One, two, then three new tents have popped up on Columbia University's campus. It was a defiant gesture Thursday afternoon by student activists outraged by the university's decision to call in police to clear an encampment used to protest the Israeli-Hamas war.
If university officials thought they could persuade students to give up by clearing the encampment or arresting more than 100 protesters, they may have been gravely mistaken.
By Thursday night, the tent was gone. However, a large number of students occupied the campus lawn. Since they were planning to stay all night, they were feeling pretty cheerful after eating the donated pizza and snacks. An impromptu dance party also broke out.
At a press conference organized by the student union Apartheid Divest, Leila Saliba, 24, a Palestinian-American student at the Graduate School of Social Work, said, “Police presence and arrests will not deter us in any way.'' No,” he said.
“If anything, all of their oppression of us is what energizes us,” she added. That impressed us. ”
At a time when student protests over Palestine have flared up on some campuses, disrupting awards ceremonies, student dinners and classes, university administrators are considering an issue Columbia University considered this week: stricter It addresses the question of whether tactics can quell protests. Or fuel them?
Columbia University President Nemat Shafik's decision to bring in law enforcement came the day after a notable Congressional hearing. He said the university's leaders agreed that certain contentious phrases, such as “river to sea,” may require discipline. .
She was widely criticized by academic freedom experts for failing to stand up to lawmakers who wanted to trample on academic freedom and freedom of expression.
On Thursday, Shafiq sent a letter to the campus saying, “We are taking extraordinary measures because of the extraordinary circumstances.”
The encampments “significantly disrupt campus life and create a harassing and intimidating environment for many students,” she said.
The students who set up the campground “violated a long list of rules and policies,” she said.
Other schools have also adopted stricter measures. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, and Brown University have recently taken actions against student protesters, including arrests.
Leaders at schools such as Vanderbilt and Pomona have also defended the suspensions and expulsions, saying student protesters are interested in disruption rather than dialogue.
Alex Morley, director of campus advocacy at the Individual Rights Expression Foundation, a free speech and legal advocacy group, said there is no “justifiable” way to expel a student if he or she violates a neutrally enforced policy. There may be a reason.”
But he added that Columbia compromised on its own when Ms. Shafiq suggested to Congress that the university might have investigated students and faculty for protected speech reasons. “That's very concerning,” Morley said, adding that consistently applied, viewpoint-neutral policies are the way out of this mess for Columbia and other universities.
Historian Angus Johnston, who studies and supports student movements, said he sees echoes of other protests in what's happening today.
In April 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, students from Columbia University and Barnard College occupied five buildings on campus, occupied the president's office, and shut down university operations.
A week later, police moved to quell the protests, arresting more than 700 people. Police stomped on protesters, beat them with batons, punched and kicked them, and dragged them down the stairs.
Anger over the arrest helped the students. They won demands such as cutting ties with the Pentagon over Vietnam War research and obtaining amnesty for protesters.
Johnston said the 1968 protests “marked the beginning of the moment when American universities realized that their approach to suppressing protests was not working.” And after student deaths at Kent State University and Jackson State University, administrators avoided those types of confrontations with students, Johnston said.
The tactics used by Columbia University student protesters today are far more benign than those used in 1968, Johnston added.
“When you first read this story, you thought they were taking over the building, right?” Johnston said. “But no, they took over the lawn. That's the least disruptive way to take up space on campus.”
He added: “I'm really worried about a spiral where suppression of protests leads to even more aggressive protests.”
At least 250 Columbia University students gathered Thursday night to cheer on their classmates as they left One Police Plaza in downtown Manhattan after being arrested earlier in the day.
Katherine Elias, 26, was a master's student at the School of International and Public Affairs. Part of a small group of students who set up a camp. About 36 hours later, police tied her wrists with her zip ties and loaded her into a police bus with about 20 other protesters, who sang and chanted chants.
They were eventually issued summonses and released. Elias planned to return and protest.
“I believe a spark has spread today across Columbia, across campuses across the United States,” she said, adding that “Columbia has no idea what it has unleashed.”
Olivia Bensimon Contributed to the report.