Columbia University’s Horrifying Response to Students’ Gaza Protest
Columbia University brutally cracked down Thursday on ongoing student protests against Israel’s ruthless war on Gaza, sending in city police officers to arrest some demonstrators.
Students at both Columbia and Barnard College have been protesting for months, demanding the university divest from companies doing business with Israel. As part of the protest, students set up an encampment in the middle of campus on Wednesday.
In response, police on Thursday deployed a drone and brought five corrections buses, according to Talia Jane, a freelance journalist at the scene.
Videos of the encampment showed police entering campus on Thursday and beginning to arrest students. Meanwhile, university officials have reportedly barred people visibly carrying food from entering school grounds, in an attempt to prevent protesters from getting supplies.
BREAKING: NYPD have begun arresting members of the Columbia University Palestine solidarity encampment pic.twitter.com/h3NhYsERXa
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) April 18, 2024
Another video shows students flooding the streets outside of Columbia’s campus, preventing the corrections buses from leaving with the arrested protesters.
????UPDATE: Students have taken to the streets to prevent the corrections buses with the students from leaving. The student body is on the side of the Encampment and Palestine!!! COME TO 114 and AMSTERDAM to show solidarity and protect our own!!! pic.twitter.com/6SxFkJPA8e
— sebas ???????????????????????????????? (@cybersebb) April 18, 2024
Three students have reportedly been suspended for participating in the protest, and their college IDs were reportedly deactivated. One of the three is student organizer Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Democratic Representative Illhan Omar.
The university’s dramatically heightened response comes a day after university President Minouche Shafik testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on antisemitism on college campuses. Shafik insisted that “antisemitism has no place on our campus, and I am personally committed to doing everything I can to confront it directly.”
The hearing, however, seemed to be more focused on the opinions of college faculty members, with Republicans Elise Stefanik and Tim Walberg specifically asking about disciplinary measures against two professors who made comments that were perceived as antisemitic.
Omar, on the other hand, asked Shafik about protests specifically, pointing out several attacks against antiwar as well as Palestinian solidarity protests, including an alleged chemical attack against pro-Palestinian protesters in January that is still under police investigation, according to Shafik.
Columbia has also been sued by five Jewish students and two student organizations after the university suspended the student groups Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine in November.
Thursday’s police involvement at Columbia is further evidence that the response to campus protests over Gaza across the country has mostly been one of censorship and hysteria designed to suppress pro-Palestinian activism, as Osita Nwanevu wrote for The New Republic in December. The crowds at protests both on and off college campuses are diverse, with Jews, Muslims, Black, and brown demonstrators. Critics, particularly Republican lawmakers, often hide behind allegations of antisemitism as a way to launch attacks on academic freedom.