Matt Sanchez - Political Activism at Columbia University

Political Activism At Columbia University

In 2005, while a junior at the Columbia University School of General Studies, Sanchez said he was harassed by students during the Fall 2005 "Activities Day" while manning the table for the Columbia Military Society. According to Sanchez, he was approached by members of the International Socialist Organization, an anti-war campus group who told him he was stupid for serving in the military. According to Mark Xue, president of the military society who was at the table with Sanchez, "They were telling him that he was stupid and ignorant, that he was being brainwashed and used for being a minority in the military." Sanchez made a series of formal complaints to the university, which upon investigation found no grounds for punishing the three accused students. The accused dispute Sanchez's account of the events. In a Columbia Daily Spectator editorial, "The Conservative Witch Hunt," Zach Zill wrote that while he did make clear that he found on-campus military recruitment offensive, he had done so without the use of epithets and derogatory language. Monique Dols, another of the accused Socialists, stated the complaint was false and "a discrediting campaign against us."

Sanchez and others in the student group MilVets, an organization for on-campus veterans, had also voiced their frustration at what they perceived to be a lack of regard for veterans on the campus. In February 2006, the university amended its non-discrimination policy to include "military status" for protection from harassment. According to the University, this was not a policy change, but merely a "semantic clarification," as the words "military status" replaced "disabled or Vietnam era veteran."