Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday, April 23. Beckie Supiano wrote today’s Briefing. Nick Perez compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.
Protests — and their fallout — spread
Pro-Palestinian student protests are in the national spotlight, with college leaders struggling to strike a balance between addressing concerns about campus safety and students’ free-speech rights. Students on a growing number of campuses have raised encampments. Police officers called in by Columbia and Yale Universities have arrested dozens of protesters; and last night police cleared an encampment at New York University and arrested protesters there, too. Here’s what you need to know:
Columbia’s president is under pressure: Nemat (Minouche) Shafik’s congressional testimony last week and subsequent decision to summon the New York City Police Department to clear a pro-Palestinian student encampment intensified protests both at Columbia and beyond. Early Monday she announced that classes would be held virtually that day, and encouraged students, faculty, and staff to avoid the campus. The university also announced an increase in public-safety personnel.
Rising tensions on campus, Shafik wrote, “have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas.” Students reported several antisemitic incidents in the days after the hearing, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator, the student newspaper. “We need a reset,” Shafik wrote.
She faces criticism, simultaneously, for not doing enough to protect Jewish students and for overreacting to a pro-Palestinian student encampment:
- On Friday the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors issued a declaration condemning the suspensions and arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters.
- Leaders of campus Jewish organizations issued statements on Sunday saying Columbia had not done enough to ensure students’ safety.
- Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican who has been a driving force in the congressional hearings on colleges’ handling of antisemitism, called on Sunday for the president’s immediate resignation, saying that “Columbia’s leadership has clearly lost control of its campus, putting Jewish students’ safety at risk.”
Dozens of protesters were arrested at Yale: Forty-seven students were detained for trespassing on Monday. The students, who are calling on the university to divest its endowment holdings in military-weapons manufacturers, set up an encampment on campus on Friday, and negotiations between protesters and the university broke down on Sunday. Read more from our Forest Hunt.
Demonstrations have spread to additional campuses: There are now similar protests at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and Emerson College. Read more from our Sonel Cutler and Alecia Taylor.
The big picture: This is an incredibly delicate situation for college leaders, who face competing pressures from students, faculty, alumni, donors, and lawmakers. The months-long debate over how to balance student safety and free speech has come to a head in these makeshift tent villages. With competing demands from so many constituents, how can leaders build trust among all of them?