‘Students are scared.’ Columbia crisis spirals as tensions simmer and protests continue
CNN
By Matt Egan and Chris Boyette, CNN
(CNN) — The turmoil at Columbia University ramped up on Monday as simmering tensions on campus halted in-person classes and officials scrambled to ease security fears.
The Ivy League school has become the epicenter of unrest on US college campuses, turmoil that spread to New York University as well as Yale University, where dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested Monday.
Security concerns are so significant that Columbia officials decided to make all classes virtual on Monday just as Passover begins. In a clear sign of the spiraling crisis, Columbia President Minouche Shafik announced the extraordinary step in a statement posted shortly after 1 am ET, citing a desire to “deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps.”
As the New York Police Department has built up a “large presence” around Columbia, New York Governor Kathy Hochul visited the campus to address security concerns.
“Students are scared,” Hochul said in a video posted on X. “They are afraid to walk on campus. They don’t deserve that.”
Even the president weighed in on Monday.
Asked about the situation at Columbia, President Joe Biden decried antisemitism on campus.
“I condemn the antisemitic protests,” Biden said.
Shafik is under pressure from all sides. Some faculty members are slamming her decision to call in the NYPD last week to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest even as others are demanding she invite police back to clear a revived encampment of protesters.
House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik and fellow New York Republicans wrote a letter to Shafik on Monday blaming her for the situation on campus and urging her to step down after less than a year at the helm of the prestigious university.
“Over the past few days, anarchy has engulfed the campus of Columbia University,” the lawmakers wrote.
Billionaire Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and a prominent Columbia graduate, called for school officials to immediately end the protests and suggested he is withholding donations to the university because he’s “no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff.”
“The school I love so much – the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity – is no longer an institution I recognize,” Kraft, founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken.”
Columbia spokesperson Samantha Slater responded to Kraft by telling CNN in a statement that the university is “grateful to Mr. Kraft for his years of generosity and service to Columbia.”
“This is a time of crisis for many members of our community and we are focused on providing the support they need while keeping our campus safe,” the Columbia spokesperson said.
But some Jewish students say they don’t feel safe at Columbia right now.
“The campus has been an absolute disaster over the last couple of days. Jewish students are extremely scared and extremely frightened,” Jacob Schmeltz, a senior at Columbia University, told CNN.
Schmeltz, vice president of the Jewish on Campus Student Union, said he decided to stay with family in New Jersey instead of celebrating Passover on campus as he has done at times in previous years.
“Jewish students have had enough and it’s gotten to the point that we feel safer off campus than on it,” he said.
Protests and counter protests continue
As Columbia students moved to virtual learning, scores of protesters were camped out on the university’s West Lawn Monday morning opposite the lawn where the original encampment took place.
More than a dozen tents were pitched and tables were stocked with supplies of clothes and food. Signs along the perimeter include ones reading, “End the siege on Gaza now” and “Welcome to the People’s University of Palestine.”
Meanwhile, pro-Israel protesters gathered outside the Columbia gates Monday morning, with some waving Israeli and American flags.
“This is happening at every US university. Jews are not safe anywhere on college campuses,” Shai Davidai, a Jewish Columbia Business School assistant professor, told the group of pro-Israel protesters.
Columbia officials said last week that Davidai is under investigation for harassment. Davidai told CNN he has never spoken against students by name, only “pro-Hamas” students organizations and professors.
Other faculty members at Columbia gave short speeches on campus on Monday voicing support for the campus protests and criticizing last week’s crackdown.
“The president’s decision to send riot police to pick up peaceful protesters on our campus was unprecedented, unjustified, disproportionate, divisive and dangerous,” said Columbia history professor Christopher Brown. “Thursday, April 18, 2024 will be remembered as a shameful day in Columbia history.”
Tensions spread to Yale, NYU
At Yale University, at least 45 people had been arrested — including some students – after police blocked off entrances during response to a protest at Hewitt Quadrangle & Beinecke Plaza, the school’s independent college newspaper, The Yale Daily News reported Monday morning.
“Cops have gathered at Beinecke Plaza, where pro-Palestine protesters urging Yale to divest from military weapons manufacturers set up tents overnight – the third night of their ongoing encampment,” the Yale Daily News said.
Journalists from the Yale Daily News were also threatened with arrest if they did not move from the plaza, according to reports.
CNN has reached out to Yale University administration, the Yale Police Department and the New Haven Police Department in Connecticut for more information.
Meanwhile, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside NYU’s Stern School of Business on Monday, with some pro-Israel students waving Israeli flags across the street.
Some of the pro-Palestinian protesters 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.
Tensions at many universities have been high ever since the October 7 terror attack on Israel by Hamas. However, the situation at Columbia escalated in recent days after university officials testified before Congress last week about antisemitism on campus and pro-Palestinian protests on and near campus surged.
Shafik said Columbia officials in the coming days will “try to bring this crisis to a resolution,” including by continuing discussions with protesters and exploring actions that can be taken.
As the situation has unfolded, Shafik has faced new calls for her resignation, and a rabbi linked to the university even urged Jewish students to stay home due to concerns about their safety as Passover, a major Jewish holiday, is set to begin Monday evening.
The safety of Columbia’s community is “our number one priority,” a university spokesperson told CNN in a statement Sunday.
“We are acting on concerns we are hearing from our Jewish students and are providing additional support and resources to ensure that our community remains safe,” the statement added.
Rabbi Elie Buechler, a rabbi associated with Columbia University’s Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, confirmed to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday he sent a WhatsApp message to a group of about 300 mostly Orthodox Jewish students “strongly” recommending they return home and remain there.
In his message, Buechler wrote recent events at the university “have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety.”
“It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved,” the message reads.
The campus Hillel said in a Sunday post on X they “do not believe that Jewish students should leave” the campus, but that the university and City of New York must act to protect students from harassment.
Hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman, a prominent Columbia University donor, offered support for the Ivy League school’s embattled president even as he continues to blast students protesting against Israel.
“My view is that finally they are doing the right thing at the school…The administration is now responding properly,” Cooperman told CNN in a phone interview on Monday. “The president is now saying the right things.”
However, Cooperman, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, doubled down on his recent criticism of student protesters.
“These kids are f***ing crazy. They don’t understand what they’re doing or what they’re talking about,” he told CNN.
A group called the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine posted a statement on social media on Monday saying the movement has been “peaceful” and expressing frustration with “media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us.”
“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry,” the statement said.
Student: I’m ‘terrified, angry, upset’
“If I had my child at Columbia, I also would tell them to go home,” Hagar Chemali, an adjunct associate professor of international and public affairs at the university, told CNN Monday. “It’s not just because of the tension on campus, it’s also because those protests on campus have invited extremists outside.”
Organizers of the campus protest – Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine – said in a statement, “We have been peaceful,” and distanced themselves from non-student protesters who have gathered outside the campus, calling them “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us.”
“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students – Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country,” the activists’ statement continued.
Columbia student Noah Lederman told CNN he was “terrified, angry, upset, and horrified that the university failed to take action.” Lederman said he had been accosted in early February and had asked the university for remote learning options. “What’s happening on campus is blatantly antisemitic,” he added.
“Columbia students organizing in solidarity with Palestine – including Jewish students – have faced harassment, doxxing, and now arrest by the NYPD. These are the main threats to the safety of Jewish Columbia students,” Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a PhD student, told CNN.
“On the other hand, student protesters have led interfaith joint prayers for several days now, and Passover Seder will be held at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment tomorrow,” he went on. “Saying that student protesters are a threat to Jewish students is a dangerous smear.”
Demonstrations are also taking place at other campuses. Pro-Palestinian students at Emerson College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology set up protest encampments as an act of solidarity with students at Columbia University, according to The Boston Globe. Solidarity rallies have also taken place at Yale, Harvard, the University of North Carolina, and Boston University.
Crisis is a test for Columbia’s new president
The crisis at Columbia amounts to a massive test for Shafik, who took the helm of the university less than a year ago.
Following a disastrous hearing on campus antisemitism before Congress in December, the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania came under enormous pressure and both resigned.
Shafik testified to the House Education Committee on the same subject last Wednesday, and the protests on campus have escalated in the days since, prompting Republican committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx to warn university leaders of consequences if they do not rein in the protests.
“Columbia’s continued failure to restore order and safety promptly to campus constitutes a major breach of the University’s Title VI obligations, upon which federal financial assistance is contingent, and which must immediately be rectified,” Foxx wrote in a letter.
As Passover begins Monday, Jewish student organizations have increased security for their upcoming events and services.
Police will be present at the Kraft Center, a Jewish cultural center shared by Columbia and Barnard College, throughout Passover, and students will be able to get walking escorts to and from the building starting Monday, according to an email from Brian Cohen, the center’s executive director.
Chabad, another Jewish organization at the university, said they are still planning on hosting Passover celebrations but have hired additional security to protect students.
CNN’s Elizabeth Wolfe, Paradise Afshar, Caroll Alvarado, Shimon Prokupecz and John Towfighi contributed to this report.
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