Columbia fails to rein in anti-Israel protesters before deadline as school claims to dole out suspensions to students
Columbia University failed to begin trying to rein in disruptive anti-Israel protesters for hours Monday — even after hundreds of them openly defied the school’s 2 p.m. ultimatum to vacate their mini-tent city on campus.
Officials at the prestigious Ivy League school in Manhattan finally claimed at a 5:30 p.m. press conference that they had begun meting out suspensions to students who didn’t heed the order to vacate.
“We have begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts to ensure safety on our campus,” said school Vice President of Public Affairs Ben Chang.
Suspended students will be ineligible to finish out the semester or graduate, according to Chang, who assailed the encampment as creating “an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students” and a “noisy distraction” that interferes with teaching and learning.
Suspended Columbia students also are typically supposed to be banned from campus — although it was unclear Monday whether any of them had been booted from school property.
“You are restricted from all Columbia University campuses, facilities and property, including all academic, residential and recreational spaces” if suspended, the university said in a missive distributed to protesters Monday.
“Your [school ID] will no longer be valid and will be deactivated. You will need to contact your Dean of Students to make arrangements to obtain your personal belongings.”
Students who were suspended during earlier protests were allowed to remain in their dorm rooms but nowhere else, the school newspaper the Columbia Spectator reported.
The suspensions came hours after student leaders had taunted school officials in a statement before the 2 p.m. deadline, crowing about their act of flagrant disobedience.
“We will not back down,” the student protest leaders said.
As the deadline had ticked away, the throngs of rogue students and their supporters remained, beating drums and chanting slogans such as, “Free, free, free Palestine!” while marching around or lounging near pup tents.
Follow The Post’s live blog for the latest on anti-Israel protests on campuses across the US
Around three dozen Columbia employees wearing brightly colored crossing guard-style vests reading “faculty” linked arms outside the encampment in silence, joining the students after the deadline lapsed.
The hordes of pampered protesters munching protein bars and beating tambourines without a care throughout the day were in stark contrast to the scene at the University of Texas in Austin early Monday evening.
Scores of law-enforcement officers, many clad in riot gear, marched across the 50,000-student campus to face off with demonstrators. Six protesters were arrested on the spot before cops started rounding up others one by one.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott posted footage of the show of force on X — accompanied by a thinly veiled barb at the circus unfolding at Columbia: “No encampments will be allowed. Instead, arrests are being made.”
Back on Columbia’s campus, chants ringing out from the chorus of voices in the quad grew more defiant after 2 p.m., with boisterous calls of, “It’s right to rebel, Columbia go to hell!”
Some of the protesters denounced Israel as a “terrorist state” and chanted controversial slogans such as “intifada revolution” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which the Anti-Defamation League says is coded antisemitic language calling for the eradication of the Jewish state.
Police sources told The Post Monday afternoon that busloads of NYPD officers were standing by if summoned by the university. However, administrators had not asked cops to move in to remove students from the $90,000-per-year campus as it did April 18, during which 108 demonstrators were dragged away in cuffs.
Cops are not allowed on campus without authorization from the university.
In a statement to the student body Monday morning, embattled Columbia president Minouche Shafik made a final plea with student protesters to “voluntarily disperse” from campus, vowing to consider exploring “alternative internal options” to bring the crisis to a close.
Shafik, who has faced increasing calls to resign over her handling of the prolonged campus upheaval, warned students to clear out or face suspension following failed negotiations with the campus occupiers.
Shafik made clear that the protesters’ main demand — that the university divest from all companies that do business with Israel — was off the table.
The school also distributed notices around campus promising students amnesty from punishment if they turn themselves in to officials by the deadline and commit to obeying university policies.
Chang said of the suspended students, “Once disciplinary action is initiated, adjudication is handled by several different units within the university based on the nature of the offense.”
Those units include the Office of University Life and the university senate, a policy-making group which advocates for students and faculty, CNN said.
Chang said decisions rendered by the Office of University Life can be appealed to the dean of the student’s school, while senate decisions must be appealed to a panel of deans, with the ultimate say-so held by the university president.
Dozens of NYPD cops were seen lining up outside the Ivy League school’s Morningside Heights campus Monday morning in anticipation of the deadline, as another contingent of cops erected barriers outside Columbia’s bookstore at Broadway and 115th Street.
A block away, at the university’s W 116th St. entrance, another group of metal barriers went up in an attempt to corral a group of several dozen protesters who waved signs and chanted slogans like “expose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” and “Gaza, Gaza you will rise, NYC is on your side.”
According to the Columbia Spectator newspaper, students slapped with an interim suspension for flouting the deadline will be restricted from using all of Columbia’s “campuses, facilities and property, including all academic, residential and recreational spaces.”
Students’ Columbia ID cards would also be deactivated, which means they would be unable to access their campus housing.
Students would also be barred from attending classes, academic events, and extracurricular activities, the paper writes.
“You are not permitted to complete the Spring 2024 semester, including participate in classes or exams in-person or remotely or otherwise submit assignments or engage in any activities affiliated with Columbia University,” the notice states.
“You may lose the semester. If you are scheduled to graduate, you are no longer eligible.”
A handful of counter-demonstrators showed up in solidarity with Israel, including Michelle Ahdoot, director of programming and strategy at End Jew Hatred. She was shooting footage of the protest.
“Everything about them is injustice,” she said, gesturing to the campus demonstrators. “President Shafik, you slept on this. Shame on you. You need to step down because this creation is because of you.”
Others chided the university for what it claims are arbitrary conditions placed on student protests.
“I think the limits they’ve placed on protests sort of vacate the idea of what protests are supposed to do if you can only protest in these two-hour limits or in these certain spots,” said Liz, a Columbia junior and history student who declined to give her last name.
“A protest is supposed to be disruptive. That’s the point of it. I think the rules have been made up just so protesters can be punished,” she said.
-Additional reporting by Dorian Geiger
