From the editorial boards of campus newspapers around the Ivy League Wednesday came condemnation, calls for reprisals and an account of the agony that began shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday:
“In Cambridge and on our campus, the morning hours were particularly frightening, when news was scarce and phone systems were overloaded by frantic calls home. Students registering for the semester tried to spend as little time as possible in the Yard, fearing that it, too, might come under attack.
“Suddenly every parked truck became a car bomb, every University building a potential target; a number of buildings, including William James Hall, were closed for fear of renewed violence. House common rooms filled with students who watched the coverage together; grief and shock were apparent on the eyes of many who were directly affected by the blast or who are now counseling friends and loved ones.”
— The Harvard Crimson
“The attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon affect us not just as passive observers of events. They affect us as students, as Americans, as New Yorkers and Washingtonians and friends of both. They affect us as brothers and sisters, children, mothers and fathers. They affect us as students and professors and alumni and colleagues. And the affect us, more than anything else, because we are compassionate people who cherish life and hold our freedom sacred.
“Whoever was responsible for yesterday’s killing was attempting to undermine those very values: life, through the savage and cowardly execution of mass murder; and freedom, through the cold and systematic intimidation of an entire nation.”
— Daily Pennsylvanian
“A serious and unanticipated blow has been dealt to the very foundation of this community, the scars of which will remain visible for a long time. We will all suffer from the disbelief and despair that must follow such an event, but we will suffer together. Columbia and the Morningside Heights community have demonstrated tremendous selflessness in response to this catastrophe. Posters announcing blood drives throughout the area had scarcely been placed before countless volunteers had congregated at the doors of local hospitals, churches, and makeshift relief sites.”
— Columbia Daily Spectator
“Many of us awoke yesterday to see an image stranger than many dreams and more horrific than any nightmare. But unlike the passing visions of the night, the reality of yesterday’s terrorist attacks will persist, forever warping the contours of history — and those gleaming twin towers that we once marvelled at will no longer shape the New York skyline.
“Every September as the school year begins, students re-acquaint themselves with classmates and friends, but yesterday that sense of fellowship was more tangible than ever. Every member of the University community seems to have reached out to one another in the wake of this crisis.”
— Daily Princetonian
“Today there’s not much any of us can do on our own. So do what you can: Give blood. Reach out to those around you touched by the tragedy. Pray if you want. Resolve to use this Brown education to do something that counts. Remember that we don’t yet know who did this and that suspicion is no way to recover from this wound.”
— Brown Daily Herald