Columbia Paper Stands Up to IRS; Universities' Exemptions Threatened

The student newspaper and at least one other undergraduate organization at Columbia University have been hit by an Internal Revenue Service crackdown on political activity by tax-exempt organizations.

The Columbia Daily Spectator announced yesterday it will refuse an IRS demand that it revise its charter to forbid endorsement of political candidates. The IRS threatened last week to take away the paper's tax-exempt status if it did not amend its charter by the weekend.

The Spectator is currently chartered as a tax-exempt corporation with the explicit right to endorse political candidates. An IRS spokesman said they must have "overlooked" that provision when they approved the Spectator's tax-exempt status five years ago. The paper endorsed Nelson Rockefeller in the 1966 New York gubernatorial election and Eldridge Cleaver for president in 1968.

IRS regulations forbid any tax-exempt organization to endorse political candidates or attempt to influence government legislation.

The IRS action came almost simultaneously with a statement by U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell that the Justice Department was looking for ways to prosecute underground newspapers whose radical rhetoric might constitute incitement to violence.

A Spectator spokesman said last night that the paper will appeal through administrative channels any decision to

remove their tax exemption. It will protest that the decision is an infringement of the first amendment guarantee of freedom of the press; and that since their paper is not distributed outside the Columbia campus, any infringement of IRS regulations is "unsubstantial."

If it loses its appeal and any appeal to the courts, the Spectator will have to pay up to $5000 a year in state and local taxes. They will not have to pay Federal income tax because at this point their operation is losing money.

In the case of the Columbia Young Socialists Campaign Committee (YSCC) the stakes are much larger-involving the tax exemption of Columbia itself, and, indirectly, those of all private universities in the United States including Harvard.

Under guidelines issued by Columbia's new president William J. McGill, the YSCC was denied the office space it would have been entitled to as an undergraduate organization because its political activities might threaten Columbia's tax exemption. The YSCC has filed suit against the IRS for infringement of its rights.

The McGill guidelines were modeled after those issued by the American Council for Education (ACE) during the Cambodia crisis last May, when many universities became worried they might lose their tax exemptions because of the political activity on their campuses.

The ACE guidelines were approved by the IRS. Harvard has adopted the ACE guidelines while Daniel Steiner '54, new general counsel to the University, works out permanent guidelines.

Steiner said last night Harvard has not received any direct inquiries from the IRS concerning political activity here, and will not submit its guidelines to the IRS for approval. "We have no large differences of opinion with the IRS," Steiner said. "There just may be some particular cases that will be hard to decide."

Organization such as the Vietnam Moratorium Committee and the Young People's Socialist League are involved in explicitly political action, but do not get any free office space or telephones from the University. Peace Action pays Phillips Brooks House $30 a month for the use of an office. But all these organizations-and others such as SDS and the November Action Committee-use University lecture halls for meetings. It is sensitive issues such as these the University will have to settle to assure its tax exemption against any IRS crackdown.

The crackdown on the Spectator has several other student papers and universities worried. The Stanford Daily, which receives a subsidy and free office space from that university, said the university has asked them not to dorse any political candidates this fall. A spokesman said they probably won't, but "only because we don't like any of them anyway." The Daily Dartmouth, a tax-exempt organization which endorsed Hubert Humphrey for president in 1968, has decided not to make any more political endorsements until the Spectator case is settled.

The faculty at Skidmore College in New York held a closed meeting this month to discuss the dangers of their financial support of the Skidmore News in light of that paper's political activity.

The by-laws of the CRIMSON, which became a tax-exempt corporation in 1966, say nothing about political endorsements. But CRIMSON business manager Alvin H. Moss '71 said last night, "To my knowledge, in the past several years the CRIMSON has never endorsed a political candidate or attempted to influence legislation of any kind."

A statement approved unanimously Monday night by the Columbia Spectator joint managing boards said the paper "felt the IRS directive represented an effort by the Nixon administration to intimidate students from engaging in political activity."