The myth of the liberal university, and its reality.

‘Columbia is Jim Crow Institution, Student Group Charges’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 10 No. 191. August 10, 1933.

World Problems Club Gives Evidence; Calls Meeting on Campus This Friday Evening

NEW YORK. Charges that the administration of Columbia University maintained a consistent policy of jim-crowism and discrimination against Negro students was made by the World Problems Club, a campus organization, yesterday.

The report of the organization indicated that Teachers College admit Negro women in only one of its five dormitories. Here, a special apartment on the ground floor is allotted to them. Five Negro students occupy this apartment at present. At Johnson Hall, under the jurisdiction of the Columbia University graduate school, only six Negro girls have been admitted. They are segregated on the sixth floor where the officers live, so that they might not “offend” the white students. The majority of the hundreds of Negro women students attending the university come from out of town. When they apply for dormitory rooms they are referred to the Harlem Y.W.C.A. blocks away. Dr. Del Manzo, Acting Dean of Teachers’ College freely admitted this discrimination in assigning rooms.

Jim Crow Job Office

Similar discrimination applies in the employment of office workers and teaching staff in the university. Investigation by the World Problems Club indicated that out of the 1,000 office workers and 3,500 members of the teaching staff, no Negroes had been hired. Mr. Gentzler, Secretary of Appointments for Columbia University, said that he had always been asked for white students to fill University whitecollar positions.

Clyde R. Miller, Director of the Bureau of Educational Service at Teachers’ College, said that there were no Negroes employed in the white-collar jobs at Teachers’ College. Clyde R. Millers’ pamphlet, “Seven Factors in Getting a Position,” in section six on “Elements of Prejudice,” states—“Similarly, the Bureau deplores the existence of other racial prejudices, etc. It believes nothing is to be gained by denying their existence; on the contrary, facing and defining these prejudices is essential to give applicants needed warning and to attempt to end unreasoning and unjust discrimination.”

Social Life Restricted

The report of the club continues:

“Although there is not an official restriction on participation in social life for the Negro students, they are discouraged from mingling freely with the white students and are not made welcome at dances.

“Dr. Jesse Williams, Director of Physical Education, said that, although there was not an official ban on Negro women students entering the swimming pool, they did not avail themselves of the opportunity of going in swimming, due, he said, to the open disapproval of the white women students in the pools. The report states:

“The Cosmopolitan Club composed of students of all races and nationalities devoted its time to discussion of problems of society. It was only natural that discussion of the position of the Negro students in society was taken up. Because of the free and unrestricted association of the Negro and white students established by the Cosmopolitan Club, the administration feared that a general opposition to the University policy of discrimination would arise. In order to stop such a move before it gained headway, open-air meetings of the Club were illegalized: the Cosmopolitan Club was forced to change its name to the World Problems Club.

“Detectives employed by the University have followed the students and stopped Negro students and questioned them when they were seen talking to white members of the club. Such is the action taken by the administration against a club which stands for the equality of all races, and practices that policy.”

Student Conference Held

“The Student Conference on Negro Student Problems held at Columbia University last April was initiated by members of the Cosmopolitan Club and the National Student League. The program and resolutions of the conference called for concrete struggle for the betterment of the conditions of students and recognized the fact that the white students were in a position to initiate the fight for the betterment of the conditions of the Negro students, and for equal opportunities for all. The World Problems Club has taken up the fight for the Negro students at Columbia University in the spirit of the resolutions adopted by the conference.”

As part of the program of the club to fight against discrimination in the university, the Club is sponsoring a symposium Friday, August 11, on “Which Way Out For The Negro?” Speakers will include George Schuyler of the Socialist Party, representatives of the Brooklyn Civic Council, William Patterson of the I.L.D., Robert Minor of the Communist Party and Donald Henderson, ousted from Columbia because of his revolutionary activity. It will be held at 8 p.m. at the McMillin Theater, Broadway and 116th St. Admission is free.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n191-NY-aug-10-1933-DW-LOC.pdf