Columbia Protesters to ‘Scale Down’ Encampment to Avoid Police Intervention
Shortly after officials at Columbia University extended a negotiation deadline for an additional 48 hours to avoid a second clash between police and Palestine protesters on the New York campus, students agreed to “scale down” the encampment.
The university’s president, Minouche Shafik, set a midnight deadline on April 23 for negotiations between students and staff to remove an encampment that was established on campus by approximately 100 students protesting the Israel-Palestine conflict. The situation rapidly deteriorated, resulting in the arrest of 108 individuals, including U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, and the eventual blockade of Jewish students and faculty from entering campus.
On Monday, the university announced that all classes would be moved online for the remainder of the semester due to safety concerns posed by the protesters.
Several high-profile donors to the university, including Columbia alum and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, have discontinued donations to the school for its response to the crisis and for failing to protect Jewish students on campus.
Wednesday morning, Columbia students agreed to scale down the encampment after the school reportedly made a “written commitment and concession not to call the NYPD or the National Guard.” The students called this “an important victory for students.”
“I fully support the importance of free speech, respect the right to demonstrate, and recognize that many of the protestors have gathered peacefully,” Shafik wrote in a statement issued to the university community on Tuesday. “However, the encampment raises serious safety concerns, disrupts campus life, and has created a tense and at times hostile environment for many members of our community. It is essential that we move forward with a plan to dismantle it.”
At other universities in New York as well as around the country, police have arrested students participating in disruptive and destructive protests, most notably on New York University’s (NYU) campus where police arrested 120 protesters.
Of the 228 individuals arrested and detained by officers, the New York Post reported that none will be given a criminal record.
On Sunday, Ivy League students at Yale University formed a “multiple layer human wall” according to FreedomNewsTV, which captured footage of the protests taking place at what was dubbed the “Liberated Zone.”
University campuses have become hotbeds for protests since the Palestinian terror organization Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than a thousand people.
