LESS than eight hours after Columbia President Grayson Kirk agreed to set up a tripartite commission of students, faculty, and administration to settle the university's sit-in, Kirk asked police to remove the rebels from the five buildings they occupied.

The police removed them, according to eyewitness reporters, savagely and bloodily, injuring 100 badly enough to require medical attention.

Perhaps Kirk did not expect such a gory display, and it is assumed he is not happy about it. But he should have realized that a middle-of-the-night invasion by police who tend to react quickly to student resistance could easily explode. David B. Truman, university vice-president, had conceded that the buildings could not be retaken "without some roughing up." Kirk and Truman's miscalculation has so discredited the administration on the campus that by 11 p.m. last night, 8500 students had signed a petition asking for Kirk's ouster.

Even if the administration had eventually found it necessary to use police, Kirk acted unwisely by calling for the storming without waiting for a response to his peace-making effort.

But if Kirk, or Truman, or anyone high in the Columbia administration had had the respect of the students, he could have personally spoken to the demonstrators--much as Dean Glimp spoke to protestors at Mallinckrodt last October--and perhaps achieved a bloodless settlement. The sad fact, however, is that the president of Columbia cannot communicate with his students at all, and was reduced to a surprise show of force. The bloodstains are testimony to Kirk's failure to function as a president.