Columbia University president under fire for crackdown on pro-Palestine stir

Columbia’s embattled president came under renewed pressure on Friday as a university oversight panel sharply criticised her administration for clamping down on a pro-Palestinian protest, saying the decision ran “contrary to the norms and traditions” of the Ivy League school.

President Nemat Minouche Shafik has faced an outcry from many students, faculty and outside observers for summoning New York police to campus on April 18 to dismantle an encampment of tents set up by protesters against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

After a two-hour meeting on Friday, the Columbia University Senate approved a resolution asserting that Shafik’s administration had undermined academic freedom and disregarded the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty members by calling in the police and shutting down the protest.

“The decision … has raised serious concerns about the administration’s respect for shared governance and transparency in the university decision-making process,” it said.

The senate, composed mostly of faculty members and other staff, plus a few students, did not specifically name Shafik in its resolution, avoiding harsher wording that could have put her job in greater jeopardy.

There was no immediate response to the resolution from Shafik or the university.

Police arrested more than 100 people that day and removed the tents from the main lawn of the school’s Manhattan campus, but the protesters quickly returned and set up tents again, narrowing Columbia’s options on dismantling it.

Since then, hundreds of protesters have been arrested at schools from California to Boston as students set up encampments similar to the one at Columbia, demanding that their schools divest from companies involved in Israel’s military.

Like-minded protests against Israel’s actions have spread overseas, as well, with tensions flaring on Friday in front of the prestigious Sciences Po university in Paris as pro-Israeli protesters came to challenge pro-Palestinian students occupying the building. Police had to move in to keep the two sides apart.

The White House has defended free speech on campus, but Democratic President Joe Biden denounced “antisemitic protests” this week and stressed that campuses must be safe.

Some Republicans in Congress have accused Shafik and other university administrators of being too soft on protesters and allowing Jewish students to be harassed on their campuses.

After failing to squelch the protests two weeks ago, Columbia administrators turned to negotiating with students, so far without success. The school has set two deadlines for an agreement this week – the latest at 4 a.m. on Friday – both of which came and went without a deal being struck.

“The talks have shown progress and are continuing as planned,” Shafik’s office wrote in a brief email to the university community late on Thursday night. “We have our demands; they have theirs. A formal process is under way and continues.”

The president of the University of Texas at Austin, Jay Hartzell, faced a similar backlash from faculty on Friday, two days after he joined with Republican Governor Greg Abbott in calling in police to break up a pro-Palestinian protest.

Dozens of protesters were taken into custody, but charges against all of them were eventually dropped because authorities lacked probable cause – or reasonable grounds – for making the arrests, the Travis County Attorney’s office said.

Nearly 200 members of the faculty at the university signed a letter dated April 25, saying they have no confidence in Hartzell after he “needlessly put students, staff and faculty in danger” when hundreds of officers clad in riot gear and on horseback swept away the protests.

Hartzell said he made the decision on grounds that protest organisers aimed to “severely disrupt” the campus for a long period.
The clash in Texas was one of many that broke out this week between demonstrators and police summoned by university leaders, who say encampments constitute unauthorised protests, jeopardise the safety of students, and at times, subject Jewish students to antisemitism and harassment.

Civil rights groups have condemned the arrests and urged authorities to respect free speech rights. The activists behind the protests blame any hostile behaviour on outsiders seeking to hijack the movement.

While Columbia remains the epicentre of the student protest movement, the national spotlight has shifted to other campuses – from the University of Southern California (USC) to Atlanta’s Emory University and Boston’s Emerson College – nearly every day this week. USC this week cancelled its main May 10 graduation ceremony, saying newly required security measures would have placed excessive delays on crowd control.

On Friday, about 200 protesters gathered at George Washington University, a few blocks from the White House, carrying “Free Palestine” posters, wearing black and white Palestinian keffiyehs and chanting slogans.

“We will pursue disciplinary actions against the GW students involved in these unauthorised demonstrations that continue to disrupt university operations,” the university said.

Authorities also began making arrests at a protest encampment at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, on Friday.

A livestream by the organiser showed dozens of demonstrators setting up tents on lawns on campus. Police moved in within half an hour, telling protesters could stay if they didn’t have tents.

California’s Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata said it had shut down its campus through the weekend and moved all classes online, as protesters continued a weeklong occupation of a school building.