{"id":16487,"date":"2024-04-27T18:48:59","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T17:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedailyleaks.com\/?p=16487"},"modified":"2024-04-27T18:50:59","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T17:50:59","slug":"columbia-university-president-grilled-on-antisemitism-as-students-protest-israeli-military-actions-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailyleaks.com\/columbia-university-president-grilled-on-antisemitism-as-students-protest-israeli-military-actions-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbia University president grilled on antisemitism as students protest Israeli military actions in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
As Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, faced a Congressional inquiry on Capitol Hill regarding antisemitism on campus, a small group of students erected tents at dawn on Wednesday, April 17th, protesting against Israeli military operations in Gaza and advocating for the university to sever ties with companies they perceive as backing the conflict.<\/p>\n They did so as Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president, made her way to Capitol Hill to face a Congressional grilling over antisemitism on campus and how she was tackling it.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n In nearly four hours of questioning that Wednesday, she defended actions she was already taking. Students, she said, were “getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences”.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n The next afternoon, the Columbia president made a decision that would ignite a wildfire of protest at colleges across the United States.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n The students at the protest camp were trespassing, had refused to leave and had created a “harassing and intimidating environment” for many of their peers, she said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n She was sending in the NYPD.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n Soon after, officers from the largest police department in the US, wearing riot gear and wielding plastic handcuffs, arrested more than 100 students – the first time mass arrests had been made on Columbia’s campus since the Vietnam War protests more than five decades ago.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n “It was a shock to us all,” said Rashida Mustafa, a doctoral student at Columbia. “I was in disbelief. But it felt like a call to action.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n The outrage among students was immediate. By the next day, another protest camp was established at a different lawn just a few metres away.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n It was much bigger than before, having swelled from a small number of tents to a congested campsite, complete with buffet-style meals of donated food, live performances and a “security team” at the gate watching for infiltrators.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n A day later, another protest camp was set up just over 70 miles (112km) north-east of Columbia, at Yale University in Connecticut, another elite institution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n