Umbrella President

Redder and rowdier than any other U. S. seat of learning is the College of the City of New York, many of whose 22,000 politically-minded students seem to get their best fun at mass meetings or on picket lines. Completely antipodal is C. C. N. Y.'s President Frederick Bertrand Robinson, goateed, independent oldster who dresses conservatively, plays the cello, hates the rude manners of his undergraduates. After President Robinson characterized some C. C. N. Y. demonstrators as "guttersnipes" and trounced a dozen of the rowdiest of them with his umbrella, a committee of alumni solemnly found that he lacked the "necessary human qualities" for his job, suggested that the Municipal Board of Higher Education do something about it (TIME, Feb. 10).

Last week the Board, whose 22 members supervise the affairs of the city's three free colleges,* met to decide whether or not they should fire President Robinson. The Board apparently divided along strictly political lines. Six of the seven members appointed by liberal little Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia scorned the majority recommendation that Frederick Bertrand Robinson should be retained, but with disciplinary powers clipped. When the Board voted further to select a subcommittee to figure how this was to be done, two members, Art Critic Lewis Mumford and Scripps-Howard Financial Pundit John T. Flynn, disgustedly snorted: "Whitewash!"

*City College, Hunter College (women), Brooklyn College.

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