Columbia University Marching Band - Controversies

Controversies

The band regularly stirs up controversy due to its irreverent sense of humor.

• In 1964, the band performed a "Salute to Moral Decay," featuring a formation of "the upper part of a topless bathing suit" (all marchers left the field except for two sousaphones, while the band played "My Favorite Things") and a typically heavy-handed reference to Walter Jenkins, an aide to President Lyndon Johnson, who had been caught in flagrante delicto in a men's room. Columbia's president had to fend off angry letters from several notables, including conductor Leonard Bernstein.
• In 1966, the band was suspended for several games for the infamous "birth control" show where they formed a birth control pill, a calendar (for the rhythm method), and a chastity belt.
• In 1972, at West Point, the band formed what it called a "burning Cambodian village" on the field. CUMB has yet to be invited back to West Point.
• In 1973, a brawl broke out between the CUMB and the Harvard University Band over the alleged attempted theft of the giant Harvard Bass Drum.
• The band performed a 1981 halftime show at Holy Cross with the theme "The Lions vs. The Christians". Holy Cross administrators subsequently dis-invited the band from any future games played in Worcester. Columbia's next road game vs. Holy Cross in 1983 was the beginning of what became an NCAA-record losing streak.
• The band's script for the 1982 season-opening road game against Harvard mysteriously turned out to be identical to the script the Harvard band had planned to use moments later. The CUMB denied the idea that such an astonishing coincidence had anything to do with the fact that two of its members had spent the previous week posing as new freshmen at Harvard's undergraduate orientation.
• In 1990, the band received a bomb threat over its symbolic formation of a burning American Flag accompanied by The Doors' "Light My Fire". This performance occurred following a controversial United States Supreme Court ruling upholding the right to flag burning.
• In 1992, during "Youth Day" at the Yale Bowl, the band pantomimed the consummation of a same-sex marriage on the field.
• In 1993, the band drew parallels between the Holocaust and homelessness policies proposed by newly-elected New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The Anti-Defamation League demanded an apology.
• In 1993, at Princeton, the band recreated the Magic Bullet Theory as put forth by the Warren Commission on the John F. Kennedy assassination, complete with band members representing scattering skull fragments.
• In 1998, at the Yale Bowl, the band performed a show featuring a homosexual, pot-smoking Jesus Christ as a homage to Columbia alumnus Terrence McNally's play Corpus Christi. Angry Yale fans left the stadium and demanded their money back.
• During a game against Fordham University in 2002, the band joked that Fordham's tuition was "going down like an altar boy" (in a joke improvised minutes before the start of the pre-game show). In the ensuing media frenzy, band Poet Laureate Andy Hao was featured on MSNBC's Phil Donahue Show in a debate with Catholic League President William Donohue, who called the comment anti-Catholic bigotry. Additionally, the New York Times profiled the CUMB as part of an article about scramble bands. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger ended the controversy in one of his first official acts as University President when he apologized to Fordham president, Joseph A. O'Hare, S.J..
• Following a loss to Cornell in 2011, the band sang an altered version of the Columbia fight song lamenting the football team's winless season. After a member of the team coaching staff overheard the rendition, Athletics promptly banned the band from performing at the Brown game the following week. The story was picked up by various news outlets including The New York Times, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and ESPN. Following this media firestorm as well as an outpouring of support for the band from various alums, students, and bandies, and an apology from the band, the Athletics department—in the interests of Columbia's "core free speech values"--allowed the band to perform at the season's final game.