A New Wave of Campus Protests: Law Enforcement and Students’ Protection Against Pro-Palestinian Encampment At Columbia University
Still, the following day, faculty members gathered at a rally and called for the school’s president, Jay Hartzell, to resign after he praised the school and law enforcement for exercising restraint against the protestors, according to NPR member station KUT.
At the University of Southern California, 93 people were arrested Wednesday for trespassing, a misdemeanor offense. One arrest was made for assault with a deadly weapon, though the department did not say what the weapon was. The Los Angeles Police Department said there were no injuries.
This latest wave of campus protests was sparked last week at Columbia University, where over 100 people were arrested after the administration called in New York City police to clear out a pro-Palestinian encampment. Undeterred protesters then built a larger encampment on an adjacent quad, prompting the school to switch to hybrid learning for the remainder of the semester.
Atlanta police and the George State patrol officers were brought in after protesters ignored warnings to leave. During subsequent confrontations, she said, law enforcement “released chemical irritants into the ground” after protesters threw objects at them.
“Now let me emphasize, there is nothing threatening your safety that’s going on at this moment,” she said. “You are our primary concern, but yet.” Student final exams are being moved to protect the integrity of the academic program.
GW Law School Dean Dayna Bowen said in a video message on Thursday that the school is working to move law students’ final exams, which are currently underway, to more quiet and secure locations because of the protests.
Later that day, around 10PM, Shafik announced a midnight deadline to reach an agreement with students on “clearing the West Lawn and restoring calm to campus.” Amid negotiations with student representatives from Columbia University Apartheid Divest — the group behind the encampment — Shafik threatened to call both the National Guard and the NYPD, the student group said in a statement. The few hundred students who stayed on the lawn started preparing for arrests, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator. In the end, neither the police nor the National Guard were called, because Shafik extended the deadline until the early hours of Friday.
Meanwhile, at George Washington University in D.C., a second day of protests is underway Friday despite the university’s 7 p.m. deadline for clearing the encampments.
The end of the Columbia Student Electrification protest: Students and the fight for Israeli-Hamas-Israel relations at the University of Southern California
The main graduation ceremony at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles was going to be canceled due to security concerns. It had already canceled its valedictorian’s speech because of safety concerns stemming from the backlash she received over her social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war.
“I am deeply sensitive to the fact that graduating seniors spent their first year attending Columbia remotely,” she said. “We all very much want these students to celebrate their well-deserved graduation with family and friends.”
If discussions do not result in a deal the university will have to look at alternative ways to calm the campus and allow students to finish the semester.
A group of faculty, administrators, and University senators have been in dialogue with the organizers of the protest for the past several days, to discuss the future of the camp. We have our demands and they have theirs. A formal process is underway and continues.”
Columbia officials said Thursday that protesters had agreed to take certain steps, including removing a significant number of tents, limiting the protests to Columbia students only, complying with fire department requirements and prohibiting discriminatory or harassing language.
The deadline for protesters to dismantle the setup was set to midnight Tuesday, but was extended multiple times by the administration due to constructive dialogue.
According to Israel, more than 1,200 people were killed in the attack by Hamas, while the health ministry of Gaza says that 34,000 people were killed by the Israeli military.
Student activists across the country are determined to show their support for people in Gaza, and to push universities to remove companies who have ties toIsrael or who profit from the war with Hamas.
Police arrested more than 100 students who had occupied Columbia’s south lawn to demand that the university divest its $13 billion endowment from companies that support Israel. Officers tore down the tents students had set up the previous morning around 4AM and trampled on signs declaring the encampment a “liberated zone,” an echo of the anti-war protests that swept college campuses across the country, including Columbia’s, in 1968. Less than a day later, the tents were back, with hundreds of new students taking the place of their classmates who had been arrested and barred from campus.
“I literally did not leave my apartment the days my friends told me about it,” a computer science undergraduate, whose name was listed on the truck, told me outside the Columbia encampment on Tuesday afternoon. The student, who did not wish to be identified, said that her name was listed on the truck because a club she was part of had signed an open letter calling for Columbia to cut ties with Israel. It was frightening for her. “I completely wiped as much as I could of my online presence and stayed in my apartment as much as I could,” the student said. “I felt like I couldn’t go to classes.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student who has been involved in the negotiations with Shafik’s office, also spoke, saying international students were especially at risk. I have a foreign visa. That’s why for the past six months, I’ve barely appeared on the media,” Khalil said. “That’s why I’m not suspended. I didn’t participate because I wanted to be deported from this country.
Rep. Omar made her own visit on Thursday. One of the students was suspended when the campsite was cleared last week. The Friday deadline was quickly approaching. That night, Shafik said there would be no arrests. “There is a rumor that the NYPD has been invited to campus this evening,” she wrote in an email sent to students at 11:08PM. “This rumor is false.”
The student was masked as we spoke, like most of the other people at the camp. Students covered their faces with surgical masks and sunglasses to prevent them from being seen by outsiders who would try to harm them, as well as kaffiyehs to shield them from outsiders who would focus on them.
A college students first and last name is not something of the highest priority in the campus environment. When a name is disseminated through certain media streams outside the confines of the university, it can be a liability for bad-faith actors.
Canary Mission is a database devoted to exposing antisemitism, and was started by a Columbia University graduate named Avila Chevalier. Since its inception, Canary Mission has conflated antisemitic hate speech with pro-Palestinian activism; Avila Chevalier was posted on the database for her involvement in the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement. The Israeli government has used Canary Mission to bar political activists from entering the country, Haaretz reported in 2018. Canary Mission have donexxed protesters all over the country.
The camp is very chill, all things considered. When I walked around on Monday, I saw students lounging in their tents, doing homework, and generally hanging out. Several pieces of cardboard and cloth were part of the pro-Palestine signs that people were able to make at the craft corner. In the middle of the quad, students had set up a snack table — complete with a “nut zone” to accommodate their peers with allergies — that also had sunscreen, water bottles, and ibuprofen available.
“It’s basically just a bunch of nerds,” Jared told me on Wednesday. I check the internet and hear that the pro-Hamas mob has taken over Columbia. There is a huge discrepancy between what is happening here and what the media is portraying it as.
At a Tuesday afternoon press conference on the edge of Morningside Park, Marianne Hirsch, a literature professor who specializes in Holocaust studies, said the university had fostered “an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in which some people are afraid to tell you their names.”
The media circus was going strong by Wednesday. As I was speaking with two people whose faces were covered by scarves and sunglasses, one of them asked why we weren’t in class and I noticed a man who was provocateur and founder of the Proud Boys. Speaker Johnson held a press conference on the other side of the quad about three hours later. “This is dangerous. This is not a right of the people. Johnson was booed and chants of “Mike, you suck!” came from the crowd. He urged President Biden to call in the National Guard.