Columbia students demonstrate in support of Ethnic Studies Dep't

About 200 students took over the Low Library Rotunda -- the main administrative building on Columbia University's campus -- and spent Tuesday night barricaded inside the building before police evicted them from the area. Twenty-two students have been arrested for demonstrating in support of the formation of an Ethnic Studies Department at Columbia. The students arrested were charged with criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct, according to Daniel Alarcon, spokesperson for the Committee on Ethnic Studies in the Core Curriculum. "They surprised us with the swiftness of their moves," Alarcon said of the administration's threat to call the New York Police Department. The students were released from police custody later that day, Columbia spokesperson Fred Knubel said. The demonstration occurred in conjunction with an ongoing hunger strike. Currently, three students are entering their 12th day of a water-with-electrolyte diet. "We feel that this is the best way to show the administration that we are serious about these issues and that they can't be shoved aside any longer," Alarcon said. 65 students also held a peaceful sit-in yesterday afternoon on all seven floors of Hamilton Hall -- a building where many of Columbia's core classes are held. "We have to keep the pressure on to get what we need and deserve," Alarcon said. On the seventh day of the hunger strike, faculty and administrators passed proposals detailing curriculum for programs in Latino and Asian studies, according to Alarcon. Since 1969, students have asked for a comprehensive ethnic studies program to be developed at Columbia. In a letter to graduate student leader Jane Bai, Columbia President George Rupp explained that administrators are committed to strengthening the fields of ethnic studies but are not willing to meet the student group's demands. "Given the views expressed on these matters by my faculty and administrative colleagues, I see no likelihood of significant support for a Department of the Study of African, Asian, Latino and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas," Rupp said. Students also staged a three-hour sit-in at Columbia College Dean Austin Quigley's office in February. Approximately 30 students refused to leave his office until administrators changed the curriculum, which the protesters called "racist" and "Eurocentric." The students left the office after scheduling meetings with the administration. Columbia has made substantial progress in developing classes in ethnic studies although no meetings are currently scheduled to discuss the issue with students, according to Knubel. "We'd like to see the issue resolved by any means," Knubel said.

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