Mark Rudd, Chairman of the Students for Democratic Society, talks to reporters.

“The Columbia University protests of 1968 were among the many student demonstrations that occurred around the world in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, as well as their concern over an allegedly segregated gymnasium to be constructed in the nearby Morningside Park. The protests resulted in the student occupation of many university buildings and the eventual violent removal of protesters by the New York City Police Department. In early March 1967, a Columbia UniversityStudents for a Democratic Society activist named Bob Feldman discovered documents in the International Law Library detailing Columbia’s institutional affiliation with the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a weapons research think-tank affiliated with the U.S…