On the evening of April 23, Liu Gang, a graduate student in Peking University's Department of Physics, held a meeting at the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) with representatives from 21 institutions of higher education. A vote was held to establish the Interim Higher Education Committee; this was later renamed the Beijing Students' Autonomous Federation (or BSAF). China University of Political Science and Law student Zhou Yongjun was elected as the first chair. Committee members included Wang Dan, Wu'er Kaixi, Ma Shaofang, and Zang Kai. The BSAF adopted a standing committee system, with rotating chairs serving one-week terms. There was no single chair, in order to distribute the political risk.

That night, a "BSAF" flier appeared at Tsinghua University. The flier stated that, at that moment, "the Party is corrupt, the social atmosphere is corrupt, official profiteering is wreaking havoc, news censorship is rampant, and education faces crisis on every side." The flier demanded that college students across the country immediately join in action and go on indefinite class strike.

The BSAF was one of the core organizations in the 1989 democracy movement. After the June 4th crackdown, the Chinese Communist Party issued China's first-ever public nationwide most-wanted list; almost all of the 21 student leaders listed were BSAF members.

References: Zhang Wanshu, "The Big Bang of History: A Complete Record of the June 4th Incident"; [獨立中文筆會("Independent Chinese PEN Center")(Chinese)] (http://blog.bnn.co/hero/201104/wurenhua/11_1.shtml)