Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] THE EXPULSION OF ROBERT BURKE 107
university. He insisted that a court could no more interfere in a matter concerning
student “misconduct” than it could determine the grade on a student’s
examination. Columbia’s attorney J. G. Saxe claimed that Burke had
violated a contractual obligation to “abide by Columbia’s statutes” by leading
a “disorderly” demonstration “on the door-stop” of President Butler’s
house. 55
Columbia charged in its brief that Burke had referred to President Butler
“disrespectfully” in his speech at the mansion, and held him responsible
for other students’ “blasphemous and obscene language.” It did not identify
the objectionable words it claimed the students used. The administration
apparently mistook a shout of “Castigate Butler” for “Castrate Butler.” Saxe
admitted that “the evidence that Burke himself used bad language is
slight.” 56
Burke had little prospect of winning his lawsuit, because courts in the
1930s shared university administrators’ very narrow definition of academic
freedom. President Butler had voiced the prevailing view in his annual
report for the academic year 1934-35: that for students the phrase “academic
freedom. . . . has no meaning whatever.” It related only “to freedom
of thought and inquiry and to freedom of teaching on the part of accomplished
scholars” in their fields of expertise. He stated that the university
had the right to protect itself against “conduct on the part of any of its
members” that might “damage its reputation.” 57
On October 21, the Columbia ASU and other activists grouped in a
Burke Defense Committee escalated their protest by calling a two-hour
campus strike. This alarmed the Columbia administration, which announced
that it would have city policemen assigned to campus. The administration
forbade posting notices on campus advertising the strike. The Spectator
promptly denounced this action as a “ukase,” the Russian term for an edict
55. The New York Times, October 3, 1936; Nicholas Murray Butler to John G.
Saxe, September 16, 1936; and J. G. S[axe], “Memorandum for Committee on
Legal Affairs, March 10, 1937, Subject: Robert Burke v. University,” Central Files,
CUACL, CU; Norwood, The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower, 98-99.
56. J. G. [Saxe], “Memorandum for Committee on Legal Affairs”; Supreme
Court: New York County. Robert Burke, Plaintiff, against the Trustees of Columbia
University in the City of New York, Defendant. Answer, Central Files,
CUACL, CU. John Burke stated that the administration apparently confused “Castigate”
and “Castrate.” John Burke, telephone interview by Norwood.
57. Annual Report of the President and Treasurer to the Trustees with Accompanying
Documents for the Year Ending June 30, 1935 (Columbia University in the
City of New York, 1935), 16-17; Norwood, The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower,
98-99.