By Gus Saltonstall
UPDATE: Monday, April 29, 11:45 a.m.: Columbia University had told students to clear out of the pro-Palestine encampment on campus by 2 p.m. or face suspension, according to multiple reports and the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine group.
“Please promptly gather your belongings and leave the encampment,” reads a notice given out to students participating in the encampment. “If you voluntarily leave by 2 p.m., identify yourself to a University official, and sign the provided form where you commit to abide by all University policies.”
The notice also includes seven policies that the school says the encampment is violating.
“If you do not leave by 2 p.m., you will be suspended pending further investigation,” the notice adds.
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine is urging students not to sign anything with the administration, and to show up “at noon to protect the encampment!”
ORIGINAL STORY
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced in an email to members of the Columbia community on Monday morning that the school has not come to an agreement with the organizers of the pro-Palestinian protest encampment within the Morningside Heights campus.
Shafik added that the university “will not divest from Israel.”
She said the university had offered an expedited timeline for review of new proposals from students to the school’s Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing, which is the body that oversees divestment matters.
“Since Wednesday, a small group of academic leaders has been in constructive dialogue with student organizers to find a path that would result in the dismantling of the encampment and adherence to university policies going forward,” Shafik wrote. “Regretfully, we were not able to come to an agreement. Both sides in these discussions put forward robust and thoughtful offers and worked in good faith to reach common ground. We thank them all for their diligent work, long hours and careful effort and wish they had reached a different outcome.”
The school president said that Columbia University adheres to “four core principles” in its oversight of the ongoing campus protests.
- Keeping all of its community members physically safe on campus.
- Commitment to academic freedom and ensuring that all members of the community have the right to speak their minds.
- One group’s rights to express their views cannot come at the expense of another group’s right to speak, teach, and learn.
- To condemn hate and to protect every member of the community.
“The encampment has created an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty. External actors have contributed to creating a hostile environment in violation of Title VI [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964], especially around our gates, that is unsafe for everyone—including our neighbors,” Shafik wrote. “With classes now concluding, it represents a noisy distraction for our students studying for exams and for everyone trying to complete the academic year.”
Shafik ended her email by urging those in the encampment to voluntarily disperse.
“We are consulting with a broader group in our community to explore alternative internal options to end this crisis as soon as possible,” she added. “We will continue to update the community with new developments.”
WSR is monitoring this ongoing story.
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Those students who truly object are free to transfer to another school.
I’m sure their fervor ends at the point where they are personally inconvenienced.
Yes, let them find a university that doesn’t invest in Israel and apply there. Or move to Gaza and actually fight for their cause. If I were a student paying that kind of tuition and just wanted to focus on my studies and final exams, why should I be disturbed and distressed by protestors chanting their mindless and hostile mantras?
they should be given “incomplete” grades. i wonder how many would be willing to pay thousands of dollars more to continue in the following semester?!
Whether you agree or disagree, you can’t block the functions of an entire university and hold people hostage. They are clearly in violation of school policy. Time to go.
The mission of a university as an institution is not to function as a political action group. The lawns are the university’s property, and they have the right to regulate student conduct on those lawns: to say, “no camping out, no setting up tents,” etc.
Minouche Shafik is a coward! I fully support the students who are taking a principled stand against Israel’s indiscriminate killing of innocent Palestinians. I feel like we are hurtling toward another Kent State incident, but the right wing has so successfully indoctrinated so many people that a shocking number of Americans will say that murdered students will have “had it coming.” Sad days in this country.
I 100% totally agree with you leave the students alone and let them do what they want to do!!!!!
Protesting is healthy. It makes our future more interesting than the boring times now.
Unfortunately, the students parents never lifted a finger in there time to protest.
Thank God for the late 60s generation.
By the way, if you want to do something productive, make contributions to aid charities, like World Central Kitchen, the Red Crescent (which is the Muslim version of the Red Cross), or Doctors Without Borders, and make a real contribution to aid in Gaza. They don’t need your used headscarf, pizza crust, and a used tent.
If Israel wanted to indiscriminately kill Palestinians, it could simply not allow any food into the enclave. Urban warfare is a very bloody business, what do you suggest that Israel do? Let Hamas re-arm and attack again?
Leave them alone and let them protest!
I did in the late 60s!
And we got rid of “tricky Dick” Nixon in 72!
Leave them alone!!!!!
Protesting against sending American boys to fight in Vietnam because of Robert McNamara’s “Domino Theory’ is very different than a war waged by a terrorist group and another country. Further, the Columbia students’ demand that the university “divest” from corporations doing business in Israel and/or Israeli corporations is naive to say the least. Maybe, when they finish protesting, they should take a few basic electives in the business school to learn that the investments are held in mutual funds and not individual stocks, so divestment is not possible and not their business in any event.
So it’s fine for the to disrupt graduation for thousands of other students? No one is saying they can’t protest. They just can’t camp out on private property
Nixon won in a landslide in ’72. His inherent paranoia forced him to resign in ’74. Plus a Republican party that had principles then and would impeach and convict him.
Yeah, listen, I’ve got news for you. Protestors did not get rid of Nixon in 72. He won that election by a 23% margin. If anything, much as I agree with their right to protest and disliked our policy in Vietnam , those kids didn’t get rid of Nixon, they helped to get him elected.
They certainly emphasized how much most Americans were fed up with that war, but don’t delude yourself with the idea that entitled kids with pup tents and bad attitudes create policy change.
And, btw, if I was 19, I’d be right there with them because that’s what college students do.
Umm… Nixon was not “gotten rid of” in 1972. He won in a landslide. I voted for McGovern, but I recall that a sizeable majority of my own age group voted for Nixon in ’72.
Forfeit the semester. Course and the tuition. There is no way they could have completed course requirements.
This is going to blow back on the university negatively. The next big massacre of Palestinians is going to make Columbia look complicit in genocide.
Why not transfer to a Uni that aligns with their beliefs vs attebd a private institution and demand change? Plus Marxist should abhor that they are recipients of privilege due to their economic capabilities? The beauty of the US is choices. Make different choices and use your dollars differently?
Don’t these people have finals coming up?
Where is Jerry Nadler in all this? It is his district.
I highly doubt the protestors’ demands were “robust and thoughtful”, but it’s good to see the adults try to regain some control.
LMAO the faculty are out in arms against the admin. The adults are with the kids here
Bottom Line : Hamas started this war with the most horrific brutal massacre. Hamas has since stated they will return to Israel again and again and recommit the same savage massacre until not one Jew is left. Israel is fighting for its very survival. They are conducting a most moral war despite the false propaganda. We are witnessing the same events of 1930s Germany when honored Jewish professors were dismissed and universities were made Judenrein , students were arrested right out of their classrooms in the presence of teachers & classmates. Today’s protests are calling for a campus free of Jewish students & professors, chanting Death to America, Death to Israel, Death to Jews. Its an organized antisemitic movement. The 60s kids were not calling for anyone’s death. These students are dangerous and must be stopped. Today’s congressional hearing on antisemitism at Columbia was in unanimous agreement.
🇺🇸This is the United States of America… feel proud America and feel proud students of Columbia University. 🙏 Thank you!
*The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.