116	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bcomparing us to the militants who demanded quotas, and bJohnny Murphy himself called me to explain that our de- bmands were impossible but if we knew any good Jewish ball bplayers he would be glad to look them over. Such is the bmadness of our times.

bAnd along with violence and whimsy we also used the bcourts. In May we succeeded in getting a court order that bforced President Gallagher to open up CCNY. But while bthis eased matters at one place, Brooklyn College now be- bcame the next battleground. The school with a merit en- brollment that included some 75 percent Jews had now be- bcome the target of “eighteen demands” by “Third World bstudents” and their Jewish leftist supporters. Acting Presi- bdent Peck was informed in no uncertain terms by the milit- bants that they would take over his offices unless he acceded bto the demands the next day. We arrived at the campus with bgreat fanfare and with pitifully few people—not more than bfifteen. A brief scuffle with an SDS member saw our karate bexpert Alex Sternberg floor the chap in record time and bthen we marched together with another thirty-five non-JDL bJewish students to the offices of the president. There, a bdean, assuming that we were the kinds of Jews he had always bseen, informed us that President Peck was busy and could bnot see us. We told the dean that since he had just seen fifty bof “the other side” he would see fifty of us immediately. It bwas agreed that the president did indeed have a few mo- bments for us. As we gathered around, I told Peck that we bwere angry Jews and that we were prepared to burn the bcollege down if the administration collapsed before the bmilitants and paid them off in Jewish rights. I added that if bthe Third World students seized his offices as they had bthreatened to do, we expected him to call the police and that bif he did not we would come back and drag them out our- bselves.

bThe next day the offices were indeed seized by the mili- btants. We notified the local police that Brooklyn College was bcity property and that if they did not uphold the law we bwould be down there by 9:00 PM. The presence of police on bcampuses had always been the occasion for dire threats by b