At 4 am on April 17, 2024, roughly 100 students from New York’s Columbia University and Barnard College, Columbia’s women’s college, took to the “free speech green,” a special place on campus where students are permitted to express their opinions. The students came prepared, equipped with tents and provisions. Their goal is to hold the space until the University met their demands regarding the institution’s complicity in the ongoing U.S.-backed genocide of Palestine – not a radical goal, by any means, but one which may be escalated in future days. These are their demands, reproduced exactly [Editor’s Note: the press, in accordance with the PFLP guidelines, prefers not to use the term “Israeli” but has not changed it in these demands to ensure they are reported with accuracy.]:
1. Financial Divestment
Divest all of Columbia’s finances, including the endowment, from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine. Ensure accountability by increasing transparency around financial investments.
2. Academic Boycott
Sever academic ties with Israeli universities, including the Global Center in Tel Aviv, the Dual Degree Program with Tel Aviv University, and all study-abroad programs, fellowships, and research collaborations with Israeli academic institutions.
3. Stop the Displacement
No land grabs, whether in Harlem, Lenapehoking, or Palestine. Cease expansion, provide reparations, and support housing for low-income Harlem residents. No development by Columbia without real community Control.
4. No Policing On Campus
End the targeted repression of Palestinian students and their allies on and off campus, including through university disciplinary processes. Defund Public Safety and disclose and sever all ties with the NYPD.
5. End the Silence
Release a public statement calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza, denouncing the ongoing genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people, and call on government officials to do so too.
Columbia is the largest landowner in New York City. Its endowment totals $13.64 billion. The students of the encampment have compiled and distributed a chart showing how exactly Columbias Trustees directly profit from the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
The students of Columbia have learned the meaning of solidarity over the past year. During a Palestinian “divestment now” rally in January, two pro-apartheid students, both former terrorists in the Occupation Forces (IOF), attacked demonstrators using a chemical weapon. They sprayed activists with “Skunk,” a chemical developed by the zionist occupation and used for crowd control in the West Bank. As would be expected, the zionist NYPD has failed to make any arrests in connection with this attack. The school then took action against students who dissented against the genocide by “dismissing or removing five faculty members from the classroom, suspending 15 students and suspending two student groups — Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.”
The current protest began on April 17th. That same day, the campus administration threatened protesters with suspension and arrest, but no arrests were made. The University shut down the campus and blocked the entrances. They then called in the NYPD, who loomed in military equipment while hundreds of other students and community members stood in witness of their fellow classmates. Support protests for the encampment came together outside the school.
As Columbia’s ruling-class administrators called on the jackbooted NYPD, members of Congress were questioning the administration about reports of so-called “antisemitism” on campus. As is typical for zionists, the hearing was bloated with the tired and putrid stance that anti-zionism equates to antisemitism. “Inquiries” included the incredible question (which I am sad to inform you actually came out of a government official’s mouth in 2024) by Rick Allen (R-Ga.), asking “Are you familiar with Genesis 12:3?” Allen followed up stating “It was a covenant that God made with Abraham … If you bless Israel, I will bless you. If you curse Israel, I will curse you … Do you consider that a serious issue? I mean, do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God?” (The only consolation this writer currently has is that conservatives are at least saying the quiet part out loud. Though, these days it seems the most infuriating is watching Liberals feign concerned sincerity.)
School staff, who were primarily people of color and women, entered the encampment to try to negotiate its disbandment. This is not the first time we have seen the ruling class has chosen individuals from oppressed backgrounds and nations to use as a battering ram against their community. As professor Ruha Benjamin passionately stated in her recent Spelman Convocation 2024 speech: “Black faces in high places are not going to save us. Just look at the Black woman’s hand — [U.S. ] Ambassador at the UN — voting against a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Initially it seemed that Columbia was willing to work with students towards a resolution. After meeting with students, the administration agreed that it would provide financial transparency for investments with the University Senate executive committee.
On the encampment’s second day, rather than working with the students, the administration set the dogs of capital, the police, upon their students. In the morning three students received an email notifying them that Columbia had suspended them, evicted them, and that if they remained on campus they would be arrested for trespassing. By doing this, the University immediately deprived students of their housing, belongings, education, meal plans, and health insurance. This was all done in service to Colombia’s profitable relationship with the genocidal ethno-religious settler-colony called “israel.” In the letter to the NYPD, Minouche Shafik claims that “I have determined that the encampment and related disruptions pose a clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the University.”
Suspended students later received an email from Barnard’s CARES (Community Accountability, Response, and Emergency Services) that they had 15 minutes to gather their belongings.
It is worth noting that the mascots for capital acting as its agents in this showdown are the Muslim university president of Columbia, the Black mayor of NYC, and the Latino Chief of Police. Around 1pm the police descended on the encampment and arrested over 100 students and two NLG (National Lawyers Guild) Legal Observers while employees of the school took the student’s property and, in a move inspired by the state’s draconian treatment of houseless people, stomped on food and poured out water.
The NLG Legal Observers, recognizable by their neon green hats, are frequently present at protests. They attend protests as a neutral party that is there to monitor and document police behavior towards protestors.
Columbia Administration and the NYPD have made concerted efforts to block the press’s access to the students, leading to the Columbia School of Journalism posting the following on their Twitter: “If you are a credentialed member of the media and have been denied access to campus, please send us a DM [direct message]. We will facilitate access to campus.”
The students suspended by the school were identified by the University as “leaders” of the encampment — which raises the question of how a private institution identified them.
All this from a school that offers an M.A. in Human Rights and courses titled: Indigenous Rights and Settler Colonialism in North America, Children’s Rights Advocacy, Gender-Based Violence and Human Rights, Refugees, Citizenship, and Migration.
Columbia hosts a “Center for Palestine Studies” which includes an Edward Said Archival Collection housed in a special reading room, a lecture series, and a research fellowship in Edward Said’s name. Said, the author of Orientalism, was a world renowned Palestinian scholar and a lifelong advocate. Surely, he is rolling in his grave as his image is used to repress the fighters for Palestinian freedom.
The current protest echos other student movements at Columbia including an anti-racism and anti-Vietnam War protest in 1968 where students had a weeklong standoff with police. Students held the dean hostage for 24 hours. Cops eventually stormed the campus and arrested over 700 people. On April 4, 1985, “students chained closed the doors to Columbia’s administrative building, Hamilton Hall, and sat on the steps, blockading the entrance. They were there to protest the University’s investments in corporations that operated in Apartheid South Africa”. Within two hours 250 others joined the protest. On April 8th, with 5,000 students in attendance, Jesse Jackson made a speech at the encampment. The blockade lasted 21 days, ending on April 25th.
In another move of stunning cognitive dissonance, Columbia has this statement on its website about the 1968 protests:
“Columbia is a far different place today than it was in the spring of 1968 … The fallout dogged Columbia for years … Columbia now has one of the most socio-economically diverse student bodies among its peer institutions. It has added a new campus designed to be open to the community and pursues fields of inquiry unheard of a half-century ago. Columbia is commemorating the 50th anniversary of those long-ago events with a deep dive of scholarship and exhibits chronicling what happened then and its effects today.”
The police have used drones, helicopters, and hundreds of cops (derogatory) to surveil and detain peaceful students who in the words of NYPD Chief John Chell said the “clear and present danger” was identified by Columbia, not by the NYPD. The NYPD reported no violence or injuries associated with the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” “To put this in perspective, the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner,” Chell said.
By April 22, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment had Community Guidelines. Which are:
1. We all commit to remain grounded in why we enter this space — as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people facing the deadliest year in a 75 year long, U.S. (and Columbia) -funded, genocide of the Palestinian people.
2. No desecration of the land, no littering. Please pick up your trash.
3. We recognize our role as visitors, and for many of us, colonizers, on this land. We camp with an acute awareness that we do so on colonized Lenapehoking land, which after being ethnically cleansed of its Indigenous population has experienced subsequent waves of racist displacement, including most recently by Columbia University in the displacement of the Black and brown Harlem community.
4. No drug use/alcohol consumption inside the camp.
This may make people uncomfortable, increase risk of police targeting, and ultimately this camp exists in service of Palestine, and “partying” in such a space would be an offense to the cause that has brought us here. If people would like to smoke, they can do so outside of the lawn. We don’t want to police each other or each other’s patterns of substance use, but want to ensure that people feel comfortable in the space.
5. Respect personal boundaries — tight quarters are not an excuse to cross physical boundaries without Affirmative consent.
6. We commit to never photographing or videotaping another community member without their affirmative consent.
7. We commit to not share the names or details of anyone we meet in this camp space with someone in the administration as we realize they could be targeted and this could cause them great harm. We keep us safe, that includes refusing to comply with any demands if the NYPD, private investigators, or Columbia admin try to force us to disclose the identities of any of our fellow students!
8. We commit to assuming best intentions, granting ourselves and others grace when mistakes are made, and approaching conflict with the goal of addressing and repairing.
9. Please think of community members when making decisions about autonomous action. Not everyone has consented to the same levels of risk, but everyone will be affected by decisions that community members make.
10. We commit to not engaging with zionist counter-protestors. They seek to distract us, and we must remain steadfast and unified.
Cornell West, Susan Sarandon, Norman Finklestein, and Chris Smalls have all made appearances and encouraged the students. While encouraging, it is important that this movement remains self-governed and is not co-opted by outsiders and moderates.
Arresting over 100 students has backfired on Columbia. While the arrests were taking place, other students moved to a different campus lawn to set up a new encampment. Protests in solidarity with the students have spawned around New York City. The University of North Carolina launched their own encampment protest, as has Yale, Emerson College, MIT, Tuft University, U.C. Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. Miami University in Ohio held a solidarity demo. Boston and Harvard University held walkouts. Student actions continue to spring up all across the U.S. and have jumped the ocean to include similar actions in the U.K. and Australia.
In the face of intense state violence and academic sanctions the Columbia student’s encampment is still going strong. However, in order to achieve their aims and express true solidarity with Palestine, the encampment must escalate towards revolutionary militancy. This means occupying more than the designated lawn. Most importantly, the groups who organized the encampments must become politically organized, and form democratic committees to resist all co-option, capitulation, and destruction of the encampment. Only by becoming organized can the student movement forge itself into a weapon of revolutionary action, and deal the university administrators and the zionists a devastating blow.
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