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MICHEL MARTIN, 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.

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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.

MARTIN: It sounds like the protests in 1968 were actually a lot more aggressive than what we are seeing today. The demonstrators in ’68 were taking over buildings. Clearly, they couldn’t be used for academic purposes. A dean was briefly taken hostage. That’s not what’s happening today. There are obviously people who have, you know, written about this, and they feel that the chanting and some of the statements being directed at some students they feel are hostile, aggressive and threatening. But it’s not at the same scale at all, and I’m just wondering why you think there are so many calls for the arrests and removals of the students in these encampments.

STEIN: The only thing I could venture is this. Seems like universities today are afraid of holding open and free discussions about issues of Palestine and Israel. I agree with you. What the students have done – they may have broken some vague university rules about how you congregate on campus, but they have not interfered with people going to class. They certainly haven’t detained anyone or harmed anyone. They just want to have their points of view displayed and discussed and have it be on the agenda. And how could it not be on the agenda? It’s one of the great issues of our day.

MARTIN: There are, obviously, very aggressive members of Congress who are very interested in using this whole episode to make their points. What do you think these university leaders should have done?

STEIN: I think they should have said, we’re a university. The purpose of a university is the open expression and exchange of ideas. That is our fundamental purpose – and especially ideas that are contentious and that have consequences. Those are exactly the issues that we should be looking at. We should have a semester-long campus-wide seminar and teach-in. They have access to the best scholars in the world on these subjects and people who represent different points of view. Why not have it all be openly discussed and debated? And I think once a university gives that up, they are really conceding the fundamental reason for their existence.

MARTIN: So how do you feel about it now? Are you glad you did it, or how do you feel about it now?

STEIN: It was a high point of my life. What can I tell you? It was a moment where I felt I was responding to the critical issues of conscience of my time with hundreds and hundreds of other people. And that’s a bond that has stayed, you know, vibrant to this day. People still come up to me and say, you probably don’t remember me, but we lived together for a week. And that meant Fayerweather Hall.

MARTIN: So before we let you go, you wrote an essay about your decision to protest in 1968 while you were a grad student, and there’s one line that stood out to me. You said – you asked the question, was Columbia purely symbolic, or was it a real radical movement? I think the way I would ask it is, do you think your actions then have consequence going forward? I guess the question is, do you think it was worth it then, and do you think what the students are doing now is worth it?

STEIN: I absolutely do. First of all, they never built the gym. Morningside Park is still intact. Second of all, it spread a movement throughout the country, which was actually a global movement at that time, in opposition to the Vietnam War, with profound consequences for the history of our country. And if there hadn’t been a movement like that, who knows how much longer the war would have gone on? So I think it was definitely worth it. And I think today it has already proven to be worth it because it’s the students’ demonstrations in all the different forms they’re taking now on dozens of campuses around the country.

MARTIN: That’s Eleanor Stein. She now teaches law and human rights at the State University of New York. In 1968, she was a student at Columbia and took part in demonstrations there. Professor Stein, thanks so much for talking with us and sharing these recollections and insights with us.

STEIN: It was a pleasure, Michel.

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