Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] THE EXPULSION OF ROBERT BURKE 103
Butler’s mansion] and who thereafter indicates he does not fully understand
the personal misconduct involved.” 42
Columbia administrators did not hesitate to identify Burke’s radicalism
and anti-Fascism as the principal causes of his expulsion a few years later,
when the FBI began assembling a dossier on him. C. H. Fox, student supervisor
in the Columbia Registrar’s Office, described Burke as a “smart boy,”
but denounced him as an “agitator.” Fox told the FBI that the administration
had expelled Burke both “for his actions as a radical” and “as a leader of
student demonstrations on the campus in the Spring of 1936.” Associate
dean N. M. McKnight stated that Burke was “a likable boy who was popular
with the students” and “a very good prizefighter.” He was, however, “a
radical and was not desirable as a student of the University.” 43
The new academic year began in late September 1936 with well-coordinated
student strikes and rallies at several New York colleges demanding
that Columbia allow Burke to register. These demonstrations, which persisted
into late October, constituted the largest grass-roots protest against
the suppression of student academic freedom in American history until that
time. Burke, who had spent the summer in Youngstown as a SWOC-CIO
organizer, returned to New York to participate in the campaign for his
reinstatement.
The New York World-Telegram declared that planned demonstrations
“on the first day of classes presaged another storm-beset academic year.”
The Columbia administration began the fall semester by releasing a statement
by Dean Hawkes reaffirming his refusal to reinstate Burke. At Columbia,
three ASU members, including Burke and James Wechsler, addressed a
“mass demonstration of protest,” in which 500 students boycotted classes in
solidarity with Burke. Students walking up and down the Low Library steps
in the middle of the campus had to circumvent pickets carrying signs call-
42. Ibid., September 24, 1936. Dean Hawkes curtly replied to a letter from
Burke’s father asking him to rescind the expulsion: “Suffice it to say that your son
was one of the leaders in one of the most disgusting and unmannerly demonstrations
that has been seen at Columbia University for many years.” Because Robert
Burke refused to apologize for the demonstration, Hawkes was “obliged to assume
that his action on this occasion represents the kind of conduct we may expect of
him.” Burke’s father had asked Hawkes: “Have you considered the hard work the
boy has done to help support himself while earnestly trying to acquire a really
comprehensive education?” Dismissal of Bob Burke, 10-12.
43. James H. Merritt, FBI Report: “Robert Holway Burke. Character of Case:
Internal Security-C. Custodial Detention. November 23, 1942.” By examining the
records of the Criminal Alien Squad of the New York City Police Department, the
FBI determined that Burke “was expelled from Columbia in 1936 for leading anti-
Fascist group meetings.”