Juan González, Veteran of '68 Columbia Strike, Condemns Current University Leaders

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Tuesday’s raid on Columbia University came 56 years to the day that police raided Hamilton Hall, arresting 700 students protesting racism and the Vietnam War. Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who was a student leader at the historic 1968 protest, says the violent crackdown on Columbia University and other campuses across the United States has refocused national attention on “an unjust war,” carried out by Israel with U.S. backing. “No commencement in America will occur in the next month where the war in Gaza is not a burning issue,” he says. He adds that the more diverse makeup of the protests today — led primarily by Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students — may have made school officials and police “much more willing to crack down” than when it was a mostly white protest movement.

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