Text and Photographs by Claire Davenport
Hours after city police broke up a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and arrested over 100 protestors on the Columbia University campus on Thursday, hundreds of students continued to occupy a lawn area in front of Columbia’s Butler Library.
Some vowed to spend the night, as protestors had done Wednesday night on the school’s South Lawn, when they sheltered in pop-up tents to protest Columbia investments in companies with business ties to Israel.
After the tent protest began on Wednesday, an Instagram post by its organizers indicated the school had initially agreed to one of the protestors’ demands, for full financial transparency about university investments.
But the demonstrators refused to leave their encampment until the school divested from companies that fund or profit from Israel, and on Thursday, Columbia President Nemat Shafik authorized the NYPD to clear out the encampment, citing the need for safety on campus.
“We work hard to balance the rights of students to express political views with the need to protect other students from rhetoric that amounts to harassment and discrimination,” Shafik said in an email letter sent midday Thursday to the Columbia community.
Shortly after that, dozens of police moved in, arresting students who refused to leave. Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper, reported that all those arrested were released from custody later Thursday night. It was one of the few times the NYPD arrested protestors on Columbia’s campus since the Vietnam War demonstrations in 1968.
The makeshift encampment was taken down, and Columbia announced that it had suspended an unspecified number of students for participating in the tent protest.
Soon, though, students who remained moved from the lawn where the tent encampment had been to another nearby lawn area. Hundreds gathered there, some wearing keffiyeh scarves and face masks and a few waving Palestinian flags. In addition to the initial demands for divestment and financial transparency, protestors added demands for amnesty for protestors and faculty who have been arrested, suspended, or fired.
At 10 p.m. on Thursday, chants of “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” echoed across the central campus. So did other controversial chants heard at pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have been staged periodically on Columbia campus since last fall: “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel will fall,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Throughout Thursday, police kept tight control over entry to Columbia, requiring those coming to campus to scan a valid university i.d. But a few non-Columbia protestors managed to join the crowd, including activist and presidential candidate Cornel West, Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd, and Indya Moore, star of the TV series Pose.
A group of Columbia faculty members also gathered near the protestors in late afternoon to show solidarity with the students. Turkuler Isiksel, associate professor of political science, held a sign that read: “Hands off our students.”
Isiksel said she understood Columbia’s administration is under unique pressure, but asking police to arrest students protesting on campus felt like a violation of freedom of expression.
“I’m here to speak for our students’ right to free speech and assemble,” said Isiksel. “if they can’t express themselves freely on a university campus, then I don’t know what we’re here for.”
But the university’s move to shut down the encampment got an important endorsement from Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the Democrat who represents the Upper West Side and has a strong record as a civil libertarian.
“Columbia has an obligation to protect students and their learning environment,” Nadler said, according to The New York Times. “The university has set guidelines for peaceful protests on campus, and Columbia has a right to enforce their own rules. Those who continue to violate campus policies are putting members of the Columbia community at risk.”
Despite chilly temperatures Thursday night, morale at the protest seemed high. Theresa Escobedo, who managed to enter campus without a Columbia i.d., said she was prepared to stay at the protest through the night. “It’s a beautiful sight, because we’re still out here,” she said. “People are fed, people are warm, and they keep going.”
Once the encampment was taken down Thursday afternoon, demonstrators were not allowed to set up tents again, so they wrapped themselves in blankets, scarves, and keffiyehs against the cold.
“Blankets, food, hats, and sleeping bags are coming in,” said a Columbia undergrad, who was on duty handing out food and supplies heaped across a blue tarp in the middle of the lawn area. According to the student, who asked that her name be withheld out of fear of academic punishment for participating in the protest, the blankets and other supplies were donated by students and faculty after the tents and belongings of students staging the encampment were confiscated.
Protestors spent the night camped out in temperatures that dipped to the mid-40s. At 7 a.m., organizers posted a story on Instagram calling for more demonstrators to show up for a morning shift and to bring warm clothes. At 9 a.m. they posted again, showing they were already up again and protesting.
Correction: We originally wrote that this was the only incident at Columbia University during which police were called and students arrested since the 1968 Vietnam anti-war demonstrations. In fact, there were other incidents, according to University Archivist for CU, Jocelyn Wilk, who informed the Rag, that she had “discovered police were brought to campus and arrested protesting students a few other times since 1968.”
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Concerned citizens should look into who is exactly funding college’s Middle East Studies departments: https://www.city-journal.org/article/rampant-anti-semitism-columbia-middle-eastern-studies-program
Lots of cops out early this morning throughout the UWS.
Of course these young people are having the time of their lives protesting:
1. It sure beats studying, and
2. These are the same kids who missed semesters if not years of college socializing due to Covid constraints.
The problem is that the stigmatizing consequences of their actions are going to follow them long after they graduate. And added to that, they are now attracting the human flotsam that gravitates to public demonstrations about any and everything , and these professionally-marginalized sorts will end up embarrassing them .
The Columbia students are smart kids. They should hone their message delivery system rather than having messy love-ins and shouting nasty slogans. Maybe they should try writing?
This is much more serious than your usual student protest. This is part of a coordinated attempt by foreign entities to take down and replace our constitutional republic with a totalitarian form of government. Happening around the world. We either fight for our freedoms or we will lose them. Americans must fight to defend and protect our freedoms every day. When thousands of ‘students’ are disrupting our lives by blocking free passage of citizens to pursue daily responsibilities , when these students are calling for death to America, the time has come to take right action by lawful means and call an end these harmful protests.
Conspiracy theories exist because conspiracies exist. You cannot brush off every theory as inaccurate. I am not an alarmist, but I truly feel countries that mean us harm have figured out how to do so without firing a single bullet or detonating a single bomb. Using social media to chip-away at and influence younger generations of Americans. It is not hysteria. Things are much different now than they were during the Vietnam war. Influencers have direct and immediate access to young Americans via the devices they all carry everyday.
We must fight for our freedom by shutting down dissent? Sounds downright un-American.
Take your garbled conspiracy theories elsewhere please.
This comment reeks of the hysteria of the John Birchers during the Vietnam War.
The Columbia campus is, like it or not, private property. People protesting are violating that space AND the rights of others – who are paying hefty tuition – to move freely without threats.
Shame the weather will be mild this weekend. We could use a snowstorm right about now.
This only happens at the city’s wealthiest school because these kids have lots of time to sit on the lawn. They’re not running home after class to help their parents or go to a job.
The overwhelming majority are non students.
How do you know this is true of the protesters on campus? The campus has been accessible only to people with Columbia ID or, in rare cases, invited by a Columbia office, all last week. How did the overwhelming majority get onto the south lawn?
Exactly. This ironically looks a lot like what is referred to as “white privilege”.
Here’s hoping those students are made to clean up after themselves
I cannot fathom working hard at high school courses, AP, classes, SATs, and extracurricular just to then throw it all away. They’re there to learn but instead they shout down pro Israel voices. This is a wasted opportunity for them.
I agree. This would be the perfect opportunity for dialogue. But 20somethings are so black and white and so convinced if you don’t 100% agree with them, you’re out to get them. It’s just sad, because all this screaming and yelling is not going to free Palestine, just like it wasn’t what ended the Vietnam War. And Israel/Palestine is a lot more complex than Vietnam was.
I would actually take your statement one step further. I don’t think it is just 20 somethings that are so black and white. Look at our politicians (at every level) — many of them are of the view that it’s “their way or no way” and this applies to both parties. There is, what appears to me, to be an aversion to compromise whatever the subject matter is.
Head to Gaza and volunteer to support their efforts there. Let’s see how long you last.
Unfortunately (or not), many of these students are young and don’t fully realize that the consequences of their actions might live with them for a long time.*
Whether they are the ones specifically yelling antisemitic chants or whether they will be stigmatized by association, Columbia has every right to regulate these protests and punish those that violate the terms Columbia has set forth on their private property. Just as they would if there were anti-immigrant protests or anti-gay protests that disrupted the safe space that up till now, the university proudly touted.
* clearly they know their are consequences by virtue of the number of masks being worn. I doubt they are just really concerned with Covid mask rules but not at all with social distancing 😉
I am tired of the students getting an out because “they don’t know any better.” They have every medium available to them. If they don’t “know better” then it’s on them. They will find out and I don’t feel bad about that. It can’t be an excuse when the result is actual mental or physical harm to others. Oh, but the harm is to Jews…so now we will look the other way. Disgusting. (that is not a dig at you Joshuws! )
Expel every single one of them.
BRAVO to these heroic students who are standing up and protesting the Israeli led genocide! They have morals and compassion. 34,000 people – mainly women and children – have been killed by the IDF. Gaza is facing famine. I have never been more proud of Columbia and Branard students than I am today as they exercise their First Amendment rights.
Calling for an “intifada revolution” is hate speech. And there is now hateful graffiti all over the place, on lampposts, in subway stations, wifi charging spots, etc , that’s not on private Columbia property…but it is vandalism. And it is literally all over, up and down Broadway. Why is any of that ok???
What do you call what Hamas did that started this!!
They are not exercising their First Amendment rights as others have noted. Your anger should be directed at Hamas and Iran who have sacrificed the Gazans in their cause.
Actually, protesting is protected speech. Calling police onto the Columbia campus harkens back to the 1968 Vietnam war protest. These students are on the rigt side of history. Israel is the one dropping bombs, killing journalists, innocents, and World Central Kitchen aid workers.
Women can be part of Hamas. And a “child” can be 16 and very much capable of throwing a molotov cocktail. It’s not really that cut and dry.
Also, half a million German civilians (not soldiers) died in World War II. How is what Israel is doing “genocide” and not just the horrifying casualties of war?
What Germany did was wrong. Israel repeating such crimes is atrocious. When we say “never again” we mean it – for everyone. The ICJ (Int’l Court of Justice) will find Israel guilty of war crimes .
Your figure of 34,00 is Hamas propaganda (“Gaza health officials”=Hamas), as is the claim that it’s “mainly women and children.” Hamas has admitted that at least 11,000 or so “deaths” can’t be substantiated. And they refuse to release figures of how many of the dead were armed Hamas, or how many were civilians forced to be Hamas human shields. The figures from Gaza are about as credible as the figures from Saigon those many years ago. That is, not even a little.
You can see the photos for yourself on major news networks for months now. Thousands upon thousands of concrete buildings have been collapsed. Do you seriously think that only a few hundred civilians were killed in this much destruction? It looks almost like Hiroshima. A figure of 40,000 dead and 100,000 or more maimed for life — an eye, an arm, both legs — and trauma that is sure to make twice as many new Palestinian fighters as the IDF has killed, seem very plausible. I agree that Hamas is a horrific organization that has used Gaza residents as human shields, and no punishment is enough for that, or what they did on Oct. 6. But that cannot begin to justify what Netanyahu as done in return. Have you all forgotten that two wrongs don’t make a right?
I live right in the area. In fact I cross the campus most days in order to get to the #1 subway line at the 116th Street station on Broadway. There is now no way to cross the campus. You have to go around. You have to go north to 120th Street or south to 114th Street. People who have Columbia ID can swipe them at 116th Street under the watchful eyes of the police and enter the campus. In the 30 some years I have been in the neighborhood this has never happened. The campus typically closes for 1 day a year and that is for graduation day. And that is only for a few hours. The cops may have to set up a corridor for pedestrians. That would be metal railings on the campus between Broadway and Amsterdam. Non-Columbia people could pass through the corridor but would not be able to leave the corridor and enter the campus. I think the demonstrations will continue to grow until graduation time in mid-May.
Absolutely shocked that my congressman, Jerry Nadler. Suddenly does the right thing. Waiting for a pig to fly by my window
Columbia is a private property and should not be allowing all these non students on campus to sleep and protest. Time to close the school and buildings and grounds to students only.
The school is closed to students only, you have to swipe a Columbia School ID to even step foot on campus. All of these people are students.
Will, above you said that “the overwhelming majority are non students.” Now you’re saying all of them are students? Was the above commentator a different Will?
“I’m here to speak for our students’ right to free speech and assemble,” said Isiksel. “if they can’t express themselves freely on a university campus, then I don’t know what we’re here for.”
AMEN to this. A member of the Public, now barred from Columbia campus.
Also the same students who are FORMING BORDERS around their area to not let “zionists” (ie regular jewish students) in. And who are shaming anyone with a yarmulke or jewish star.
yes, so so proud.
Bear in mind these are the very same students who believe conservative speakers must be disinvited or shouted down and chased from the building!