Protest at Columbia

The Times just published a fairly fascinating recap of Columbia's recent string of free speech controversies, the peg of course being the protest of the Minutemen's speech. You can read the article here.

But I think it's often overlooked that our University was the scene of one of the city's most violent and effective protests of the Vietnam War (you know, back when kids our age actually had a social conscience.) I've come across a brilliant firsthand account of the uprising, in which students took control of the campus for a number of days. You can check it out here.

Are there any lessons here? I suspect each will draw their own conclusions, but it's immensely valuable to realize that Columbia was once ground zero for the personification of First Amendment exercise.