Demonstrators supporting Palestinians in Gaza barricade themselves inside Hamilton Hall, where the office of the Dean is located, on 30 April 2024 in New York City. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched at 14:00, and the deadline to clear the encampment given to students by the university came and went. The students were given a suspension warning if they did not meet the deadline. Students at Columbia were the first from an elite college to erect an encampment, demanding that the school divest from Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war, in which more than 34 000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip. (Alex Kent / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
- Columbia University began suspending students involved in
pro-Palestinian protests after they ignored an ultimatum to disperse - The protests, which have spread across the US, have
sparked debates over free speech, anti-Semitism, and campus safety. - Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced
the breakdown of talks, highlighting that many Jewish students found the campus
atmosphere intolerable.
Student
demonstrators at Columbia University, the epicentre of pro-Palestinian protests
that have erupted at US colleges, began to be suspended on Monday after defying
an ultimatum to disperse.
Authorities
at the prestigious university in New York demanded that the protest encampment
be cleared by 14:00 (1800 GMT) or students would face disciplinary action.
“These
repulsive scare tactics mean nothing compared to the deaths of over 34 000
Palestinians,” said a statement read out by a student at a press
conference after the deadline.
“We
will not move until Columbia meets our demands or… are moved by force,”
said the student, who would not give his name.
A few hours
later, Columbia vice president of communications Ben Chang said the university
had “begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts
to ensure safety on our campus.”
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He said the
students had been warned they would be “placed on suspension, ineligible
to complete the semester or graduate, and will be restricted from all academic,
residential, and recreational spaces.”
Meanwhile,
at the University of Texas at Austin, police clashed with protesters and made
arrests while dismantling an encampment, adding to the more than 350 people
detained across the United States over the weekend.
“No
encampments will be allowed,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on social
media Monday afternoon.
“Instead,
arrests are being made.”
Protests
against the Gaza war, with its high Palestinian civilian death toll, have posed
a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights
with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and hate.
For almost
two weeks, a wave of protests against Israel’s war in Gaza has swept through US
university campuses from coast to coast after around 100 protesters were
arrested at Columbia on 18 April.
Footage of
police in riot gear summoned at various colleges to break up rallies have been
viewed around the world, recalling the protest movement that erupted during the
Vietnam War.
Talks break down
Columbia
University president Minouche Shafik, in a statement Monday announcing that
talks had broken down, said, “many of our Jewish students, and other
students as well, have found the atmosphere intolerable in recent weeks.
“Many
have left campus, and that is a tragedy.”
“Anti-Semitic
language and actions are unacceptable and calls for violence are simply
abhorrent,” she said.
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Protest organisers
deny accusations of anti-Semitism, arguing that their actions are aimed at the
Israeli government and its prosecution of the conflict in Gaza.
They also
insist some incidents have been engineered by non-student agitators.
With the
school year wrapping up, administrators are also pointing to the need to
maintain order on campus for exam studies.
“One
group’s rights to express their views cannot come at the expense of another
group’s right to speak, teach and learn,” Shafik said.
One
graduate student protester, who asked to be identified only as “Z,”
said: “It’s finals week, everyone is still working on their finals, I
still have finals to do.”
“But
at the end of the day, school is temporary,” the protester told AFP.
President
Joe Biden’s White House has also attempted to walk a fine line of defending the
right to protest while condemning reported acts of anti-Semitism.
“We
get that it is a painful moment that Americans are dealing with, and free
expression has to be done within the law,” Press Secretary Karine
Jean-Pierre said Monday.
However,
Biden’s Republican opponents have seized on the issue, casting the protests as
anti-Semitic and threatening to pull federal funding if they aren’t stopped.
READ | White House urges ‘peaceful’ pro-Palestinian campus protests after hundreds arrested
“What
continues to transpire at Columbia is an utter disgrace. The campus is being
overrun by anti-Semitic students and faculty alike,” House Speaker Mike
Johnson said Monday on X, reiterating his call for Shafik to resign.
The Gaza
war started when Hamas militants staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on 7
October that left around 1 170 people dead, according to an AFP tally of
Israeli official figures.
Palestinian
militants also took roughly 250 people hostage. Israel estimates 129 remain in
Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.
Israel’s
retaliatory offensive has killed almost 34 500 people in Gaza, mostly women and
children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.