to street level on 125, reflecting the soulful custom of so many of those long gone music shops that gave Harlem its beat and contributed to its character of free expression. Sometimes a painting or a poem would magically appear on our wall of art. A group from St. Mary’s church came by and read a Frederick Douglass poem. Ramon Diaz, owner of Floridita Restaurant, and his family came by and lent support. The students held a meeting on campus where community members were the featured speakers – for the first time since Low Library cracked down on such meetings about 5 years ago. Sarah Martin, the president of Grant Houses and Professor Mindy Fullilove were particularly powerful voices in the defense of the neighborhood. The Rev. Earl Kooperkamp spoke with both passion and humor, and he will also make his last appearance at a CPC meeting next Monday, so don’t miss that. Come on out and get an update, bring your ideas, and enjoy some music, food and some good company. The gathering will start at 6:30pm and will go on as long as people care to stay. SPONSORED BY CPC AND SCUD. AND CHECK OUT THE UPDATED WEBSITE: www.Stopcolumbia.wordpress.com

NYC Book Reading of New York State Political Prisoner David Gilbert's Autobiography Held At Brecht Forum

Naomi Jaffe Speaks At Book Reading for U.S. Political Prisoner David Gilbert's `Love & Struggle'

Columbia SDS Founder & 1968 Columbia Strike Leader David Gilbert's Autobiography Published By PM Press

The long-awaited autobiography of U.S. and New York State political prisoner David Gilbert, Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond, was recently published by the West Coast-based PM Press publishing group.

Prior to his arrest and imprisonment on October 20, 1981 in Rockland County, New York, Gilbert was a founder of the Columbia University and Barnard College chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a New School SDS organizer, and a staff member of National SDS’s New York City Regional Office during the 1960s. He also co-authored National SDS’s sequel to its earlier Port Huron Statement, the Port Authority Statement , in 1967. And during the 1970s, Gilbert was an anti-imperialist activist in the Weather Underground (who would later be featured in a 21st-century documentary film about the Weather Underground that was nominated for an Academy Award).

As PM Press observes in its website description of Gilbert’s Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond book:

“David Gilbert arrived at Columbia University just in time for the explosive '60s. From the early anti-Vietnam War protests to the founding of SDS, from the Columbia Strike to the tragedy of the Townhouse, Gilbert was on the scene: as organizer, theoretician, and above all, activist. He was among the first militants who went underground to build the clandestine resistance to war and racism known as “Weathermen.”

“…And he was among the last to emerge, in captivity, after the disaster of the 1981 Brinks robbery, an attempted expropriation that resulted in four deaths and long prison terms. In this extraordinary memoir, written from the maximum-security prison where he has lived for almost thirty years, David Gilbert tells the intensely personal story of his own Long March from liberal to radical to revolutionary.

“Today a beloved and admired mentor to a new generation of activists, he assesses with rare humor, with an understanding stripped of illusions, and with uncommon candor the errors and advances, terrors and triumphs of the Sixties and beyond. It’s a battle that was far from won, but is still not lost: the struggle to build a new world, and the love that drives that effort. A cautionary tale and a how-to as well, Love and Struggle is a book as candid, as uncompromising, and as humane as its author.”

Columbia Student Supporters of Occupy Wall Street Protests Expose Columbia's Wall Street Connections in 2011

(The following column by Yoni Golijov and Sumayya Kassamali was first posted on the Columbia Daily Spectator student newspaper website at Columbia University on October 13, 2011)

OCCUPY COLUMBIA

by Yoni Golijov and Sumayya Kassamali

Let’s not kid ourselves about how the beautiful space that is our university is paid for. Despite the tuition you are paying, the accumulated largesse of oligarchs of Manhattan continues to fund a large share of Columbia’s operations. The slew of named buildings and endowed chairs reflects how much Columbia University’s endowment is the combination of illicit wealth it has accumulated from Caribbean slavery in the past all the way to the financial crisis in 2008.

This larger fact is the background for many smaller connections between Columbia and Wall Street. Columbia’s endowment depends on good relations with the financial Masters of the Universe. For example, all of the five vice chairs of the board of trustees are financiers, from Goldman Sachs to real estate. Then there is the infamous Columbia Business School, where professors of finance reap enormous salaries from outside consulting gigs and positions on corporate boards of directors.

“Inside Job” did well at revealing some of the dodgy conflicts of interest surrounding the business school faculty. But it missed something that’s perhaps deeper. Many of the business school faculty would probably peddle the interests of the ultra-wealthy for free—they really believe it. Glenn Hubbard, the dean, was chair of the Republican Council of Economic Advisors, championed the first Bush tax cuts, and has repeatedly come out in favor of more and bigger tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as the surest route to growth.

Moving along, there are the various cross-affiliations with the law school. Most immediately, Michael Sovern, former university president and a professor at Columbia Law School, is chairman of the board of Sotheby’s, the luxury art and real estate dealer. Sotheby’s is currently locking out its workers, members of Teamsters’ Local 814, and is demanding that all new hires work temp jobs with no benefits. The lockout has been going on for 10 weeks.

Finally, there is the conflict of interest of President Bollinger’s chairmanship of the board of the New York Federal Reserve. Bollinger was appointed to fill the shoes of Denis Hughes, state president of the AFL-CIO, to “represent the public” in the Fed. But how can Bollinger, whose job involves befriending the ultra-wealthy and convincing them to write checks to the University, carry out responsibilities that could endanger that very wealth (like pushing for higher inflation or large-scale student debt relief)? This is just the tip of the iceberg, and many more connections could be discussed. One ironic consequence of Columbia’s allegiance to the wealthy is that the endowment could actually swell with an increase in high-income and capital gains taxes. The endowment is a tax-exempt foundation, and evidence suggests that donations to such things increase when taxes go up. But the more fundamental problem is the dependence of Columbia’s prestige on the goodwill of the ultra-wealthy. While public universities like CUNY/SUNY are starved of funds, Columbia’s opulence remains, courtesy of a cozy relationship with Wall Street.

Yoni Golijov is a Columbia College senior majoring in economics-philosophy. Sumayya Kassamali is a Ph.D. student in the department of anthropology at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.