Protests
List of student protests.
1968 and earlier
- 1811: Students interrupt commencement
- 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.
Post-1968
- 1970: Black students take over ROTC lounge. Administration agrees to make it the Malcolm X Lounge which still stands.
- 1972: Latino students protest for Latino Studies.
- 1960s-1985: Students protest for divestment from South Africa, culminating in a 1985 takeover of Hamilton. Administration agrees to 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.
- 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 biotech research facility
- 1996: Students go on hunger strike, and occupy Low and Hamilton for the establishment of an Ethnic Studies Department. Three years later they get a center with no hiring power.
Since 2000
Other Demonstrations
Ongoing
- Since 1940s: Lots of tenant protests over Columbia evictions.
