Media Review: A college professor who protested the Vietnam War in 1968 compares her experiences with the anti-genocide protests currently happening at Columbia University
MICHEL MARTIN, NPR HOST:
Demonstrations are still going on at more than a dozen universities across the country where students are calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, and they say they want their schools to divest in companies that do business with Israel. The epicenter of these demonstrations is Columbia University, where images of police arresting students brought back powerful memories of another protest there.
MARTIN: In 1968, Eleanor Raskin was a student at Columbia and took part in demonstrations against the Vietnam War there. Raskin, now Eleanor Stein, now teaches law and human rights at the State University of New York, and she's with us now to talk about whether she sees parallels between then and now. Good morning. Thanks so much for joining us.
ELEANOR STEIN: It's a pleasure.
MARTIN: If you would just remind us, for people who weren't there or don't remember, about the demonstrations in 1968 - what started it, and what happened?
STEIN: It's hard to conjure up what that moment was for our country. It was a moment of real crisis. But the issues at Colombia, there were two, really, that were critical, basically a war research body. The Institute for Defense Analysis had a contract with Colombia, which could have meant participation in military research for the war. The second issue was that Colombia was in the process of building a new gym. And they were building it in Morningside Park, one of the few green spaces in Harlem. And we felt that it couldn't be business as usual, that the university itself was engaging in an indefensible takeover of Harlem land and an indefensible participation and complicity with the Vietnam War effort. And students felt so strongly about this. We felt that whatever the risks, whatever the outcomes, we should demand that the university take action.
MARTIN: So what did you do?
STEIN: Well, first, I went to the rally. And then, at the rally, people decided to go into a classroom building, Hamilton Hall, and kind of have a sit-in. And then we decided to stay and to kind of barricade the doors. I ended up going into another classroom building, Fayerweather Hall, where I lived for five days, and I was arrested there. So actually, we were much more disruptive in terms of the functioning of the university. We were blocking access to classroom buildings. Whereas today, there's - none of that has been going on.
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