Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] THE EXPULSION OF ROBERT BURKE 97
the Columbia Law Review. One thousand Columbia students and faculty
members, including Franz Boas and Nobel laureate Harold Urey, signed a
petition calling on the administration to rescind its acceptance of the Heidelberg
invitation. In late March, President Butler met with a delegation of
student leaders from Columbia, Barnard College, and Teachers College,
which expressed its strong opposition to the university’s participating in the
Heidelberg festival. Butler promised the delegation that he would fully consider
its argument. During the next month, the student leaders heard nothing
from Butler. 21
On April 29, the Spectator’s disclosure that Arthur F. J. Remy, Villard
Professor of Germanic Philology, would represent Columbia at Heidelberg
precipitated a new storm of campus protest. The Spectator reported that the
Heidelberg festival program listed prominent Nazi party and Reich government
officials, including Goebbels, as speakers. President Butler responded
to a request by the student leaders for another meeting by having Columbia
assistant secretary Philip Hayden announce that “Dr. Butler has nothing to
see the committee about.” The Spectator blasted Butler in an angry editorial
that declared: “We refuse to be represented at Heidelberg where all academic
freedom is ended.” 22
As the academic year drew to a close and students prepared for final
exams, the Columbia ASU organized a mock campus book burning to protest
university participation in the Heidelberg festival. About two hundred
Columbia students joined in the mock book burning. They displayed placards
marked “Butler Diddles While the Books Burn” and “On to Heidelberg—Bring
Your Brass Knuckles.” Columbia junior Paul Kolisch, wearing
“a short Tyrolean mustache in impersonation of Hitler,” began the ceremony
by having a Manhattan telephone directory thrown into the bonfire
because it was “full of Jewish names.” Kolisch then demanded that the university
be “Aryan pure.” Although Professor Remy was already en route to
Nazi Germany, Kolisch announced that he was in the crowd, and sophomore
Paul Thomson stepped forward to present “Hitler” (Kolisch) with a
diploma. Thomson declared: “I pronounce you Doctor of Laws, Culture and
Civilization.” 23
21. Ibid, 93-95. Franz Boas was Robert Burke’s favorite professor at Columbia.
Burke very much appreciated the strong support Boas gave for his reinstatement.
Terry Burke, telephone interview by Norwood.
22. The Dismissal of Bob Burke: Heidelberg Comes to Columbia (Burke
Defense Committee, American Student Union, and American Civil Liberties
Union, 1936), 6-7; Columbia Spectator, April 29 and May 12, 1936.
23. Dismissal of Bob Burke, 7; New York Herald Tribune, May 13, 1936;
Columbia Spectator, May 13, 1936.