Cops to remain on Ivy League campus until after graduations
What in the World, a free weekly newsletter from our foreign correspondents, is sent every Thursday. Below is an excerpt. Sign up to get the whole newsletter delivered to your inbox.
Greetings from New York.
I am standing outside Columbia University, just a day after 119 people were arrested for breaking into a campus building as part of a national student uprising over the atrocities in Gaza.
Police walk on the UCLA campus, after nighttime clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups.Credit: AP
It’s eerily calm compared to the chaos of the previous night, when police in riot gear stormed this storied institution to remove protesters and clear an encampment that had become a focal point for a vexed debate over the Israel-Hamas war and the limits of free speech.
An elderly man wearing a Make America Great Again cap is on the footpath, holding up a sign with a hangman’s noose attached to the corner, lamenting the “liberal biased news media”.
A few meters away, a large group of police are stationed next to barricades as security guards check the ID of every person trying to enter the college, to make sure members of the public can’t get inside.
And standing near the university gates on the corner of Broadway and 116th Street is undergraduate Suleyman Ahmed, dressed in a light blue graduation cap and gown and holding a handmade sign reading: “Cops Off Campus”.
“I didn’t really take a stand for one side or the other when it came to the encampment,” says Ahmed, who was born in India and lives in a dormitory at Columbia.
“But I do feel like it’s really important to recognise the role that having so many police on campus has, in terms of making students of colour feel unsafe.”
It’s a valid concern. The sight of law enforcement officers in and around the campus is somewhat jarring at a prestigious Ivy League college such as Columbia University, even with its history of activism over the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.
Columbia student Suleyman Ahmed in his graduation robe at the university in New York on Thursday.Credit: Farrah Tomazin
Now the fight is over the war in Gaza and divestment. Across the US, and in Australia too, students are demanding their universities sever ties to Israel, including selling off shares and investments that support Israel and weapons manufacturing.
Nonetheless, Columbia’s embattled president Minouche Shafik has asked police to remain beyond graduation in mid-May to prevent more conflict. In a letter to staff, she said the takeover of Hamilton Hall earlier this week had “pushed the University to the brink, creating a disruptive environment for everyone and raising safety risks to an intolerable level”.
“I know I speak for many members of our community in saying that this turn of events has filled me with deep sadness,” wrote Shafik, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England.
“I am sorry we reached this point.”
Duelling groups of protesters clashing at the University of California in Los Angeles.Credit: AP
A heavy police presence is now a feature of many other American universities too, after violent clashes and arrests across the country.
At the University of California, Los Angeles, police were stationed on campus on Wednesday following a night of chaos between pro-Palestine demonstrators and counterprotesters, during which fireworks were lit, objects thrown and pepper spray was used by campers to defend their space.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, police officers moved in to disassemble an encampment that had sprung up on Monday.
And at Fordham University’s Lincoln Centre campus, police wearing helmets and carrying batons arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators, making it the third higher education institution in New York to face mass arrests in 24 hours.
New York Mayor Eric Adams says he must balance the right to free speech with public safety.Credit: AP
While some view the police operations as heavy-handed, New York Mayor Eric Adams insisted they were necessary given the growing threat to public safety and the risk of “outside agitators” hijacking what were meant to be peaceful protests.
This is what happened at Columbia, he said, where “we saw evidence of training and we saw a shift in tactics that were being used.
“In open debate, we will always protect the right to protest, but we must balance the right with keeping students, the school, and our city safe,” he told reporters.
Others, like Columbia teacher Brad Pitcher, have a somewhat different view.
Faculty and staff march on the UCLA campus, after nighttime clashes between Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestinian groups. Credit: AP
Prior to the occupation of Hamilton Hall, Pitcher says, the pro-Palestine encampment had been “totally peaceful” and “at no time did I, personally, witness antisemitic speech or anything hateful”, although he is aware of students who wanted to leave before the end of term because they “were starting to feel uncomfortable as things started to escalate”.
And while he acknowledges that the occupation was “a final step over the line” for the university bosses, “they were waiting for any final step over the line so they could use that for NYPD to come in”.
“Myself and many other faculty here at the university did not agree with allowing NYPD to come in and meddle in this situation,” the science teacher tells me on his way to class.
“I think a much better way to have dealt with this is to actually speak to students, try to have an open dialogue and try to meet halfway.”
That moment has clearly passed. The big question now is how much more the tensions over Gaza will escalate at Columbia or other any other campus across the US.
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.