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A kind of normality returned even to Columbia, which had the most serious demonstrations of any campus. While a hard core of 100 demonstrators occupied five buildings, most of Columbia's students and faculty went about their normal activities, though classes often had to be held on lawns, in apartments, fraternity houses and, in one case, a local bar and grill. President McGill decided not to call the police again, preferring "to ride this one out." He did not have long to wait; groups of students soon began intimidating demonstrators so that they left the buildings. They explained that much as they opposed the war, they were even more determined to go to school.
Why the low level of student action? Administrators, faculty members and students themselves think it results from seven years of fruitless demonstrations, which have left collegians emotionally exhausted—and wary of jeopardizing grades and degrees at a time when jobs are hard to find. Moreover, the American fighting in Viet Nam has decreased —on the ground—and the draft has receded as an issue. "My own opposition increased in direct proportion to how likely it was I would have to go over there," admits U.C.L.A. Graduate Student George Kooshian. One young Princeton professor dismissed the demonstrations as "passé and jejune." Indeed, many of the participants were freshmen and sophomores—not upperclassmen, who are veterans of the fierce protests which followed the killings of four students at Kent State just two years ago this Thursday.