The Social Problems Club had begun publishing a new magazine, Frontiers, in March 1931 that contained an anti-ROTC editorial.
College president Frederick C. Robinson had copies of the magazine confiscated and suspended the charter of the Social Problems Club.
Despite opposition from the faculty, athletes and the local fraternities, enough pressure was kept on the Columbia administration to persuade it to re-instate Harris on April 20.
The second demonstration, however, in April 1935, drew 175,000 students, 160,000 of whom outside of New York, and was co-sponsored by the National Student Federation of America, the National Council of Methodist Youth, YMCA, YWCA, the Interseminary Movement, and the youth section of the American League Against War and Fascism, among others.
This became a point of tension in the period of negotiation on the merger with SLID, because the NSL, following the Comintern line after the Seventh World Congress in summer 1935, came out in favor of a Popular front against fascism and Collective security which seemed at odds with the isolationist and pacifist spirit of the pledge.
The NSL took the first steps toward unity by inviting the SLID to the Student Congress Against War in Chicago in December 1932.