President Trump’s administration ought to yank federal funding from Columbia College and Barnard School, advocates urged Thursday — arguing the elite Manhattan faculties haven’t performed sufficient to guard Jewish college students, together with throughout disruptive and at instances violent campus protests.
Along with pulling funding, advocacy group StopAntisemitism referred to as for the Justice Division to take motion to curtail future campus disruptions, together with by launching an investigation into the College students for Justice in Palestine group.
“The college administration has fully failed to guard Jewish and Israeli college students, school, and employees, permitting a hostile and harmful atmosphere to fester unchecked,” StopAntisemitism’s govt director, Liora Rez, wrote in a letter to Leo Terrell, who’s helming the Trump admin’s new process power to fight antisemitism.
Columbia obtained some $1.3 billion in federal grants in 2024 alone, accounting for round 20% of its working price range, in keeping with the Columbia Each day Spectator, the Ivy League college’s pupil newspaper.
The letter additionally calls on the DOJ to revoke visas and deport international college students engaged in violent protests on campus, and maintain faculty directors accountable for permitting the “lawlessness” to proceed.
The plea adopted an SJP-organized protest at Barnard’s Milbank Corridor Wednesday, by which a faculty safety guard was assaulted, officers stated.
An unruly mob of anti-Israel protesters took over the faculty constructing corridor to protest the expulsion of a pair of masked college students who stormed a Columbia class on fashionable Israel in January and tossed round antisemitic leaflets.
By Thursday afternoon, the protests reignited, with round 100 anti-Israel demonstrators gathering in entrance of the doorway to Barnard, as soon as once more clad in masks and keffiyehs and chanting “free Palestine” and “one resolution, intifada revolution” whereas calling out the $66,000-per-year personal faculty with slogans like “your fingers are soiled” and “you help genocide.”
A bunch of Jewish college students stood close by displaying Israel flags as a counter-protest.
“I believe it’s completely horrifying. They’re chanting in Arabic ‘from water to water Palestine will likely be Arab.’ They don’t seem to be calling for peace and compassion and human rights. They’re calling for violence,” Joshua Shain, 21, a Columbia junior advised The Submit.
“These should not the values of the good establishment of Columbia. These should not American values.”
Shain stated Columbia was dealing with the protests higher than it did final 12 months’s main unrest — however that extra nonetheless wanted to be performed.
“We’re paying all this cash in tuition, to not point out the federal and metropolis taxes. The faculty and town are speculated to guarantee that everyone seems to be secure. The place is that cash going? They [protesters] put a person within the hospital for making an attempt to maintain order. What’s being performed?” he stated.
“I don’t assume any Jewish college students are secure.”
Barnard freshman Eliana Birman, who’s Jewish, stated she used to stroll round campus with “my head held excessive,” proudly sporting her Star of David necklace and canine tags. However as a result of extended unrest, she now feels “very anxious” about such innocent shows.
“I form of simply need to have the ability to get again to some extent the place I’m capable of be myself with out being afraid,” she stated.
“I got here to Barnard as a result of everybody has such sturdy opinions and everybody feels comfy utilizing their voice, however it’s gotten to some extent the place individuals are scared to talk up and other people have to cover what they assume and what they really feel and and who they’re for the sake of being secure,” she continued.
“I don’t assume that that’s a productive studying atmosphere for anyone.”
Throughout Wednesday’s occupation, legislation enforcement sources stated round 20 college students pushed a 41-year-old campus safety officer to the bottom as they barged into the historic tutorial constructing. The sufferer was transported to close by Mount Sinai Morningside hospital complaining of chest pains.
The Transport Employees Union, which represents the injured officer, stated he was “pinned” by the dashing crowd towards a beam, and that one protester “lowered his shoulder and slammed into [him] like a linebacker.”
“Within the eyes of a few of these trust-fund child ideologues, harming the blue-collar TWU workforce at Barnard is seen as acceptable collateral injury of their quest to advance their political trigger,” TWU Worldwide President John Samuelsen stated within the assertion, calling for the culprits to be investigated and prosecuted.
Regardless of vowing to proceed protesting till their calls for had been met — which included reinstating the expelled college students and “amnesty” for these concerned in final summer time’s widespread campus protests — the mass of scholars left Milbank Corridor simply earlier than 10:40 p.m. Wednesday.
“The masked protesters left Milbank Corridor after receiving remaining written discover and being knowledgeable that Barnard could be pressured to think about extra obligatory measures to guard the campus if they didn’t go away on their very own,” Barnard School’s vice chairman for strategic communications Robin Levine stated in an announcement Thursday morning.
“No guarantees of amnesty had been made, and no concessions had been negotiated,” Levine stated of the decision of the earlier night time’s fracas.
The group marched to close by Riverside Park — earlier than returning to the entrance gates of the varsity Thursday to proceed their efforts.
The Basis for Particular person Rights and Expression, or FIRE, a nonprofit that advocates totally free speech on faculty campuses nationwide, stated in an announcement that the Milbank takeover was something however.
“What occurred at Barnard final night time was, by all accounts, not peaceable protest. Campuses want to attract a tough line: full help for peaceable pupil protest on even essentially the most divisive political points, and 0 tolerance for misconduct, violence, or criminality,” the assertion from Vice President Alex Morey learn partly.
“The buck stops with directors. Barnard wants to teach college students on these primary distinctions and be clear-eyed when it’s time to implement guidelines that preserve audio system secure on campus.”
Columbia, Barnard and the DOJ didn’t return requests for remark Thursday.
— Extra reporting by Joe Marino
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