Universities: Calm at Columbia?

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At first, it looked as if Columbia was going to have a dreary rerun of last spring's student disorders. On the third day of the fall semester, Mark Rudd, the suspended campus leader of Students for a Democratic Society, showed up for registration, and a group of S.D.S. militants demonstrated against the university's "racist and militaristic policies." Later, a band of students scuffled briefly with campus police; 400 radicals broke into a campus building to hold an illegal rally, and gathered to chant slogans outside the university president's mansion. In spite of these threatening incidents, a measure of optimism prevailed at Morningside Heights that classes might resume without any further troubles.

One reason for hope was the suddenly flexible attitude of the administration. Early this month, Columbia requested that Manhattan courts drop criminal-trespass charges against almost 400 students arrested in the spring disorders. The university also lifted the suspensions of 42 other students—but not those of Rudd and 30 militants arrested for resisting arrest and inciting to riot. It also rescinded an almost meaningless rule forbidding indoor demonstrations. The thaw was designed to placate campus moderates while isolating the more intransigent radicals.

Playing It Cool. The plan seems to be working. When S.D.S. Leader Mark Rudd tried to register, most of the students present looked on with bored amusement. A brief struggle between the radicals and some elderly gymnasium guards was noted primarily for its comedy. The administration also played it cool when 400 students attending the opening session of the "International Assembly of Revolutionary Student Movements" (a confederation of S.D.S.ers, black militants and European radicals) stormed into a classroom in protest against the university's ban on the meeting. Instead of calling in the police, Columbia stood aside and let the gathering run to a quiet close. The next day, however, officials announced that swift disciplinary action would be taken against disruptive students.

Perhaps the most dramatic of administration actions was the most unexpected. A group of radical-minded students holding a spirited open forum was startled to see Acting President Andrew Cordier amble over to the meeting. He addressed it informally and spoke of building a "dynamic, forward-looking campus" on "a policy of human relationships." When a few students began to heckle him, they were silenced by others. Rudd and his fellow radicals are still determined to provoke a confrontation, but it may be, as one senior put it, that "the revolution will have to wait for spring. Most people want to get in a full semester of courses before the whole business is started up again."