This year, America observes the 40th anniversary of one of the most tumultuous years in its history: 1968.

1968 is remembered for President Johnson’s announcement that he would not seek reelection as a result of failing to win the Vietnam War; the war’s Tet Offensive and the brutal Mi Lai massacre; riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. New York City has a place in this history as the site of the Columbia University student revolt.

In the last week of April 1968, more than 1,000 students who opposed the Vietnam War, the classified military research being conducted in the university’s labs, and the university’s construction of a gymnasium in Morningside Park that was largely opposed by residents of the Harlem community, stormed and took control of five university buildings, effectively shutting down the campus for a week.

The demonstrators, many of whom were affiliated with militant groups such as the Young Communist League, the Young Socialist Alliance, and the Black Panther Party, demanded that the research be stopped. They rifled through the file cabinets of offices in search of evidence on the administration’s collaboration with the military, ransacked the offices of the president, Grayson Kirk, hung from the ledges, and urinated out windows. Dean Henry Coleman, a Korean War veteran, was held captive for 24 hours.

Hundreds of police officers from 20 precincts around the city stormed the buildings to remove the occupiers. Many of the students employed tactics of civil disobedience or passive resistance, shouting vulgarities and actively resisting arrest; some did not.

Hundreds of police officers and students were injured in the melee. At least two officers were severely injured: One receiving permanent heart damage after being kicked in the chest by a student, the other paralyzed after being hit by a student jumping from a second-story window. A university professor who was in the crowd with the intentions of helping control the confrontation had his arm broken when a jumper hit him. Clearance of the building resulted in the arrest of more than 700 occupiers and other demonstrators.

The following week, the university reopened but a large number of students boycotted classes. A week later, confrontation erupted again as a university building off campus was occupied and another building on campus was re-occupied.

Demonstrations re-ignited on the South Lawn of the main campus, and after those involved were chased by police on horseback, they continued out from the campus gates onto Broadway, and all the way to Riverside Park. In the subsequent insurrection, another 250 students were arrested. In June, students walked out of commencement and conducted their own counter-commencement on campus to the noise of loud rock music and the sharing of intoxicating substances.

In the end, the administration caved to the students’ demands and classified research projects on campus and the gymnasium construction were halted. Military and CIA recruiting was banished from campus and the ROTC was told to drill elsewhere. Columbia’s prestige was damaged by the unrest. There was a downturn in its enrollment, endowment, and esteem that did not return for years. Forty years later, the Columbia campus is no longer a violent place, and the university safely stands as one of the world’s most prestigious. In October 2006, the campus made national headlines reminiscent of 1968 when student protestors in an anti-free trade speech stormed a stage where Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen — a group that aims to keep illegal immigrants out of America by alerting law enforcement officials when they attempt to cross the border — was addressing an audience.

Fortunately, such antics today are isolated and non-violent, and far from the level of violence in 1968. Last spring, hundreds of student demonstrators planned to shout down Senator McCain — a Vietnam War hero and staunch supporter of the Iraq War, and now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee —when he spoke at the university’s commencement.

It being a rainy day, only a handful of protestors braved the weather on the South Lawn long enough to harangue the senator; most ran for cover in the adjacent buildings. Inside, genuine respect for the remarks of a bona-fide war hero was evident.

The feebleness of the recent political demonstrations on campus. A 2003 gathering in which hundreds of patriotic students wearing yellow armbands and waving American flags rallied in support of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The movement on campus to restore the ROTC. All are evidence of just how far Columbia has come since 1968.

Mr. Lanzillotti is a Columbia University alumnus, and a Republican District Leader in the 69th Assembly District, which includes the Columbia campus.