April 22, 2024 - Protests at Columbia and other schools escalate

The inside of the encampment is quiet – most of the noise comes from protestors outside the gates of Columbia University's campus, who are chanting “I believe that we will win” and “Long live the Intifada."

It was a sunny day on campus, and in one corner, students were painting posters. One person strummed a stringed instrument, and other students are reading books or on their laptops finishing assignments. Others have donated provisions, ranging from a table of snacks to hygiene products. There was also a pile of blankets.

“We’ve just been trying to keep students mobilized and keep pushing for divestment,” Dalia, a first-year student at Columbia College, told CNN. “We are a very mobilized student body and a very unified student body. Hundreds of people have been in and out of the encampment.”

CNN agreed not to publish her surname due to safety concerns.

She said the students at the campus “refuse to be complicit in the genocide, the apartheid, and the occupation of Palestine.”

There are strict community guidelines for the encampment. One rule says not to share names or details of anyone met in camp, and asking for permission before photographing or taking video.

The encampment is filled with dozens and dozens of tents, from students to neighboring Barnard College staff. Today’s encampment program included an Earth Day performance, poetry reading and a Dabka lesson, a traditional dance from the Arab region. Prior program events included dance performances from different cultures.

Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Dan Goldman of New York and Kathy Manning of North Carolina, who are all Jewish, spoke at a news conference Monday after touring Columbia University’s campus. 

"We saw it firsthand as we walked past the encampments on the university's main lawn full of protesters spewing incendiary antisemitic hate and vitriol. Many aren't even Columbia students I've been told. Their campaign of intimidation is sickening and shocking and as the White House said yesterday, ‘echoes the rhetoric of Hamas terrorists,'" Gottheimer said. 

He also criticized Columbia University leadership, saying, “toothless combinations from administrators aren't going to stop the anarchy we’re seeing.”

“The only way to do it is with deeds, not words,” Gottheimer said. “Colleges have a legal obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to provide students, including Jews and Muslims, a school environment free from discrimination and harassment based on race color or national origin. Yet just feet from here, Jewish students are being verbally and even physically assaulted.”

Gottheimer continued, “To the administrators of Columbia and beyond, here are our demands: Stop the double talk and start acting now. Discipline harassers, restore civility on this campus, encourage peaceful constructive dialogue.”

He also gave a message for students: “While the leadership of Columbia may be failing you, we will not. We will do everything in our power to keep you safe and do everything in Washington we can to make sure that you feel welcome at this university or any university across the United States of America. And Columbia University, if they don't follow through, will pay the price.”

Goldman said he was "encouraged" the Columbia University president issued guidelines about additional security, calling it a "very important first step" and criticized what is happening on campus.

"That is unacceptable for a university, that is unacceptable for an academic institution. There is no question that everyone has a First Amendment right to speak out in this country and that must be preserved," Goldman said. "But a university and all universities have an obligation to maintain the safety and security of their students from all backgrounds."

Manning said university leadership should "do more to keep Jewish students safe and to re-establish an atmosphere in which all students can learn, study and participate safely in campus life."

"Columbia must also move forward with its promised efforts to teach its students and its faculty about the nature and history and dangers of antisemitism. It must ensure that Columbia professors are not encouraging and spreading antisemitism," Manning said.

"I call on the US Department of Education and the US Department of Justice to work with the White House to ensure that all universities take steps necessary to keep Jewish students and faculty safe. I also call on Congress to enact legislation to implement the steps outlined in the US national strategy to counter antisemitism, to address the scourge of antisemitism which is a threat to the foundations of our democracy," she said.

President Joe Biden decried antisemitic protests around college campuses Monday and said his administration was working to combat anti-Jewish hatred.

"I condemn the antisemitic protests, that’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that," Biden said when questioned about the events at Columbia University in New York.

"I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians," he said, without expanding upon what he meant.

Biden was speaking after an Earth Day event in Prince William Forest Park in Triangle, Virginia.

When asked whether Columbia's president should resign, Biden appeared to mishear: "I didn’t know that. I'll have to find out more," he said.

Roughly 200 pro-Palestine protesters have gathered outside New York University's Stern School of Business, with some pro-Israel protesters waving Israeli flags across the street. 

More than a dozen NYPD officers, as well as campus security, were at the site. Campus security have been seen asking for student identification to get onto the school campus from the sidewalk. A nearby encampment included about 10 tents.

Some of the protestors were heard chanting, “Intifada, intifada, globalize the intifada.”

Protesters were also reciting lines and singing songs from the Haggadah, the Jewish book used during Seder. A person who identified themselves as a Jewish student at NYU was leading some of the songs. 

"This morning, some 50 protesters began a demonstration on the plaza in front of the business school," NYU spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement. "This occurred without notice to the University. There are some additional picketers on the public sidewalk in front of the plaza."

Beckman added that access to the plaza has been closed and classes are carrying on.

"The University is committed to minimizing disruption to its academic mission; preventing escalation and violence; and precluding hate, harassment, or threats directed at any member of the NYU community," he said. 

"We are addressing this issue with urgency."

NYU is located in Greenwich Village in the borough of Manhattan.

In a statement, the chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary, Shuly Rubin Schwartz, said she was "shocked and horrified" by the unfolding protests at Columbia University.

JTS, which is just blocks away from Columbia, has partnered with the university for more than half a century to offer a joint degree program through Columbia's List College, which combines a religious and liberal arts education.

"Ensuring the safety and well-being of the JTS community is always our top priority," said Schwartz, who said JTS has been in close communication with Columbia's public safety team, the NYPD, other Jewish organizations on campus and the university's administration.

Schwartz said the unrest on campus is rooted in a broader issue: "The breakdown of constructive discourse and the inability to understand and respect differing viewpoints."

"The morphing of what might be legitimate debate into the worst and most aggressive forms of antisemitic expression is horrifying for us as Jews and as Americans," she said. "It must be unequivocally condemned, and it is particularly antithetical to everything that our universities teach and foster."

Schwartz said she has had meetings with Columbia President Minouche Shafik over the past several months and the two have built "a relationship of trust, honesty, and open dialogue."

Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat, was one of several lawmakers who walked across Columbia University on Monday to stand in solidarity with Jewish students. 

“I should be with my family today for Passover. Instead, I’m here at Columbia University standing with Jewish students who are being harassed because of their Judaism,” Moskowitz, who is Jewish, said in a statement. 

“On the eve of Passover, I stand with the Jewish students and their families against the antisemitism displayed on campuses around the country. Every Jewish parent knows that, if this was any other minority group, this level of hatred would never be allowed on any college campus. If the President of Columbia wants to know what not to do, she should call the former Presidents of Harvard and UPenn."

The US House Committee on Education & the Workforce, chaired by Republican North Carolina congresswoman Virginia Foxx, on Monday called on Columbia President Minouche Shafik to take immediate action to the protests in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Republican-led committee, which includes Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, called on Shafik to "order law enforcement to clear out the unlawful encampment of antisemitic protestors, as well as "expel the students involved," and "terminate the Columbia faculty involved."

The committee added: "The time for talking is over."

In a letter to Shafik, as well as Claire Shipman and David Greenwald, the co-chairs of the school's Board of Trustees, the committee wrote they were "gravely concerned by the ongoing chaos at Columbia University caused by the radical, unlawful Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which has now entered its fifth day. The encampment and related activities have created a severe and hostile environment for Jewish students at Columbia."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted a video Monday from the Columbia campus in New York City, where she addressed safety concerns.

"This morning I went to Columbia University and convened City Hall, NYPD & Columbia’s President to discuss the need to fight antisemitism and protect public safety," Hochul posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. "The recent harassment and rhetoric is vile and abhorrent. Every student deserves to be safe."

Hochul said her "No. 1 responsibility (as governor) is to keep people safe and that's why we came up here today."

She said in her conversations she emphasized the need to protect public safety and provide security, but also protect people's right to peacefully assemble and have freedom of speech.  

“I was once a student protestor,” Hochul said. “But I’ve never seen a level of protest that is so person to person, and so visceral. And I’m calling on everyone – people need to find their humanity. Have the conversations, talk to each other, understand different points of view because that’s what college students should be doing.” 

Columbia reposted her post, and thanked the governor, “the First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, the NYPD, and the many government leaders who have reached out to offer their support.” 

A Yale University spokesperson confirmed to CNN on Monday that protests on the school's campus in New Haven, Connecticut, have been "peaceful." Yale said the school had given protestors multiple attempts to speak with university officials.

The school issued the following comments in a statement:

"Today, members of Yale’s police department isolated the (protest) area and asked protestors to show identification; some left voluntarily. When others did not comply after multiple requests, the Yale Police Department (YPD) issued summonses to 47 students, according to the most recent report from the chief of YPD. Students who were arrested also will be referred for Yale disciplinary action, which includes a range of sanctions, such as reprimand, probation, or suspension.

"The university made the decision to arrest those individuals who would not leave (Beinecke) Plaza with the safety and security of the entire Yale community in mind and to allow access to university facilities by all members of our community.

"Yesterday, President Peter Salovey sent a message to the community, noting that the university would not tolerate behavior that interfered with university operations or threatened, harassed, or intimidated others."