Columbia faculty members walk out after pro-Palestinian protesters arrested - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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A huge crowd of faculty members who teach at Columbia University in New York held a mass walk-out on Monday afternoon to protest the institution having called police to arrest students at a pro-Palestinian encampment protest last week.

Hundreds of members of the teaching cohort at Columbia walked out in solidarity with the students who were arrested by the New York police department last week and also suspended by the university.

The solidarity protest came as students put protest tents back up in the middle of campus on Monday after they were torn down last week when more than 100 arrests were made.

The university on Monday morning announced that classes would be held remotely after further days of unrest on the New York campus, following the arrest of pro-Palestinian protesters there last week.
With tensions rising further across many US university campuses, police officers also began arresting pro-Palestinian protesters at Yale University on Monday.

More than 45 protesters, including some students, were arrested, according to Yale Daily News, the university’s paper.

Students there have been on hunger strike and protesters are calling for universities to back a ceasefire in Gaza and for their institutions to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Doug Emhoff, the husband of the vice-president, Kamala Harris, who is Jewish, weighed in on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday evening, posting: “No student should live in fear on campus. The antisemitism and hate toward Jews, including threats of violence, that we are witnessing is unconscionable.”

On Monday, Columbia’s president, Nemat Minouche Shafik, said that school leaders would be convening to discuss the “crisis”, in addition to implementing virtual classes, NBC News reported.

As well as condemning student protests, Shafik claimed that antisemitic language and intimidating and harassing behavior towards Jewish students had taken place on campus recently.

“The decibel of our disagreements has only increased in recent days. These tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas,” Shafik said. “We need a reset.”

Student demonstrators have denied accusations that their protests are antisemitic, blaming “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us” and describing the protests as peaceful and inclusive.

“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged amount students – Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black, and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country,” read a statement from student organizers posted to Instagram.

A delegation of three US lawmakers are traveling to Columbia’s campus on Monday, Axios reported.

The Democratic representatives Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Dan Goldman of New York, and Jared Moskowitz of Florida will meet with Jewish students at Columbia and speak at the university.

Tensions are high at Columbia after more than 100 protesters were arrested on Thursday after Shafik instructed New York police to break up a student-led protest. Students had pitched tents to form a makeshift encampment as apart of a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

Scores of students were also suspended, including Isra Hirsi, the daughter of the Minnesota Democratic representative Ilhan Omar.

Shafik’s decision has been swiftly condemned by students, professors and politicians, who called the arrest and suspension of students unwarranted and a violation of free speech on campus.

The Columbia and Barnard chapters of the American Association of University Professors decried Shafik’s crackdowns on protests in a joint statement released on Friday.

“We are shocked at her failure to mount any defense of the free inquiry central to the educational mission of a university in a democratic society and at her willingness to appease legislators seeking to interfere in university affairs,” the chapters said, adding that Shafik invoked a “unilateral and wildly disproportionate punishment [for] peacefully protesting students”.

Political leaders of both parties condemned the leadership of Columbia University on Monday, as protests against Israel’s war on Gaza spread to campuses across the country.

“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous,” said the statement from Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary.

In a separate statement for Passover, which starts on Monday, Joe Biden denounced “blatant antisemitism” on college campuses.

“Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews,” Biden said in a lengthy message released on Sunday. “This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

“I condemn the antisemitic protests,” Biden told reporters on Monday, after an event marking Earth Day at the Prince William forest park in Triangle, Virginia. “That’s why I have set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”

Speaking before Biden at the Virginia event, the progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a Democrat of New York, appeared to reference the campus demonstrations in her remarks.

“It is especially important that we remember the power of young people shaping this country today of all days,” she said.

Fellow progressive US representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan also called out punishments against Hirsi and other student protesters, the Hill reported.

Omar said in a post to X that university protests were being “co-opted and made to look bad so police and public leaders would shut them down”, similar to other movements in the past.

“The Columbia protesters have made clear their demands and want their school not to be complacent in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Public officials and media making this about anything else are inflaming the situation and need to bring calmness and sanity back,” she added.

In separate post, Omar called on attention to remain on the “genocide in Gaza” as tensions remain high on Columbia’s campus.

“Every student deserves to be safe,” the New York governor Kathy Hochul said, after convening a meeting with university administrators, city officials and law enforcement at Columbia on Monday morning. Later on Monday, a group of Jewish House Democrats met with Jewish students at Columbia.

“While the leadership of Columbia may be failing you, we will not,” Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic congressman of New Jersey, said during a press conference from the campus. If Columbia fails to keep Jewish students safe, Gottheimer warned that the university’s leadership would “pay the price”.

Congressman Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, said what Jewish students told him they had witnessed was “unacceptable at an academic institution of learning”.

Other US colleges and universities have announced extreme measures to punish students who participate in peaceful protests supporting Palestine.

The University of Michigan announced that it would draft new rules that will punish disruptive behavior after students held a protest during the university’s convocation ceremony on Sunday, the New York Times reported.

Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Emerson College, both in the Boston area, have started encampment protests inspired by the demonstration at Columbia, CBS News reported. Videos on X showed students at New York University (NYU) in Manhattan erecting a new encampment on their campus, and at the University of North Carolina.

NYU’s office of Global Campus Safety ordered students to clear their encampments by 4.00pm on Monday after officials allegedly witnessed “disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behavior” as additional protesters attempted to participate in the demonstrations.

“You will need to clear the plaza by 4.00pm. If you leave now, no one will face any consequences for today’s actions – no discipline, no police,” according to a post to X from the university.

Prahlad Iyengar, an MIT graduate student studying electrical engineering, was among about two dozen students who set up an encampment of more than a dozen tents on campus on Sunday evening to call for a ceasefire and to protest what they describe as MIT’s “complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

“MIT has not even called for a ceasefire, and that’s a demand we have for sure,” he said.

Back at Columbia, Nicholas Baum, a 19-year-old Jewish freshman who lives in a Jewish theological seminary building two blocks from Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus, told the Associated Press that protesters over the weekend were “calling for Hamas to blow away Tel Aviv and Israel”. He said some of the protesters shouting antisemitic slurs were not students but that Jewish students were scared.

“There’s been so much vilification of Zionism, and it has spilled over into the vilification of Judaism,” he said.

However, many Jewish students have joined the very diverse protests on Columbia’s campus.

Graduations in the coming weeks are likely to be disrupted and colleges are rethinking how they will hold ceremonies and who can speak at them.

In her statement on Monday, Shafik said the Middle East conflict was terrible and that she understood that many are experiencing deep moral distress.

“But we cannot have one group dictate terms and attempt to disrupt important milestones like graduation to advance their point of view,” Shafik wrote.

The developments came hours before the Monday evening start of the Jewish holiday of Passover.


Good to see this spreading not only to other universities but also to the university staff.
#15313048
wat0n wrote:I hope the full extent of the law is applied against those schools refusing to enforce their own regulations against disruption and even more so when those who are violating them are doing so to create a hostile environment against Jewish students.

They have never been held accountable and it is ending now.


Back here in the real world though this isn't the actual issue. The actual issue is that the universities are financially complicit in the genocide that Israel is doing and don't like peaceful protest against their policies. They've resorted to repression of their own students to stop it and of course so far that has backfired.
#15313050
Bless our college students. They are going to single-handedly do what no one else could do. They are going to hand the election to Trump.

They will stay home and a significant number of Americans, tired of their shit will divide on these two lines. Those who stay home and those who are moved to vote for Trump. Remember Trump is FAR ahead in the polls right now so this little boost will be all it takes.

What will President Trump do?

1. He will cut off all humanitarian aid to Palestine instantly.

2. He will dramatically increase military aid to Israel. (He promised his base.)

3. He will cut off all aid to Ukraine and Russia will take it handily.

4. He will seriously antagonize China. In protest the first step China will take is to sell arms to Russia just to get even with Trump.

5. Trump won't care about this and will double down on fucking with China. China will Take Taiwan becoming the largest chip manufacturer in the world. (And solidifying their hold on the Pacific Rim.)

6. Reading the tea leaves, Japan and S. Korea will start to cozy up to China.

7. At home he will cut off federal aid to colleges and universities that cannot stop student unrest.

8. He will fill every single available federal judgeship with extreme right wing judges. (See Barrett if you need an example.)

9. Deprived of the Chinese market and the much needed Chinese consumer goods, the US economy will collapse.

10. War will be our only hope.

But, you see, our students are not smart enough to see that and the news media, which should be advising their choices, is loving the clicks they are getting for it's coverage of campus unrest.

And the saddest thing of all is that they will never figure out that they did it. Just as my flower-power generation did not figure out that it pushed the country very far to the right indeed.

But hey. I guess I am OK with Trump. He cut my corporate taxes by 20%. He never saw a white male he didn't like. He will shut down our southern border without cutting the number of low wage workers in the country. (In other words he will let the folks already here alone.)

And he will ensure that oligarchs like Musk and his fellows, are firmly in charge of the political process after he leaves office.

What could be better. As long as you are not a woman of childbearing years, a minority, gay, a poor person or a college student encumbered with a lifetime of student loan debt you should do just fine.
#15313051
KurtFF8 wrote:Back here in the real world though this isn't the actual issue. The actual issue is that the universities are financially complicit in the genocide that Israel is doing and don't like peaceful protest against their policies. They've resorted to repression of their own students to stop it and of course so far that has backfired.


That is very much the issue, actually.

The issue of harassment of Jewish and Israeli students is not new, it's just in the open now.

And yes, I mean harassment like this:



@Drlee do you think Biden can turn this around if he just applies current civil rights law, federalizes the NY National Guard and ends this whole thing?
#15313053
wat0n wrote:I hope the full extent of the law is applied against those schools refusing to enforce their own regulations against disruption and even more so when those who are violating them are doing so to create a hostile environment against Jewish students.

They have never been held accountable and it is ending now.


The only people creating an unsafe situation on campuses have been the police, Zionist provacateurs, and IDF terrorists. Now tell me more about how those boots taste.
#15313054
Saeko wrote:The only people creating an unsafe situation on campuses have been the police, Zionist provacateurs, and IDF terrorists. Now tell me more about how those boots taste.


NY Post wrote:A Jewish Yale University student journalist reporting on an anti-Israeli protest at the Ivy League school Saturday night was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag, while her assailant has gone unpunished.


How many leftists have gotten their eyes poked lately?

Maybe if leftists stopped trying to gouge the eyes of Jewish students out, schools would not feel the need to call in campus police.
#15313055
wat0n wrote:How many leftists have gotten their eyes poked lately?

Maybe if leftists stopped trying to gouge the eyes of Jewish students out, schools would not feel the need to call in campus police.


So she yelled and ran after someone after being "jabbed in the eye"? :lol:

The police said there was nothing they could do, because they knew she was full of shit. :lol:
#15313059
wat0n wrote:She reached out to campus police. I don't think New Haven's police can access the Yale campus without the university's permission. At least the NYPD can't access Columbia's campus without the school's permission (and without a court order), according to mayor Adams.


There is no "campus police". Campus police are just regular police who are assigned to the campus. They have all the same powers and duties as NHPD, but their jurisdiction is limited to the campus. They do not need permission from the university to open investigations or make arrests.

EDIT: Also, it wouldn't matter what type of police she went to. A "visibly jewish" (whatever that means) woman supposedly shows up to a campus police officer with an injured eye and they say "There's nothing we can do."? Who the fucks believes that shit?
#15313060
Campus police is not just regular police, the officers are hired by the schools and although they have the powers of municipal police they are not generally considered to be government workers (so they are not e.g. covered by contracts between the regular police unions and their municipalities since they don't work for them).

As such, if universities do not want to clear the protesters then their police departments won't do anything.
Last edited by wat0n on 23 Apr 2024 06:19, edited 1 time in total.
#15313063
It's good to see it was not serious.

But if she went to the hospital, then the incident did happen.

Campus police often avoids filing charges for minor crimes such as this (this is evidently not a felony). Universities will often prefer to be more lenient rather than having a student get a criminal record or, worse, locked up. Plus even regular police will rarely actively pursue misdemeanors if they're not committed with flagrancy.
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wat0n wrote:It's good to see it was not serious.

But if she went to the hospital, then the incident did happen.


No. She just went to the hospital. Anybody can go to the hospital for any reason.

Campus police often avoids filing charges for minor crimes such as this (this is evidently not a felony).


If it had actually happened, this would be very serious crime, not a minor one. There are no charges or evidence because she's a fucking liar.

Universities will often prefer to be more lenient rather than having a student get a criminal record or, worse, locked up. Plus even regular police will rarely actively pursue misdemeanors if they're not committed with flagrancy.


For misdemeanors? Yes. For assault? No.
#15313066
Saeko wrote:No. She just went to the hospital. Anybody can go to the hospital for any reason.


And the hospital will have a log saying if she was harmed.

Saeko wrote:If it had actually happened, this would be very serious crime, not a minor one. There are no charges or evidence because she's a fucking liar.


Saeko wrote:For misdemeanors? Yes. For assault? No.


Not necessarily. If the injuries were minor, then it's a class A misdemeanor.

https://casetext.com/statute/general-st ... isdemeanor
#15313068
wat0n wrote:And the hospital will have a log saying if she was harmed.

Not necessarily. If the injuries were minor, then it's a class A misdemeanor.


None of this changes the fact that she lied.

And the same NYPost article you linked to said:

Yale officials said the university’s police department is investigating the assault and that the school tolerates no violence on its campus.
Last edited by Saeko on 23 Apr 2024 07:32, edited 2 times in total.
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