‘I Have Never Seen Campus Like This’

At Columbia University on Saturday, each side of the gate at 115th Street and Broadway presented a different form of activism, united in message but distinct in technique.

Outside the gate, students and community members waved Palestinian flags and chanted, “We demand liberation, end the Zionist occupation” and “Israel will fall, brick by brick, wall by wall.” Participants handed out fliers, including one that alleged connections between Columbia officials and the Israel Defense Forces. Police officers milled about.

Inside the gate, the atmosphere was more subdued. Protesters in kaffiyehs stretched out on a patch of grass, and snacked, prayed, sang, and talked. Speakers took turns with the mic, and organizers ferried water bottles.

A Jewish graduate student, who declined to give his name, watched the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” in quiet disgust. Not just at the trash building up, but also at what he said was unproductive and hostile discourse.

“There’s a very bleak feeling in the air,” the student said. “I have never seen campus like this.”

Just outside the perimeter of the South West Lawn encampment, a group of pro-Israel students challenged a group of pro-Palestine students on their assertion that limiting pro-Palestinian speech would disenfranchise anti-Zionist Jewish people. Those Jews, one of the pro-Israel students said, were “self-hating.” A protester on the opposing side mocked him.

Elsewhere, campus affairs continued apace in the lead-up to finals. Seniors took graduation photos with the Alma Mater statue. Suntanners lay supine on benches. Admitted students tried on Columbia, seeing if it fit.

The last several weeks have seen pro-Palestinian campus protests intensify across the country, as students have doubled down on disruptions of campus life, and administrators have lost patience. At Pomona College, the president called the police on protesters who had entered her office to call for divestment. At the University of California at Berkeley, a dinner held by the law dean at his house descended into chaos when a pro-Palestinian student got into an altercation with the dean’s wife.

But nowhere has the escalation been so evident as at Columbia, where more than 100 students were arrested along with visitors on Thursday after refusing to take down their encampment on the university’s South East Lawn.

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The protesters had pitched the tents on Wednesday morning, ahead of President Nemat (Minouche) Shafik’s congressional testimony on antisemitism.

Shafik survived the questioning, promising to clamp down on antisemitic activity on campus, but was met with less than a warm welcome on her return to Morningside Heights. Fed up, she called in the New York Police Department to clear the encampment.

“I took this extraordinary step because these are extraordinary circumstances,” Shafik wrote in an address to the community on Thursday, explaining that the protesters had violated university policies and those who were students would be suspended. They had been warned of that the night before the arrests, she wrote.

Opportunities for Dialogue

By Friday morning, protesters had gathered on a different part of the South Lawn and replaced the tents with towels and tarps.

Activists remained there into Saturday, when a Chronicle reporter was permitted to enter the campus for a two-hour span. Since Wednesday, the university has limited campus access to those with Columbia ID cards. The university had no comment on the protests beyond what it told The Chronicle on Friday.

Protesters, concerned that they could be doxxed, shrouded themselves with rugs and blankets when a television crew tried to film them.

Most of the activists have been from Columbia or its affiliated Barnard College, said Aidan Parisi, a graduate student in the School of Social Work who has been involved in the protests. But some City University of New York and New York University students were in attendance, Parisi said, as well as alumni and faculty members.

“We wanted this to show other campuses that this is possible, that we can make this a national movement, if not international movement, in support of Palestine and in support of divestment,” said Parisi. “Because we are not the only university that funds genocides. There are many universities around. So I feel very proud.”

Parisi noted that there had been opportunities for dialogue, pointing to the conversation between the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine students outside the encampment’s entrance. It had calmed down since the fracas over anti-Zionist Jews.

Since the arrests at Columbia, students at Boston University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and other institutions have held rallies in solidarity with the Columbia protesters. On Friday, more than 400 people camped out overnight on the campus of Yale University to demand divestment of its holdings in military-weapons manufacturers.

Organizers with Columbia’s divestment movement said intimidation tactics by the university had only strengthened their resolve, because they could now tap into support that had been latent.

“The first encampment had several hundreds of supporters,” said Catherine Elias, a graduate student in international affairs and organizer with the divestment movement. “Now we’re looking at thousands. I actually think the movement has grown, and the power behind our demands has grown, over the last week.”

‘Folks in the Middle’

Still, the events of the last few days weighed heavily on the community. On Sunday morning, an Orthodox campus rabbi sent a message to a WhatsApp group of more than 290 Jewish students, advising them to go home until the atmosphere on campus had improved. But Columbia/Barnard Hillel, the largest Jewish group on campus, said Jewish students should not leave, declaring that the university should do more to ensure their safety.

Students who spoke to The Chronicle lamented the animosity that had beset the campus over the last several days. In addition to the defined pro-Israel and pro-Palestine camps, “you also have folks in the middle who see that there is a divide on the campus,” said Minhas Wasaya, a graduate business student and vice chair of the University Senate’s student-affairs committee. “That’s also something that’s upsetting for them.”

Observing the demonstration on Broadway, Justin O’Toole, a senior, said the wariness was justified, because students felt jilted by the president’s decision to summon the police.

“It’s pretty disheartening to see so many police out here,” O’Toole said. “This is really just a peaceful protest for what, in the end, I believe is on the right side of things.”

Other students voiced conflicted feelings about the occupation of the South Lawn. Lina, a doctoral student who declined to give her full name, said she understood the need for students to protest, but was concerned about disruptions of commencement, scheduled for May 15 on the South Lawn. Several of her friends would be graduating.

“Letting them enjoy that day wouldn’t change much,” she said.

Stacks of chairs for commencement filled the rest of the South Lawn, as if to remind protesters that the demonstration must come to an end soon.