president robinson

“No college tried harder than the City College of New York to suppress student protest. CCNY’s President Frederick B. Robinson and his subordinates violated student free speech rights more often than any other college administration in Depression America. From 1931 to 1934 Robinson’s anti-radical campaign resulted in the expulsion of 43 CCNY students, the suspension of 38, and the hauling of hundreds of undergraduates before campus disciplinary boards, inquiring into their political associations, beliefs, and protest activities. In this same period, every student radical organization and publication was at one point or another banned from the CCNY campus.”

-- Cohen, When the Old Left Was Young, 1993

"My suggestion is that some legal provision should be made defining subversive organized activities introduced into high schools and colleges against the wishes of those charged with the administration of their affairs as criminal and liable to punishment.”

-- Frederick B. Robinson
Quoted in the New York Journal and American, November 16, 1934.

President Robinson appears in the Left press as a Nazi-sympathizer wearing a swastika on his chest. He had published an article in True Story magazine, entitled “Those Who Conquer,” so he is portrayed as promoting this magazine while trampling on the Student Council and the student newspapers, all of which he suspended.

President Robinson, who always wears his full academic regalia at ROTC military reviews, is disguised as a cat, pussyfooting behind a German military officer. His tail is being wagged by Tammany Hall, New York’s corrupt Democratic political machine

President Robinson rushes with his umbrella to attack students at the Jingo day anti-war protest on May 29, 1933. That day he is accompanied by two members of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a conservative women’s organization.

President Robinson, with his umbrella, is being harassed by student protesters.

President Robinson stomping on a protest sign from the Student Strike Against War, April 22, 1936.