THE EVENTS at Columbia University on Oct. 4, in which about a dozen students stormed a stage where the founder of an anti-illegal immigration group was speaking, didn't exactly resemble those of April 1968. There were no arrests, no soundtrack by the Grateful Dead, no occupation of the president's office. But considering that most young people are considered to be politically apathetic, you have to credit the Chicano Caucus and the International Socialist Organization for trying.

Columbia issued a statement defending the right to peaceful protest but acknowledging that "it is never acceptable for anyone to physically take a stage and interrupt a speaker." New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, already upset that Columbia canceled an appearance by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (ostensibly for security reasons) said that the school's president, Lee C. Bollinger, should "get his hands around this."

"This" isn't exactly uncharted territory for Columbia (full disclosure: I got a graduate degree at Columbia in the 1990s). But in the anti-Vietnam War '60s, things were different. Judging from the media coverage of the Gilchrist incident, the majority of students today see the protesters not as lionhearted heroes but as obstreperous liabilities to the university's commitment to free speech. In 1968, they might have been regarded as both. But now the tone seems sour, forcing the question of where and why the demonstrators may have gone wrong. Inexperience and lack of leadership? Is the political climate so confused and convoluted that we no longer have a firm grasp on the meaning of activism?

Seeking answers to these questions, I called Mark Rudd. A founder of Students for a Democratic Society, Rudd was among the leaders of the Columbia revolt in 1968 and was later a member of the radical Weather Underground. No stranger to the ways in which protest can go astray — he was in hiding from 1970 to 1977 in connection with a bomb-making project that blew up a building and killed three people — he has since owned up to his mistakes and writes and speaks frequently on activism. I thought he could shed some light on the recent fracas at Columbia.

"The 19-year-old me would have done it exactly the same way," Rudd said from his home in Albuquerque, where he's a math instructor at a community college. "But the 59-year-old that I am now would be on the side of free speech. I would let the Minuteman speak, and I would certainly let the Iranian president speak. But I would also tell the students to understand the difference between organizing and self-expression. Young people are as thoughtful as ever, but they don't believe they can make a difference. They don't know how to organize and build a movement."

Of course, there are plenty of already organized political movements, such as the Internet-based efforts that made Howard Dean a contender for the presidency (until he yelled too loudly and came off looking a bit too 1968 for comfort). But Rudd's point about the way self-expression can get in the way of substantive activism may point to the root of Columbia's problem.