FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, October 9, 2006 Contact: Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, 212-679-5100, ext. 11 NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS ON COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TO DROP INVESTIGATION OF STUDENTS PROTESTING MINUTEMEN New York. The National Lawyers Guild urges Columbia University to drop its investigation of the students who held banners in protest of the Minutemen last week. Videotape coverage of last week's event shows that the students standing with banners were not responsible for that evening's violence, rather they were attacked and kicked by the Minutemen when they engaged in peaceful protest. The University's response to this event is reminiscent of the 1960s, when the Guild defended Columbia students who protested the University's affiliation with the weapons think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses. After the New York Police Department injured 150 non-violent protesters there, Columbia failed to take action against the police-instead it suspended at least 30 students. The Minutemen have referred to themselves as "white Martin Luther Kings." Yet, among them are members of the National Alliance, the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States. Dr. King's agenda supported peaceful activism and equal rights for all. The Minutemen's agenda perpetuates "White Power," seeks to annihilate a multi-racial society, to degrade, subjugate and deny equality to people based on national origin or to people of color. NLG Executive Director Heidi Boghosian said, "Just as the National Lawyers Guild defended Columbia protesters in the 1960s, we defend them now for continuing their legacy of protest against societal injustice. We support their right to object-free from University reprisal-to the Minutemen and their racist and violent agenda. And we support the human rights of immigrants that the Minutemen so viciously attack." Four decades ago, Columbia investigated peaceful protestors, effectively exonerating those who used violence against them. Today's Columbia administration should take the high road, the moral road, and drop its investigation of those who peacefully defend the principles that Martin Luther King held dear-principles that we trust Columbia University also holds dear. Founded in 1937, the National Lawyers Guild is headquartered in New York and has chapters in nearly every state, as well as over 100 law school chapters. The Guild has a long history of representing individuals whom the government has deemed a threat to national security, including helping expose illegal FBI and CIA surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics (COINTELPRO) that the U.S. Senate "Church Commission" hearings detailed in 1975-76 and that led to enactment of the Freedom of Information Act and other limitations on federal investigative power. # # #