By MARIA NEWMAN Columbia University officials said today they were investigating what happened Thursday night when protesters stormed a stage where the founder of a conservative anti-immigration group was trying to deliver an address, an incident that ended in chairs being overturned, and charges that students violated the speaker’s freedom of speech.
The incident, at Columbia’s Roone Arledge Auditorium, reflects the strong feelings surround the immigration debate in the United States. It erupted just minutes into a speech by Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, a self-appointed band of civilian border patrols that have focused mostly on preventing illegal immigration from Mexico.
Mr. Gilchrist was invited to speak on campus by the Columbia University College Republicans.
Just as Mr. Gilchrist was talking about “2,000 Mexicans on the border,” several people holding aloft a banner that read “No One Is Illegal” in several languages, hopped on the stage. Almost instantly, they were joined by a couple of dozen others protesting the speech, according to videotape of the events taken by news agencies and others. From then on, the forum turned into a raucous gathering of young people shouting slogans against Mr. Gilchrist. The audience was on its feet, and eventually college security guards had to close down the event, ushering out about 350 people.
Organizers told several news agencies that the protesters who rushed the stage had knocked Mr. Gilchrist backward, causing his glasses to break.
Student protesters told Columbia’s student newspaper, The Spectator, that the demonstration was meant to be peaceful. But they said that changed when the protesters were joined on stage by Republicans organizers of the event and other Gilchrist supporters. “The confrontation turned violent,” the newspaper said, describing the accounts of protesters. “One student was kicked in the head and bleeding.”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg criticized the university today for not keeping better control over a public event.
In his radio address, he said the protesters were infringing on Mr. Gilchrist ’s right to speak.
“If you get invited, whoever invites you should have the courtesy to let you speak and provide the protection so you can do it, and particularly on university campuses,” Mr. Bloomberg said in response to a question on his weekly radio show.
Today, university officials said they would investigate. But they restated the university’s commitment to provide a forum for free speech.
“The freedom to speak, to pursue ideas, and to hear and evaluate viewpoints totally objectionable to one’s own is an essential value of this university, and, indeed, our society,” the university said in a statement. “We defend the right to peaceful protest and expression of opposing views. But it is never acceptable for anyone to physically take to a stage and interrupt a speaker.”
The Spectator said the protests were organized by the International Socialist Organization, the Chicano Caucus and other groups.
“We don’t condone the actions of members on either side,” Adhemir Romero, president of the Chicano Caucus, told The Spectator. “Either people on stage who were holding up signs, or people who felt that their speaker was being threatened by people holding signs.”
But others said they were moved to jump on stage because they disagreed so vehemently with Mr. Gilchrist.
“We were aware that there was going to be a sign and we were going to occupy the stage,” The Spectator quoted one protester who was on the stage as saying. “I don’t feel like we need to apologize or anything. It was fundamentally a part of free speech. ... The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration.”
On its Web site, the Minuteman Project said violent protesters had “stormed the stage and lunged” toward Mr. Gilchrist. “I am dismayed that members of the Columbia University community would resort to violence in an attempt to censor free speech,” Mr. Gilchrist said on the Web site. “This violent outburst is yet another indication that those who support illegal immigration are happy to use communist tactics in their intolerant determination to prevent the Minutemen from exercising their First Amendment rights.”