The Cox Report

Crisis at Columbia: Report of the Fact-Finding Commission Appointed to Investigate the Disturbances at Columbia University in April and May, 1968; Vintage Books; 222 pgs.; $1.95.

THE much-heralded Crisis at Columbia, the 222-page report of the five-man Cox Commission, differs strikingly from the reports of the other two most publicized investigative commissions in recent years--the Warren Commission report on President Kennedy's assassination and the Kerner Commission report on urban riots.

Unlike the former, the Cox Commission does not set out to verify a theory and spend most of its time expressing a point of view and using the facts to prove its case. And as such, Crisis at Columbia is unlikely to produce the kind of controversy and criticism that have surrounded the Warren Commission Report since its publication. Harvard law professor Archibald Cox and his four colleagues--one of whom was Dana L. Farnsworth, director of Harvard's Health Services--simply tried to find out what happened at Columbia and why. They did not refuse to talk to any witnesses who could offer anything; in fact, Columbia's SDS and Afro Society boycotted the investigation. However, Cox's group did seek out SDS members and black students as well, although in the latter case, such attempts proved largely unsuccessful. According to the report's introduction and a subsequent discussion with Cox, the Afro members declined to appear at the Commission's hearings and "generally refused all our efforts to establish some form of informal or confidential communication." The Commission states that it was "in touch with a few black students, however, and hope that this was an adequate check on the reports of other observers and some of our own inferences concerning the problems of black students at Columbia." So the Commission is unfortunately left with mere speculations on the feelings and motivations of Afro members.

THE KERNER Commission Report described a mood and a problem--that of "white racism" in America and the growing spirit of discontent by black people--and the Cox report performs a similar task in discussing the basic causes of student discontent and showing the "authoritarianism" of Columbia's administration and trustees. It has therefore provided a distinct service, especially to the so-called "establishment" which so often blames campus uprisings on radical or revolutionary students supposedly dedicated only to destruction and violence. The Cox Commission has established that the Columbia rebellion was not all due to SDS members and their "exaggeration" of the actual state of affairs. It has, as the New York Times said in its editorial, provided "depressing confirmation of the extent to which administrative rigidity and obtuseness contributed to academic chaos." The Cox report does say that SDS members and other radical students helped add to the tension, and it does criticize their tactics ("The fact is that on April 23 methods consistent with reason and civility were available and still unused," the report states), but its significance lies in its analysis of the underlying discontent and its discussion of the causes of that discontent.

The primary failure of the Cox report is that--unlike the Kerner Commission Report--Crisis at Columbia does not deal with solutions or propose ways to proceed. Where Kerner's group made specific recommendations on what could be done to improve the status of black people in America and the condition of our cities, Cox and his fellow commissioners conclude with a set of idealistic hopes on the way universities should be rather than what should be done. For instance, the Report states that the "university is essentially a free community of scholars dedicated to the pursuit of truth and knowledge solely through reason and civility." Sounds nice, but how?

IN SIMILAR fashion, the Report says that the "survival--literally the survival--of the free university depends upon the entire community's active rejection of disruptive demonstrations." But, in an interview as well as in the report, Cox warned that this should be taken together with the idea that the institution must be organized "in ways that produce both loyalty and the relief of grievances." These ideals, of course, are extremely difficult to argue with, but aside from a few hints (such as "ways must be found, beginning now, by which students can meaningfully influence the education afforded them and other aspects of the university activities") the Cox Report gives only vague indications as on how to bring this about.

The Report seems to provide as fair and unbiased a coverage of last spring's events at Columbia and the causes--both direct and underlying--as anyone might have hoped. The Cox Report's description of the actions taken by the administrators, students, faculty members, and police corresponds pretty well with the events as shown in a recently-released film shown here a week ago Friday. The film was obviously favorable to the position of the student rebels, but the difference between the two lies in the emphasis. Where the film, for instance, made a great point of showing the camaraderie and sense of community of the students in the five buildings during the days of occupation, the Cox Report states that "within the buildings time often passed slowly. Each day was a less exciting day than its predecessor, except for rumor, incidents, and political debate." But, it does also describe or provide a witness's description of the "real community spirit" in the buildings. For the Commission the rebellion was not a display of the "new life" or of "liberation," but rather a political confrontation that had causes and effects. The report does not try to describe the mood of the demonstrators once they were in the buildings, but it does try and fairly well succeeds in explaining why they were there.

Archibald Cox likes to recount a tale of the evening he spent at dinner with a group of radical students and how, after a while, they had forgotten he was there and talked of their plans and their politics in front of him. He and his panel worked hard and their report is valuable in that a respectable body of men who can certainly not be considered radical, after a thorough and careful examination, ended up placing the blame for student discontent and student activism on administrators and faculty members. Their goals, as expressed in the report's conclusions, are worthy ones. One can only wish that they could have provided us with more specifics on how to get there.