Columbia Bars Military Recruiting On Campus in Answer to Hershey

Columbia University will suspend all on-campus military recruitment beginning this week, Columbia President Grayson Kirk announced last Tuesday.

A five-man faculty committee on recruiting recommended the prohibition as a response to Selective Service director Lewis B. Hershey's request that draft boards withdraw 2-S deferments from students who obstruct military recruiters.

Kirk said that Columbia regards campus recruitment "as a university function subject to university discipline," although Columbia "does not condone illegal activity by any of its members on or off campus."

The ban will continue until the Government indicates that students interfering with campus recruiters will not lose their deferments, Kirk declared.

Military Business

Kirk emphasized the distinction between on-campus and off-campus military business. Off-campus recruiting is "purely a Government matter," he said.

The five-man committee acting with the encouragement of about 150 Columbia faculty members who voted their wishes at a faculty meeting, reversed its own earlier decision. The board reported to President Kirk on Nov. 8 that it found no significant reasons to change Columbia's traditional policy of open recruitment for all outside agencies.

After Hershey released his directive, however, Allen W. Silver, assistant professor of Sociology and chairman of the committee, called for immediate suspension of all military recruitment at the University.

Interviews scheduled this week with Army Officer Candidate School representatives have been cancelled.

In addition, the CIA will recruit off-campus next month rather than at Columbia, as the agency had originally planned.