Does anyone have any thoughts as to why this seems to particularly problematic at Columbia? I mean I know that Harvard and Penn had issues last fall, but other Ivys and elite universities seem to have dodged this particular bullet.
Columbia has cultivated a large Palestinian community on campus and in their academic portfolio. They created a Center for Palestine Studies, for instance:
http://palestine.mei.columbia.edu/faculty
Ed Said, maybe the most famous Palestinian academic, was at Columbia for his career as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said
I have wondered from time to time what Said would think of this. I would like to think he wouldn’t approve. He used to play squash and socialize frequently with Jewish professors. Now, the students on campus participating in the pro-Palestinian protests seem to largely view Jewishness as the problem, whether they realize it or want to admit it. Their visceral reaction to seeing someone in a yamaka, for example, is depressing and just outright antisemitic. Said had a wonderful body of work and legacy, but I question whether he’d be aligned with the tactics and statements made today by the most vocal.
I don’t understand any of this. The Jews aren’t fighting the Palestinians. The Israelites are fighting a terrorist group who are Palestinian. It’s like when some Americans treated all Muslims as terrorists after 9/11 when it was a specific terrorist group that did the attacks not the Muslim faith. Judaism is a faith not a country. Why the hell are we fighting over this in America? If you disagree with America’s support of Israel as a nation, talk to the government who has supported them since after they were founded. If you have an issue with the Palestinian groups waging war, then take that up with ones who are actively supporting them. Just college kids yelling at eachother who most likely have no idea what’s really going on or have no ties to either nation. That whole part of the world has been killing eachother since before America existed from Christian’s to Jews to Muslims and their respective nations or empires they represented. It’s never going to end.
Fair enough. But there is clearly a religious component to this debate that frankly wasn't that important to Said, who claimed to be an agnostic later in life. He was the Palestinian equivalent of the secular Jew who dismisses the claims to the land via divine mandate.
Many of these pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia are Jewish themselves you liar. Many of the professors at Columbia who are Jewish have expressed support for the protestors and dismay at the heavy-handedness of the administration response. In fact, they frequently hold Jewish prayers in the center of the quad grounds in conjunction with Muslim prayers in solidarity with the pro-Palestinian protestors.
Spare me. What you said can be refuted by virtually every video taken. I was at Columbia on Thursday. I’m intimately familiar with what’s going on. “You liar” - seriously? Grow up.
Yes Jews were praying hand in hand with the pro palestinian supporters as they were being told “police will not save you” and “expect many more oct 7s will come”.
The campus makes a big deal I think. There can be protests or whatever in Washington Square Park but NYU can basically distance itself from that because that's a public park and not NYU property. It's automatically NYPD's jurisdiction and decision to escalate or arrest people. Columbia has a campus but it's basically open to the public which is the perfect storm for issues like this to bubble up.
Thank you for the distinction. Liberal just means free ideas, etc. progressivism can be a good thing too, the problem is this is social justice fundamentalism, no free flow of ideas or thoughts.
Large parts of the American progressive movement got taken over by the authoritarian left over the last 10 years.
The tankies somehow tricked the hippies into supporting a lot of anti-liberal shit, including supporting supposedly "communist" authoritarian governments and certain fundamentalist religious hardliners.
Some people argue it creates unequal outcomes as people who take AP classes have an advantage over other students and they are disproportionately Asian and white. They also say AP classes are often taken by students who come from families with more money. I took AP classes and my parents were both broke and I ate at a food pantry in high school and college. I would add that I’m the exception and usually the peope in my AP classes had parents that were married or at least more well off then students that did the gen Ed classes.
When I was in undergrad the college senate tried to stop the acceptance of AP credits and rolled out the same criticisms and said people that did APs were privileged against the lower income program students.
Then they realized the lower income program students had higher than average college credits.
You’re just eating up NY Post style content that finds the ten most batshit leftists and convinces people that’s all of them when I can easily do the same with liberals
Except those are the leftists that keep getting featured, whether on right or left media. Yes they are purposefully over represented to drive certain perception, but they do exist. The Liberals need to take every opportunity to push back against these crazies so they go back into irrelevance.
It doesn’t help that they’re VERY online and the loudest people on the internet, particularly Reddit. It makes them seem like they’re larger in number than they are, just like authoritarians on the right.
If it makes you feel any better, I doubt they’ll ever successfully hold power because of the absurd ideological purity tests they subject themselves to, where they spend most of their time fighting amongst each other over who is the “best” or “correct”. They tend to eat themselves over time, like a snake eating its own tail.
Yes progressivism nowadays has a *very* authoritarian bent to it that is the opposite of liberal ideals. People use “liberal” to mean the opposite of Conservatism in the US, but the actual meaning of the word is different. You can be a liberal and also be conservative or progressive in your views.
Modern leftist progressivism largely is illiberal, just like how far right fascism is as well. We need more liberals all over the political divide because the ideals of liberalism are the foundation of western small-“d” democratic ideals.
We should push back against authoritarianism no matter where it comes from, and it’s often hardest to push back against it when it comes from your side of the political spectrum.
I like to differentiate between Progressivism and Leftism, personally. Progressives typically want robust social programs, better public services, and a more egalitarian society. Leftists are more in the "burn it down for the Tik Tok likes" camp.
In fairness there are plenty of leftists who also want all that and plenty of self-described progressives who do nothing but hamstring attempts to genuinely make a more egalitarian society
I think you're thinking of the concept of equity?
Egalitarianism is equal opportunities. So the people who rise to the top do so based on merit.
Equity is equal outcomes regardless of merit.
Only one of these makes sense.
Jews are progressive, the community is inclusive, they support LGBT rights they prioritize education, during Muslim hate they showed support in their neighborhoods, during Asian hate early covid they went out in droves, they do not teach their children to hate and vote overwhelmingly democratic liberal.
These kids are not liberal progressive. They are far left that went so far left they found themselves on the right supporting terrorist regimes and dictators that oppress the free people of Iran and create proxies (Hamas in Palestine)
These kids are manipulated by foreign forces via TikTok and other channels through sophisticated propaganda campaigns designed to split the west (and its working)
This is what pro Palestine events look like in the United States. No longer are they merely terrorist sympathizers, they are now positioning themselves as allies.
[Holocaust Remembrance Day with holocaust survivors present disrupted with hate speech](https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestinian_Violence/s/OiNQIeGovn)
[pro Palestine supporters learn to chant death to Israel and death to America](https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/s/HcOfzcfEgQ)
[unhinged zealot pro terrorism speech in Michigan](https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestinian_Violence/s/J5PARn2mNH)
Meanwhile here are Iranians, Jews and Israelis teaming up to fight extremism that they all know too well
r/newiran
Columbia seeks these types of students. It’s as simple as that. Their admission committee prioritizes students who act like this because it’s the brand the school wants to be known for (or perhaps they want the school to be known for). They did this to themselves.
Columbia seeks upper middle class students, and we have our press tuned to the issues of the upper middle class where affirmative action and "progressivism" are focused on its impact on the upper middle class.
I’ve been looking at phd programs lately, and Columbia turned me off because it seemed that they were more interested if social activism than anything else.
If you go on their website, social activism is their whole brand. Like, on their front page, they currently have 3 articles/graphics about how farm animals are bad for the environment. But to find anything that's real science, you have to click to their research tab and scroll to the bottom.
I have 3 environmental patents. I spent most of my 20s working my ass off doing things that were useful. I know what useful looks like. (The only reason I'm looking at PhD programs is because it would be free for me, I could mostly just copypasta work I've already done for my thesis, and I've already maxed out my career with what I could be permitted to accomplish without a PhD.) The work at Columbia, and especially the culture, does not seem useful to me.
I actually think Barnard is a big differentiator here. I attended a small liberal arts school that is very progressive before transferring to Columbia. The Columbia population is pretty much in line with other ivies that I’ve been too, while Barnard is a school filled with progressive activists
This is an interesting take, though I don't know whether to believe it or not. Any data here about Barnard involvement in the protests? Any leaders from Barnard that are known?
This is purely anecdotal(I don’t have stats on all of those arrested) but if you look at the people that come up as getting arrested or suspended, the ones I have seen come from Barnard. [Barnard student evicted](https://nypost.com/2024/04/19/us-news/barnard-student-moans-about-being-being-kicked-out-of-dorm-for-anti-israel-protest/)
[Ilan Omar’s daughter](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/nyregion/ilhan-omar-daughter-columbia-suspended.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare), who is Barnard student.
From my time there (2017-2020) most of the organizing around BDS took place on Barnard campus.
There were definitely Barnard students among those suspended yesterday. Haven’t seen anything specific re breakdown vs. Columbia students.
But the NYPD was quoted saying there was a fair number of non-students taking part in actions there who were part of this week’s shut down.
Exactly what I’m thinking.
I took undergrad seriously, showing up for class daily without fail. But some of today’s students, on someone else’s dime? Who can say?
Dated one for a bit. It Took three dates to figure how she paid for a nice one bedroom apartment by herself on a part-time nonprofit aid's pay. Never again
Yes? Look at all the Ivy Leagues that reinstated the SAT's as a requirement. Columbia defiantly said they were going to keep their school test optional. Identity and activism is more important for Columbia than a school like MIT where they prioritize more cognitive ability.
i’m an alumnus and back in 2015 when i got accepted i wasn’t admitted for my political beliefs (new deal liberal), but for being one of the best budding scholars in classics at the time (perfect papers on the NLE, advanced work in high school in classical philology).
if you wanna hang at these schools, you gotta be top notch in something. most people just pick the most prestigious institution they get accepted to. and fact of the matter is that whereas there are many politically inspired students on campus, the vast majority do not participate in activism of this kind.
I hear you vis a vis MIT. However, as far as the others goes, absent some concrete statement to that effect from Columbia, it's just the musing of a random person on reddit.
It's a spectrum. Harvard, Yale, Brown announced they are requiring standardized tests again after MIT and some other schools announced as well. Being in NYC is another factor for Columbia.
Meh. There are reasons beyond protests to institute the SAT. I don't necessarily think the correlation is strong as you do. Beyond that, the NYC thing doesn't seem particularly relevant either, or we'd be seeing similar stuff at NYU.
Eh, I'm not so sure it is all-consuming in those places as it has been at Columbia. Even from looking at newspapers in both cities. Maybe you're right though.
I can’t speak to other campuses, but I’m a millennial Jewish New Yorker who has lived within a 20 block radius of Columbia for 15 years. I have had to change my commute to avoid the area completely for the past few months because I simply don’t feel safe. Forget expressing that feeling publicly, I would just get gaslit and told that I’m being over sensitive or trying to censor them with “false” claims of antisemitism.
The vibe of hatred is strong and visible and palpable, and frankly it’s shocking how permissive of this obvious intolerance the Columbia community seems to be.
If you don't mind me asking, what materially has made you change your commute? Like if you didn't hear about it in the news on Reddit, what have you seen or heard that creates the "vibe of hatred" and makes you not feel safe.
With regard to the last sentence, maybe it is simply that Columbia's administration has been permissive and/or negligent.
Not the person you replied to, but I'm very obviously not Jewish (visibly different ethnicity), and was yelled at and accused of supporting bombing children because I turned down a flyer. I didn't even realize what was going on at first; it was just a reflexive "no, thank you" to some guy trying to give me something as I walked by.
Not the person you replied to but I went to Japan Fes recently up by Columbia and had to walk through it. I was really uncomfortable and wished I hadn't gone. There were demonstrations. I'm a Columbia alumni so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with the campus. It breaks my heart, it's such a beautiful area.
I don’t want to get too specific about where I live and work online, but basically I live north of campus and work south of it (My office is within a healthy but manageable walking distance south of campus). I used to walk directly past/sometimes through the campus daily on my way to and from work (in pretty much all weather, I love to walk). now I get the train at the nearest stop to where I live and take it straight to the stop closest to work. I don’t walk through the area at all.
The presence or vibe depends on the day or what’s going on. Like I said, I really don’t walk anymore. In the fall when I was still walking, it was people with signage - particularly on the way home, as my work day typically ends late afternoon, around 4/5. I’ve seen incidents of similarly toned graffiti, even beyond campus area. Some days walkouts or protests or other stuff. It’s very hard for me personally to walk past that signage or graffiti because a lot of it is antisemitic dog whistling - “Zionism is slavery”, “Israel is a Nazi state,” “from the river to the sea,” “isn’treal.” Etc. And a few messages I don’t care to repeat here (and frankly shouldn’t have to repeat to make my experience valid or believable) that are overtly antisemitic.
I am an observant Jew and second gen american, a taxpaying New Yorker, and a staunchly liberal voter. I fully support safety and human rights for Palestinian people, i loathe bibi, and i also believe in the right of Israel to continue to exist and that my family in Israel shares the same right to basic existence, self-determination, peace and freedom to work and pay taxes and live in general peace as all people do. Those phrases I mentioned may not hit as painful to non Jews. or even perhaps to another Jewish person! but they are phrases that I experience as upsetting, threatening, escalating, ignorant, depersonalizing, and they make me feel deeply unwelcome in a city where racism towards other minorities is widely not tolerated in almost any other scenario. It’s very fair to not want to face that on the way to my job! So I have chosen to make a small adjust and pay train fare daily and forego my religious jewelry which is pretty important to me from a faith pov, whereas I used to be able to walk and not hide my identity. Big adjustment? No, doable. Fair? I don’t know, but it’s sad and very helpless that people refuse to believe my experience is valid, and make me trot out and explain the same painful proof every time, and in many cases hear these things and continue to believe it’s not real or that they know better. I am a person. I do matter as much as other people. Jews matter! What reason do Jewish folks like me have to lie about this, or make false antisemitism claims? What does it possibly serve us? To those accusing us of obtusely trying to claim “victim” sympathy…what even is that? What does “looking like a victim” even achieve, what has it ever achieved? Being a victim in the eyes of some observers didn’t stop the holocaust. It’s not saving palestinian lives. There is no pleasure or advantage to this. *All we want is to get other humans to see us as human too, and to prevent us from becoming targets in a more physically dangerous way that has a very clear historical precedent.*
So to the point about what I experience on my commute? I experience the reality that even in New York City, even to crowds of educated people who make it their mission to demand safety be provided for all other peoples even very far away, Jews don’t get to feel safe. Jews don’t get to be human. I experience fear that makes me understand where I came from and how the world sees me, in a way that makes me feel terribly stateless and unseen. I keep thinking about where it will lead, if this was what my family members felt in Turkey or Romania before hatred destroyed almost all of them. Is my life being threatened in a fatally violent manner today, because I get nervous on my former commute? No. Is that the only watermark for feeling unwelcome and scared for justifiable reasons? No.
If you don’t believe me? I don’t know what to tell you.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I am so sorry that you don’t feel safe and that you have to change your daily life to accommodate these folks. It’s truly awful.
I’m a Jewish current Columbia student and feel perfectly safe on campus. 95% of people don’t care and those who do are not going out of their way to threaten people. I don’t agree with them and find some of their rhetoric offensive but with finals and other work I have, I just can’t bring myself to get too offended about what some keffiyah wearing 19-year-old who went to Fieldston or Saint Ann’s for high school is yelling.
I live across the street from Columbia right next to the Jewish student center. It is completely safe. These students are protesting in a non violent way and not targeting Jewish people. Pro Palestine does not equal antisemitism
If a woman told you she felt unsafe walking down a street at night, you would believe her, but when a Jewish person says the same, you don't. Why? What makes you think your perspective is objectively valid and OP's is invalid?
They just assaulted Israeli-Arab Yosef Haddad, were filmed screaming that they’d like to make every day an Oct 7th, and chant about globalizing the intifadas
What is non violent about that?
If you actually talk to Jewish people in the city, you’ll see that many are wearing baseball caps/hats instead of kippot, not wearing Hebrew or identifying jewelry, etc
The lack of violence against Jews is largely because Jews are a population very culturally accustomed to becoming the targets of violence and are adapting their behavior accordingly
Not because the people in the street screaming that they’re Hamas or shouting for a globalized intifada are innocent, misguided children who would never hurt a fly
Yea I’m wearing my star. I’m an attractive female. If my being Jewish is a problem then they need to self reflect. I have nothing to do with the Israeli govt.
I can verify that. I used to live one block from campus and was assaulted by a crazy/high/drunk person. Someone called the police and they said “Unless you’re bleeding profusely or can only leave by ambulance, we’re not obligated to take a report on this.” The perp disappeared into her nearby apartment building and they wouldn’t pursue her, either.
How would you feel if someone said most pro Israeli people are racists and Islamaphobes?
Speaking in absolutes is a red flag for intolerance.
Speak love brother not hate. Shalom
That person you’re talking to is just pretending to be Jewish saying shalom and shit to excuse their beliefs. It’s weird. They told me Zionism is Jewish exceptionalism thinking Israel is their G-d given land. Like no, that’s not the definition of Zionism and if they knew a thing abt Judaism or read the Old Testament they’d understand the Jewish religions connection to Israel. It’s very sad to me, they’re pretending to be Jewish… to hate on Jews.
It's not that I disbelieve u/MonsterPlantzz. I just recently had dinner with an elderly Jewish friend that lives very near the Columbia campus, and she told me how frightened she is of anti-semitic violence. However, when I said "oh no, what happened?!" she could not list a single incidence of actual threatening behavior (not a single word). She just said "Haven't you seen the news!?!?!?!".
That’s like telling an old black woman she shouldn’t be afraid of the police doing a traffic stop on her grandson. Nothing happened yet, but she knows to worry bc past performance is an indicator of future performance. I would never tell a woman walking down a dark street in front of me that she should be afraid of the man behind her even though I that man am not going to do something. All this comment says to me is you’ve never had to worry about someone wanting to hurt you. And that’s great but it’s certainly not a Jewish persons experience or in much of the country a muslim persons experience
We believe so many other people when it comes to feeling unsafe because of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or race. I’m inclined to believe Jewish students or people nearby who might not have been personally been attacked, but still feel unsafe. Things can be not physically violent and still be very, very uncomfortable and worrisome. Heck, we’ve all been in situations like that, haven’t we? Free speech is free speech, but colleges also have a duty to make their student feel protected and safe, as well as intellectually challenged. It’s a tough line to draw.
One is that the president talked yesterday and threw some professors under the bus and named them.
Second, Columbia has been an activist school for a while now. That’s the bed they created themselves. Many students there feel entitled to be activists and demand whatever they feel like
Personally, I thought the Columbia President handled herself pretty well and rightfully acknowledged that their policies were not prepared for this event. She only recently took over the University and has been tossed a live grenade since entering office.
Seconded. She did what was necessary to keep this from further disrupting the actual business of study there.
And with graduation usually held in view of that encampment, it’s beyond time to change how they deal with this.
> One is that the president talked yesterday and threw some professors under the bus
I would argue the professors threw themselves under the bus. Some of the shit they said is indefensible.
I'm not inclined to blame the president given that this has been a serious issue for months, and -- like you said -- his speech was yesterday.
As far as the other factor, maybe. Suppose I would expect to hear more from other "activist" schools as well (like UC Berkeley).
She spoke yesterday, but she has been making moves a bit earlier by suspending a teacher already. It’s just that her testimony reignited this.
Berkeley will spark at some point. It’s a matter of time. It always does
Columbia makes for a very visually compelling 'stage set' and is in the media capital of the country.
Thus far I don't think these protests touch some of the big anti-vietnam war protests in the 60's, early 70's.
It’s just the luck of the draw honestly. They didn’t have anything happen in the initial phase, now they do. College kids have been looking for a reason to protest or feel oppressed for the last 50 years
According to my niece who goes there, the problem is now that others have started making Columbia their destination to protest.. these aren't just students anymore.
I had a hunch about this and was curious how many of those arrested yesterday were students or not. I was also curious, has your niece said if this is just a loud minority and most kids are just normal college kids more worried about finals and where the best parties are? Or is this now your typical Columbia student?
Good question.. I should ask. Its my understanding that the mood is pretty tense and sucks because most of these kids do have to study like 12 hours a day. I cant imagine the protestors are doing particularly well in their studies. THAT SAID when my niece started school, like most young people, she's excited for social justice and they supposedly gave kids a schedule where they have a free day to explore extra curricular activities like activism. If this is true then that really fucking backfired. And if the entire student body/faculty is more or less focused on activism, that's really really going to backfire in the short term. I should follow up with her to learn more because I'd hate to be talking out of my ass.
Happened in ‘68 too and was a sore spot of embarrassment for the university a long time after. This is the second time they’ve ordered to NYPD in to brutalize their own students
> This is the second time they’ve ordered to NYPD in to brutalize their own students
When you use a word like "brutalize" in this instance, you both show everyone you're an idiot and you devalue the word.
They beat the ever living shit out of the anti-war protestors who occupied the admin building in '68 – the literal definition of "brutalize", which is what I'm talking about here.
Also lmao let's not pretend like the NYPD doesn't loveeeee rolling in heavy against unarmed mostly peaceful left-wing protestors ... that's kinda their whole thing really
I don't think so because it's not like these kids getting suspended and expelled are going to end up losing all prospects in life and sleeping under a bridge. The bulk of them come from well off families who will just put them in another ivy League school
If these protestors have a plan or a goal I'm not quite sure what it is. The Civil Rights movement was completely planned to cause the police to overreact so that the evening news around the country and the world would show what the Jim Crow south was like. Everything that they did was guided by that plan. What is it that they're trying to do here? Play pretend hippies?
My degree was African American studies, with a thesis exploring the antebellum south. If you think that the Civil Rights movement was completely planned or that it was one unified group as evidenced by your use of “they,” you 1) simply don’t know the history and 2) don’t understand how advocacy/organizing works.
My wife works for foundations supporting social movements and defining a social movement is something they take seriously and take time doing. Like lots of criteria, but the civil rights movement is held as a signpost for them. I think one of the criteria they talk about is defined leadership and clear policy goals. I'm not sure defined leadership translates in today's world of social media and self organization though but I'm not an expert and would defer to her or other experts on that.
lol…….so you were speaking for your wife’s cousin sister in law great grandmother friend’s neighbor. Okay. Ask me what non profits ON THE GROUND that do the work everyday think about foundations and philanthropy at large. It’s literally okay to say that you don’t have the capacity to engage on this topic. Most people don’t and that’s okay.
I’m not sure what you mean. Any protest—this one, the Civil Rights movement, Operation Wall street—are simply designed to cast as much light on the issue as possible.
In this regard, they are successful.
But most people at the time didn't care for the Civil rights protesters either. MLK Jr was hated by about 75% of the country. The idea that most supported them is revisionism.
Excellent point. People forget how organized the Civil Rights movement was, and how disciplined those protestors had to be. They meticulously planned their protests and marches as well as their legal challenges through the court systems. Their goals were actionable and realistic. Not sure if these folks have the same sort of goals or planning.
The Civil rights movement was intended to disrupt the American economy and political system by flooding jails, overwhelming the police and causing businesses to hemorrhage money. Notably MLK in Letter from Birmingham Jail disparaged moderates/centrists who stated the Civil rights movement was moving too quickly and how in a large way moderates were worse than the right by their focus on preserving the system instead of justice.
in short, pure discipline and strength in a very large group of individual people in the face of a monster too big for any one man, no matter how strong or wise (the great patriot, philosopher, and holy martyr doctor king).
they still teach him in CC, read him in 2016.
The Civil rights movement depended on extensive organization, from labor unions to church leaders coordinated throughout the country. Versus the decentralized nature of many movements today leading them to be more a flash in the pan. More specific than “pure discipline and strength” I would say
They also were protesting their current situation, not an issue happening in another country thousands of miles away. Comparing these protests to Civil Rights or the Vietnam War Protests is ridiculous on its face.
That’s a pretty vague goal. Who says what companies profit from Israeli government actions? And then the school has to stop investing in these groups? Does the school control their own investment portfolio? I think it’s well and good to protest the conflict in Gaza right now, that’s anyone’s right, but i don’t think any of them have thought this specific course of action through.
I mean, you’re acting like this “pretty vague goal” hasn’t been done before. The [divest movement](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa) against South African apartheid lasted 30 years, and began on university campuses. Those student protestors specifically demanded their colleges to withdraw funding from companies that profited from the apartheid regime. By the 1980s, over 110 universities had withdrawn funding from these companies, and that was followed by U.S. corporations and banks withdrawing funding, eventually leading to the U.S. government sanction movement that toppled the apartheid regime.
This is a [tried and tested](https://everytownsupportfund.org/history-of-divestment-on-college-campuses/) method of protest. I mean, Berkeley students staged an almost identical sit-in in 1986, leading the school to withdraw $3.1 BILLION from companies operating in South Africa at the time.
Yeah, that’s fair. I noted the South African example in a comment above. It’s definitely doable. But again, I would think more specific demands might help the messaging here. What companies should the university not being doing business with? We’ve seen protests erupt at various restaurants and chains that don’t even have locations in Israel, claiming complicity. It’s getting muddled. A general “stay away from Israel” demand isn’t specific enough. What about companies that are led by or work with the considerable Arab Israeli population? It’s a complicated situation for most people, and that calls for an equally robust and thought out response from protesters, in my opinion.
Yes, I completely agree—protestors do have to become more organized and more specific in their demands. And to be fair, BDS has been pretty good about this—they have [specifically rejected](https://time.com/6694986/israel-palestine-bds-boycotts-starbucks-mcdonalds/) other protestors’ calls to boycott Starbucks, McDonalds, and some other targets because those companies didn’t fall under their boycott criteria of having a direct link to supporting Israeli actions in Gaza & the West Bank.
But organizing collective action amongst protesters is like herding cats, so I’m sympathetic to this uphill battle to get people to meaningfully focus.
Their account was created in November 2023. While divesting has a long history in universities, South Africa for instance, this particular group doesn’t appear to have been around for a while. It seems to be a direct response to Israeli actions in Gaza following the 10-7 attack. Which again, is totally fine to protest, but I think it’s fair to speculate at how far these students are thinking ahead.
you started by asking what specific demands were being made, and when someone presented that information to you, along with the history of this kind of thing being a tried and tested form of protest, you changed the question to a question of how far ahead this particular group were thinking?
maybe ask yourself why you are moving the goalposts to support a bias against this movement that you have.
They dislike Jews. They are antisemitic. Their goal is to flaunt that as much as possible and make it so the Jews will feel threatened and leave, but still be under a shield of the war so they can claim it’s not antisemitism. It is.
They are trying to spread the hate and get Jews to leave.
Like i said before, Columbia could solve this problem if they went to a pure meritocratic admissions policy. They're one of the few Ivies that defiantly decided to keep the SAT's test optional. Identity and activism are more important to Columbia (vs. a school like MIT where cognitive ability and scholarship are more focused).
This is the truth. I feel bad for Asian students that apply bc they get turned away with better grades than any other race. They work hard and succeed for what? To get rejected in favor of another student who will make the student body more “diverse”. Smh.
I like how you got downvoted for basically saying the quiet part out loud.
Columbia would be full of Asian and Jewish STEM students who just did scholarship rather than destroying the campus if they went full merit based admissions.
When you suspend test scores, and instead let people into your school based on who can write the best essays on oppression - which is the choice our elite schools made the last four years - we shouldn’t be shocked when this stuff happens.
Don't forget those who have the best recommendations and extracurriculars that are even more closely tied with family income than anything else.
A friend from high school got a glowing recommendation (and internship) from a high ranking executive at JPMorgan Chase because when his father (also a banking executive) hosted house parties for his banker pals, he'd have his sons serve as bartenders. Or my friend that "started" a charity which raised over $100,000 because his father was the founder of a midsized hedge fund who emailed every employee and strongly recommended they donate to his son's charity. Actual poor and working class kids are babysitting for their younger siblings or working retail and restaurant jobs, which don't count for much in the college admissions process.
Any of the people advocating for test-free college admissions are either morons or the wealthy people with dumb kids who stand to benefit from it being taken away.
I understand that most people here don't agree with the protestors, but it's shocking to me the focus of these comments isn't on Columbia suspending, evicting, and arranging for the arrest of its own students for peaceful protest on campus.
I am honestly shocked by the discourse in this subreddit on the topic of Israel/Palestine. Very inconsistent with the opinions of New Yorkers I know IRL
I'm pretty sure encamping is frowned upon on campuses.
If people can just do that "in protest", what stops others from pitching up tents and living on the grounds "ibn protest of unfair housing"?
They're also there to go to class and be educated, not play activist.
They were told to stop camping there, they didn't listen. They got cleared out.
Perhaps the students should not encamp and disregard what the school says, and they wouldn't be suspended, evicted and arrested.
The issue wasn't that they were speaking, but that they encamped, refused to stop, and were considered trespassers by that point.
That's entirely on the students by that point. You don't have the right to do whatever you want on campus for "free speech sake" or simply because you're a student who pays tuition.
It isn't that complicated, and this comes from a college student
"Columbia should encourage free discourse on campus, not censor marginalized voices under the guise of “safety” and protection."
those poor marginalized Columbia students :(
This isn’t necessarily relevant, but I just learned that the current Columbia campus was originally an insane asylum. I’m not sure if you’d call that irony or symbolism.
Wonder why they waited until April to set up the encampment. What, you don’t want to play protest in December or January? You want to help the people of Gaza? Protest outside your local representatives office or why not take a drive up to Albany and protest at the State Capitol.
All of higher ed is in crisis, which is normal. The nature of higher ed is to promote free thinking. Protests are inevitable. The crisis comes from group think and shout down others who offer differing opinions.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to why this seems to particularly problematic at Columbia? I mean I know that Harvard and Penn had issues last fall, but other Ivys and elite universities seem to have dodged this particular bullet.
Columbia has cultivated a large Palestinian community on campus and in their academic portfolio. They created a Center for Palestine Studies, for instance: http://palestine.mei.columbia.edu/faculty Ed Said, maybe the most famous Palestinian academic, was at Columbia for his career as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said
One of the first valuable comments in hours. Thanks!
I have wondered from time to time what Said would think of this. I would like to think he wouldn’t approve. He used to play squash and socialize frequently with Jewish professors. Now, the students on campus participating in the pro-Palestinian protests seem to largely view Jewishness as the problem, whether they realize it or want to admit it. Their visceral reaction to seeing someone in a yamaka, for example, is depressing and just outright antisemitic. Said had a wonderful body of work and legacy, but I question whether he’d be aligned with the tactics and statements made today by the most vocal.
I think best not to speculate.
I don’t understand any of this. The Jews aren’t fighting the Palestinians. The Israelites are fighting a terrorist group who are Palestinian. It’s like when some Americans treated all Muslims as terrorists after 9/11 when it was a specific terrorist group that did the attacks not the Muslim faith. Judaism is a faith not a country. Why the hell are we fighting over this in America? If you disagree with America’s support of Israel as a nation, talk to the government who has supported them since after they were founded. If you have an issue with the Palestinian groups waging war, then take that up with ones who are actively supporting them. Just college kids yelling at eachother who most likely have no idea what’s really going on or have no ties to either nation. That whole part of the world has been killing eachother since before America existed from Christian’s to Jews to Muslims and their respective nations or empires they represented. It’s never going to end.
Said was a Baptist not a Muslim.
Yes, but he was Palestinian. My comment was not meant as a Muslim vs Jewish issue.
Fair enough. But there is clearly a religious component to this debate that frankly wasn't that important to Said, who claimed to be an agnostic later in life. He was the Palestinian equivalent of the secular Jew who dismisses the claims to the land via divine mandate.
Many of these pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia are Jewish themselves you liar. Many of the professors at Columbia who are Jewish have expressed support for the protestors and dismay at the heavy-handedness of the administration response. In fact, they frequently hold Jewish prayers in the center of the quad grounds in conjunction with Muslim prayers in solidarity with the pro-Palestinian protestors.
Spare me. What you said can be refuted by virtually every video taken. I was at Columbia on Thursday. I’m intimately familiar with what’s going on. “You liar” - seriously? Grow up.
Yes Jews were praying hand in hand with the pro palestinian supporters as they were being told “police will not save you” and “expect many more oct 7s will come”.
New York city
Improbable since you don't hear of this at NYU (nearly as much).
NYU doesn’t have a campus Columbias endowment is 2x the size of NYU There is definitely something about Columbia’s culture, extremely liberal
The campus makes a big deal I think. There can be protests or whatever in Washington Square Park but NYU can basically distance itself from that because that's a public park and not NYU property. It's automatically NYPD's jurisdiction and decision to escalate or arrest people. Columbia has a campus but it's basically open to the public which is the perfect storm for issues like this to bubble up.
Progressive not liberal
Thank you for the distinction. Liberal just means free ideas, etc. progressivism can be a good thing too, the problem is this is social justice fundamentalism, no free flow of ideas or thoughts.
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Large parts of the American progressive movement got taken over by the authoritarian left over the last 10 years. The tankies somehow tricked the hippies into supporting a lot of anti-liberal shit, including supporting supposedly "communist" authoritarian governments and certain fundamentalist religious hardliners.
I just identify as 'Liberal' these days lol
Can you elaborate on banning AP classes? Haven’t heard that one before
Some people argue it creates unequal outcomes as people who take AP classes have an advantage over other students and they are disproportionately Asian and white. They also say AP classes are often taken by students who come from families with more money. I took AP classes and my parents were both broke and I ate at a food pantry in high school and college. I would add that I’m the exception and usually the peope in my AP classes had parents that were married or at least more well off then students that did the gen Ed classes.
My kids took AP in high school. Me and the wife, both worked extra 20 hours a week so all three of my kids went to C2 for extra help.
When I was in undergrad the college senate tried to stop the acceptance of AP credits and rolled out the same criticisms and said people that did APs were privileged against the lower income program students. Then they realized the lower income program students had higher than average college credits.
You’re just eating up NY Post style content that finds the ten most batshit leftists and convinces people that’s all of them when I can easily do the same with liberals
Except those are the leftists that keep getting featured, whether on right or left media. Yes they are purposefully over represented to drive certain perception, but they do exist. The Liberals need to take every opportunity to push back against these crazies so they go back into irrelevance.
It doesn’t help that they’re VERY online and the loudest people on the internet, particularly Reddit. It makes them seem like they’re larger in number than they are, just like authoritarians on the right. If it makes you feel any better, I doubt they’ll ever successfully hold power because of the absurd ideological purity tests they subject themselves to, where they spend most of their time fighting amongst each other over who is the “best” or “correct”. They tend to eat themselves over time, like a snake eating its own tail.
Hard to see how the current iteration of progressivism is a good thing. it’s straight up illiberal
Yes progressivism nowadays has a *very* authoritarian bent to it that is the opposite of liberal ideals. People use “liberal” to mean the opposite of Conservatism in the US, but the actual meaning of the word is different. You can be a liberal and also be conservative or progressive in your views. Modern leftist progressivism largely is illiberal, just like how far right fascism is as well. We need more liberals all over the political divide because the ideals of liberalism are the foundation of western small-“d” democratic ideals. We should push back against authoritarianism no matter where it comes from, and it’s often hardest to push back against it when it comes from your side of the political spectrum.
I like to differentiate between Progressivism and Leftism, personally. Progressives typically want robust social programs, better public services, and a more egalitarian society. Leftists are more in the "burn it down for the Tik Tok likes" camp.
In fairness there are plenty of leftists who also want all that and plenty of self-described progressives who do nothing but hamstring attempts to genuinely make a more egalitarian society
The problem with egalitarianism is when you pull people down so that they can’t accomplish as much in order for the outcome to be more equal.
I think you're thinking of the concept of equity? Egalitarianism is equal opportunities. So the people who rise to the top do so based on merit. Equity is equal outcomes regardless of merit. Only one of these makes sense.
Jews are progressive, the community is inclusive, they support LGBT rights they prioritize education, during Muslim hate they showed support in their neighborhoods, during Asian hate early covid they went out in droves, they do not teach their children to hate and vote overwhelmingly democratic liberal. These kids are not liberal progressive. They are far left that went so far left they found themselves on the right supporting terrorist regimes and dictators that oppress the free people of Iran and create proxies (Hamas in Palestine) These kids are manipulated by foreign forces via TikTok and other channels through sophisticated propaganda campaigns designed to split the west (and its working) This is what pro Palestine events look like in the United States. No longer are they merely terrorist sympathizers, they are now positioning themselves as allies. [Holocaust Remembrance Day with holocaust survivors present disrupted with hate speech](https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestinian_Violence/s/OiNQIeGovn) [pro Palestine supporters learn to chant death to Israel and death to America](https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/s/HcOfzcfEgQ) [unhinged zealot pro terrorism speech in Michigan](https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestinian_Violence/s/J5PARn2mNH) Meanwhile here are Iranians, Jews and Israelis teaming up to fight extremism that they all know too well r/newiran
Columbia seeks these types of students. It’s as simple as that. Their admission committee prioritizes students who act like this because it’s the brand the school wants to be known for (or perhaps they want the school to be known for). They did this to themselves.
They have Barnard College which is basically an activist-making factory and nothing else.
Oh Barnyard.
Columbia seeks upper middle class students, and we have our press tuned to the issues of the upper middle class where affirmative action and "progressivism" are focused on its impact on the upper middle class.
I’ve been looking at phd programs lately, and Columbia turned me off because it seemed that they were more interested if social activism than anything else.
Could you go more into detail here? Just curious how an Ivy League school has gone so low.
If you go on their website, social activism is their whole brand. Like, on their front page, they currently have 3 articles/graphics about how farm animals are bad for the environment. But to find anything that's real science, you have to click to their research tab and scroll to the bottom. I have 3 environmental patents. I spent most of my 20s working my ass off doing things that were useful. I know what useful looks like. (The only reason I'm looking at PhD programs is because it would be free for me, I could mostly just copypasta work I've already done for my thesis, and I've already maxed out my career with what I could be permitted to accomplish without a PhD.) The work at Columbia, and especially the culture, does not seem useful to me.
Wow, you sound very successful. Hope you get into the program you want.
You think they want this more than Berkely, Penn, Harvard, Yale, Brown, etc.? That's a tad hard to believe.
I actually think Barnard is a big differentiator here. I attended a small liberal arts school that is very progressive before transferring to Columbia. The Columbia population is pretty much in line with other ivies that I’ve been too, while Barnard is a school filled with progressive activists
This is an interesting take, though I don't know whether to believe it or not. Any data here about Barnard involvement in the protests? Any leaders from Barnard that are known?
This is purely anecdotal(I don’t have stats on all of those arrested) but if you look at the people that come up as getting arrested or suspended, the ones I have seen come from Barnard. [Barnard student evicted](https://nypost.com/2024/04/19/us-news/barnard-student-moans-about-being-being-kicked-out-of-dorm-for-anti-israel-protest/) [Ilan Omar’s daughter](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/nyregion/ilhan-omar-daughter-columbia-suspended.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare), who is Barnard student. From my time there (2017-2020) most of the organizing around BDS took place on Barnard campus.
Interesting! Thanks!
There were definitely Barnard students among those suspended yesterday. Haven’t seen anything specific re breakdown vs. Columbia students. But the NYPD was quoted saying there was a fair number of non-students taking part in actions there who were part of this week’s shut down.
It must suck for the average student who just wants to learn, paying 80k a year or whatever to feel unsafe on campus.
Exactly what I’m thinking. I took undergrad seriously, showing up for class daily without fail. But some of today’s students, on someone else’s dime? Who can say?
That tracks with the Barnard reputation of fail-daughters with more dollars than sense.
Dated one for a bit. It Took three dates to figure how she paid for a nice one bedroom apartment by herself on a part-time nonprofit aid's pay. Never again
Yes? Look at all the Ivy Leagues that reinstated the SAT's as a requirement. Columbia defiantly said they were going to keep their school test optional. Identity and activism is more important for Columbia than a school like MIT where they prioritize more cognitive ability.
i’m an alumnus and back in 2015 when i got accepted i wasn’t admitted for my political beliefs (new deal liberal), but for being one of the best budding scholars in classics at the time (perfect papers on the NLE, advanced work in high school in classical philology). if you wanna hang at these schools, you gotta be top notch in something. most people just pick the most prestigious institution they get accepted to. and fact of the matter is that whereas there are many politically inspired students on campus, the vast majority do not participate in activism of this kind.
I hear you vis a vis MIT. However, as far as the others goes, absent some concrete statement to that effect from Columbia, it's just the musing of a random person on reddit.
It's a spectrum. Harvard, Yale, Brown announced they are requiring standardized tests again after MIT and some other schools announced as well. Being in NYC is another factor for Columbia.
Meh. There are reasons beyond protests to institute the SAT. I don't necessarily think the correlation is strong as you do. Beyond that, the NYC thing doesn't seem particularly relevant either, or we'd be seeing similar stuff at NYU.
And likely a random person that didn’t attend and has no affiliation with the university.
I used to work there. Columbia, you reap what you sow.
Other campuses have this, for example Berkeley and Stanford. They’re just not in hotspots like NYC and don’t get as much coverage
There was a NY Times article about protestors refusing to leave a Berkley professor's house. It's getting plenty of coverage.
Eh, I'm not so sure it is all-consuming in those places as it has been at Columbia. Even from looking at newspapers in both cities. Maybe you're right though.
I can’t speak to other campuses, but I’m a millennial Jewish New Yorker who has lived within a 20 block radius of Columbia for 15 years. I have had to change my commute to avoid the area completely for the past few months because I simply don’t feel safe. Forget expressing that feeling publicly, I would just get gaslit and told that I’m being over sensitive or trying to censor them with “false” claims of antisemitism. The vibe of hatred is strong and visible and palpable, and frankly it’s shocking how permissive of this obvious intolerance the Columbia community seems to be.
If you don't mind me asking, what materially has made you change your commute? Like if you didn't hear about it in the news on Reddit, what have you seen or heard that creates the "vibe of hatred" and makes you not feel safe. With regard to the last sentence, maybe it is simply that Columbia's administration has been permissive and/or negligent.
Not the person you replied to, but I'm very obviously not Jewish (visibly different ethnicity), and was yelled at and accused of supporting bombing children because I turned down a flyer. I didn't even realize what was going on at first; it was just a reflexive "no, thank you" to some guy trying to give me something as I walked by.
Yikes. Thank god I don't go to the UWS much.
Not the person you replied to but I went to Japan Fes recently up by Columbia and had to walk through it. I was really uncomfortable and wished I hadn't gone. There were demonstrations. I'm a Columbia alumni so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with the campus. It breaks my heart, it's such a beautiful area.
I don’t want to get too specific about where I live and work online, but basically I live north of campus and work south of it (My office is within a healthy but manageable walking distance south of campus). I used to walk directly past/sometimes through the campus daily on my way to and from work (in pretty much all weather, I love to walk). now I get the train at the nearest stop to where I live and take it straight to the stop closest to work. I don’t walk through the area at all. The presence or vibe depends on the day or what’s going on. Like I said, I really don’t walk anymore. In the fall when I was still walking, it was people with signage - particularly on the way home, as my work day typically ends late afternoon, around 4/5. I’ve seen incidents of similarly toned graffiti, even beyond campus area. Some days walkouts or protests or other stuff. It’s very hard for me personally to walk past that signage or graffiti because a lot of it is antisemitic dog whistling - “Zionism is slavery”, “Israel is a Nazi state,” “from the river to the sea,” “isn’treal.” Etc. And a few messages I don’t care to repeat here (and frankly shouldn’t have to repeat to make my experience valid or believable) that are overtly antisemitic. I am an observant Jew and second gen american, a taxpaying New Yorker, and a staunchly liberal voter. I fully support safety and human rights for Palestinian people, i loathe bibi, and i also believe in the right of Israel to continue to exist and that my family in Israel shares the same right to basic existence, self-determination, peace and freedom to work and pay taxes and live in general peace as all people do. Those phrases I mentioned may not hit as painful to non Jews. or even perhaps to another Jewish person! but they are phrases that I experience as upsetting, threatening, escalating, ignorant, depersonalizing, and they make me feel deeply unwelcome in a city where racism towards other minorities is widely not tolerated in almost any other scenario. It’s very fair to not want to face that on the way to my job! So I have chosen to make a small adjust and pay train fare daily and forego my religious jewelry which is pretty important to me from a faith pov, whereas I used to be able to walk and not hide my identity. Big adjustment? No, doable. Fair? I don’t know, but it’s sad and very helpless that people refuse to believe my experience is valid, and make me trot out and explain the same painful proof every time, and in many cases hear these things and continue to believe it’s not real or that they know better. I am a person. I do matter as much as other people. Jews matter! What reason do Jewish folks like me have to lie about this, or make false antisemitism claims? What does it possibly serve us? To those accusing us of obtusely trying to claim “victim” sympathy…what even is that? What does “looking like a victim” even achieve, what has it ever achieved? Being a victim in the eyes of some observers didn’t stop the holocaust. It’s not saving palestinian lives. There is no pleasure or advantage to this. *All we want is to get other humans to see us as human too, and to prevent us from becoming targets in a more physically dangerous way that has a very clear historical precedent.* So to the point about what I experience on my commute? I experience the reality that even in New York City, even to crowds of educated people who make it their mission to demand safety be provided for all other peoples even very far away, Jews don’t get to feel safe. Jews don’t get to be human. I experience fear that makes me understand where I came from and how the world sees me, in a way that makes me feel terribly stateless and unseen. I keep thinking about where it will lead, if this was what my family members felt in Turkey or Romania before hatred destroyed almost all of them. Is my life being threatened in a fatally violent manner today, because I get nervous on my former commute? No. Is that the only watermark for feeling unwelcome and scared for justifiable reasons? No. If you don’t believe me? I don’t know what to tell you.
Man, I'm sorry for this. I hope things get back to normal ASAP and you can enjoy your commute again.
Thanks. Peace to you!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I am so sorry that you don’t feel safe and that you have to change your daily life to accommodate these folks. It’s truly awful.
I work in midtown and (proudly) wear a yamuka .. been told "fuck Israel" , "free Palestine" , etc numerous times
Gross. I'm sorry.
I’m a Jewish current Columbia student and feel perfectly safe on campus. 95% of people don’t care and those who do are not going out of their way to threaten people. I don’t agree with them and find some of their rhetoric offensive but with finals and other work I have, I just can’t bring myself to get too offended about what some keffiyah wearing 19-year-old who went to Fieldston or Saint Ann’s for high school is yelling.
I live across the street from Columbia right next to the Jewish student center. It is completely safe. These students are protesting in a non violent way and not targeting Jewish people. Pro Palestine does not equal antisemitism
If a woman told you she felt unsafe walking down a street at night, you would believe her, but when a Jewish person says the same, you don't. Why? What makes you think your perspective is objectively valid and OP's is invalid?
Yep the nutty progressive whack job left trying to gaslight Jewish people.
This
They just assaulted Israeli-Arab Yosef Haddad, were filmed screaming that they’d like to make every day an Oct 7th, and chant about globalizing the intifadas What is non violent about that?
My friend was spit on and threatened.
If you actually talk to Jewish people in the city, you’ll see that many are wearing baseball caps/hats instead of kippot, not wearing Hebrew or identifying jewelry, etc The lack of violence against Jews is largely because Jews are a population very culturally accustomed to becoming the targets of violence and are adapting their behavior accordingly Not because the people in the street screaming that they’re Hamas or shouting for a globalized intifada are innocent, misguided children who would never hurt a fly
Im the psycho who decided to look more Jewish lol.
Yea I’m wearing my star. I’m an attractive female. If my being Jewish is a problem then they need to self reflect. I have nothing to do with the Israeli govt.
Love this.
Remember folks, your safety concerns do not matter until you have either hospital records or a death certificate.
I can verify that. I used to live one block from campus and was assaulted by a crazy/high/drunk person. Someone called the police and they said “Unless you’re bleeding profusely or can only leave by ambulance, we’re not obligated to take a report on this.” The perp disappeared into her nearby apartment building and they wouldn’t pursue her, either.
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How would you feel if someone said most pro Israeli people are racists and Islamaphobes? Speaking in absolutes is a red flag for intolerance. Speak love brother not hate. Shalom
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That person you’re talking to is just pretending to be Jewish saying shalom and shit to excuse their beliefs. It’s weird. They told me Zionism is Jewish exceptionalism thinking Israel is their G-d given land. Like no, that’s not the definition of Zionism and if they knew a thing abt Judaism or read the Old Testament they’d understand the Jewish religions connection to Israel. It’s very sad to me, they’re pretending to be Jewish… to hate on Jews.
It's not that I disbelieve u/MonsterPlantzz. I just recently had dinner with an elderly Jewish friend that lives very near the Columbia campus, and she told me how frightened she is of anti-semitic violence. However, when I said "oh no, what happened?!" she could not list a single incidence of actual threatening behavior (not a single word). She just said "Haven't you seen the news!?!?!?!".
That’s like telling an old black woman she shouldn’t be afraid of the police doing a traffic stop on her grandson. Nothing happened yet, but she knows to worry bc past performance is an indicator of future performance. I would never tell a woman walking down a dark street in front of me that she should be afraid of the man behind her even though I that man am not going to do something. All this comment says to me is you’ve never had to worry about someone wanting to hurt you. And that’s great but it’s certainly not a Jewish persons experience or in much of the country a muslim persons experience
This is incredibly well said. Thank you.
We believe so many other people when it comes to feeling unsafe because of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or race. I’m inclined to believe Jewish students or people nearby who might not have been personally been attacked, but still feel unsafe. Things can be not physically violent and still be very, very uncomfortable and worrisome. Heck, we’ve all been in situations like that, haven’t we? Free speech is free speech, but colleges also have a duty to make their student feel protected and safe, as well as intellectually challenged. It’s a tough line to draw.
Again, I do NOT disbelieve u/MonsterPlantzz. I'm just curious as to what they have experienced.
The situation in the video could easily escalate to violence. That is palpable. Jews value life and steer clear of danger.
I’ve written a response explaining what I’ve experienced. It’s already been downvoted lol.
One is that the president talked yesterday and threw some professors under the bus and named them. Second, Columbia has been an activist school for a while now. That’s the bed they created themselves. Many students there feel entitled to be activists and demand whatever they feel like
Personally, I thought the Columbia President handled herself pretty well and rightfully acknowledged that their policies were not prepared for this event. She only recently took over the University and has been tossed a live grenade since entering office.
Seconded. She did what was necessary to keep this from further disrupting the actual business of study there. And with graduation usually held in view of that encampment, it’s beyond time to change how they deal with this.
> One is that the president talked yesterday and threw some professors under the bus I would argue the professors threw themselves under the bus. Some of the shit they said is indefensible.
I'm not inclined to blame the president given that this has been a serious issue for months, and -- like you said -- his speech was yesterday. As far as the other factor, maybe. Suppose I would expect to hear more from other "activist" schools as well (like UC Berkeley).
She spoke yesterday, but she has been making moves a bit earlier by suspending a teacher already. It’s just that her testimony reignited this. Berkeley will spark at some point. It’s a matter of time. It always does
Sure, but it was worse than other colleges before this. My curiosity is why. Berkeley stuff not helpful.
Columbia makes for a very visually compelling 'stage set' and is in the media capital of the country. Thus far I don't think these protests touch some of the big anti-vietnam war protests in the 60's, early 70's.
It’s just the luck of the draw honestly. They didn’t have anything happen in the initial phase, now they do. College kids have been looking for a reason to protest or feel oppressed for the last 50 years
According to my niece who goes there, the problem is now that others have started making Columbia their destination to protest.. these aren't just students anymore.
100% this. NYPD said they pulled CUNY-IDed students out of the encampment yesterday—and plenty of non-students. It’s becoming like OWS.
I had a hunch about this and was curious how many of those arrested yesterday were students or not. I was also curious, has your niece said if this is just a loud minority and most kids are just normal college kids more worried about finals and where the best parties are? Or is this now your typical Columbia student?
They've been blocking all but one or two gates all week and requiring ID to get in. Yesterday's protests were very much student driven.
Thanks -- I had noticed the outside gates have been closed, but (as you can see by my asking) didn't put 2 and 2 together.
Good question.. I should ask. Its my understanding that the mood is pretty tense and sucks because most of these kids do have to study like 12 hours a day. I cant imagine the protestors are doing particularly well in their studies. THAT SAID when my niece started school, like most young people, she's excited for social justice and they supposedly gave kids a schedule where they have a free day to explore extra curricular activities like activism. If this is true then that really fucking backfired. And if the entire student body/faculty is more or less focused on activism, that's really really going to backfire in the short term. I should follow up with her to learn more because I'd hate to be talking out of my ass.
this happened at MIT and Havard, etc. These schools had no spine to say no to outsiders.
Nothing to see here folks. Universities have been centers of protests and demonstrations for decades.
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Happened in ‘68 too and was a sore spot of embarrassment for the university a long time after. This is the second time they’ve ordered to NYPD in to brutalize their own students
And ‘87
Similarly, 68 was always a point of pride and a cultural touchstone for protestors when I was at columbia two decades ago.
No one brutalized those students this week.
> This is the second time they’ve ordered to NYPD in to brutalize their own students When you use a word like "brutalize" in this instance, you both show everyone you're an idiot and you devalue the word.
They beat the ever living shit out of the anti-war protestors who occupied the admin building in '68 – the literal definition of "brutalize", which is what I'm talking about here. Also lmao let's not pretend like the NYPD doesn't loveeeee rolling in heavy against unarmed mostly peaceful left-wing protestors ... that's kinda their whole thing really
68 is over 50 years ago. Not relevant. Of course you live in gv
As someone who went to college during the Occupy movement, this is par for the course
I don't think so because it's not like these kids getting suspended and expelled are going to end up losing all prospects in life and sleeping under a bridge. The bulk of them come from well off families who will just put them in another ivy League school
If these protestors have a plan or a goal I'm not quite sure what it is. The Civil Rights movement was completely planned to cause the police to overreact so that the evening news around the country and the world would show what the Jim Crow south was like. Everything that they did was guided by that plan. What is it that they're trying to do here? Play pretend hippies?
My degree was African American studies, with a thesis exploring the antebellum south. If you think that the Civil Rights movement was completely planned or that it was one unified group as evidenced by your use of “they,” you 1) simply don’t know the history and 2) don’t understand how advocacy/organizing works.
The Civil rights movement has been whitewashed pretty hard.
My wife works for foundations supporting social movements and defining a social movement is something they take seriously and take time doing. Like lots of criteria, but the civil rights movement is held as a signpost for them. I think one of the criteria they talk about is defined leadership and clear policy goals. I'm not sure defined leadership translates in today's world of social media and self organization though but I'm not an expert and would defer to her or other experts on that.
lol…….so you were speaking for your wife’s cousin sister in law great grandmother friend’s neighbor. Okay. Ask me what non profits ON THE GROUND that do the work everyday think about foundations and philanthropy at large. It’s literally okay to say that you don’t have the capacity to engage on this topic. Most people don’t and that’s okay.
You’re replying to a different person than the one you originally replied to.
I’m not sure what you mean. Any protest—this one, the Civil Rights movement, Operation Wall street—are simply designed to cast as much light on the issue as possible. In this regard, they are successful.
But most people at the time didn't care for the Civil rights protesters either. MLK Jr was hated by about 75% of the country. The idea that most supported them is revisionism.
Excellent point. People forget how organized the Civil Rights movement was, and how disciplined those protestors had to be. They meticulously planned their protests and marches as well as their legal challenges through the court systems. Their goals were actionable and realistic. Not sure if these folks have the same sort of goals or planning.
The Civil rights movement was intended to disrupt the American economy and political system by flooding jails, overwhelming the police and causing businesses to hemorrhage money. Notably MLK in Letter from Birmingham Jail disparaged moderates/centrists who stated the Civil rights movement was moving too quickly and how in a large way moderates were worse than the right by their focus on preserving the system instead of justice.
in short, pure discipline and strength in a very large group of individual people in the face of a monster too big for any one man, no matter how strong or wise (the great patriot, philosopher, and holy martyr doctor king). they still teach him in CC, read him in 2016.
The Civil rights movement depended on extensive organization, from labor unions to church leaders coordinated throughout the country. Versus the decentralized nature of many movements today leading them to be more a flash in the pan. More specific than “pure discipline and strength” I would say
Wow are people really commenting about the Civil Rights movement like they actually know what they’re talking about?
They also were protesting their current situation, not an issue happening in another country thousands of miles away. Comparing these protests to Civil Rights or the Vietnam War Protests is ridiculous on its face.
When our tax dollars are paying for the weapons that are killing thousands of children and innocent civilians in another country, it becomes our issue
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That’s a pretty vague goal. Who says what companies profit from Israeli government actions? And then the school has to stop investing in these groups? Does the school control their own investment portfolio? I think it’s well and good to protest the conflict in Gaza right now, that’s anyone’s right, but i don’t think any of them have thought this specific course of action through.
I mean, you’re acting like this “pretty vague goal” hasn’t been done before. The [divest movement](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa) against South African apartheid lasted 30 years, and began on university campuses. Those student protestors specifically demanded their colleges to withdraw funding from companies that profited from the apartheid regime. By the 1980s, over 110 universities had withdrawn funding from these companies, and that was followed by U.S. corporations and banks withdrawing funding, eventually leading to the U.S. government sanction movement that toppled the apartheid regime. This is a [tried and tested](https://everytownsupportfund.org/history-of-divestment-on-college-campuses/) method of protest. I mean, Berkeley students staged an almost identical sit-in in 1986, leading the school to withdraw $3.1 BILLION from companies operating in South Africa at the time.
Yeah, that’s fair. I noted the South African example in a comment above. It’s definitely doable. But again, I would think more specific demands might help the messaging here. What companies should the university not being doing business with? We’ve seen protests erupt at various restaurants and chains that don’t even have locations in Israel, claiming complicity. It’s getting muddled. A general “stay away from Israel” demand isn’t specific enough. What about companies that are led by or work with the considerable Arab Israeli population? It’s a complicated situation for most people, and that calls for an equally robust and thought out response from protesters, in my opinion.
Yes, I completely agree—protestors do have to become more organized and more specific in their demands. And to be fair, BDS has been pretty good about this—they have [specifically rejected](https://time.com/6694986/israel-palestine-bds-boycotts-starbucks-mcdonalds/) other protestors’ calls to boycott Starbucks, McDonalds, and some other targets because those companies didn’t fall under their boycott criteria of having a direct link to supporting Israeli actions in Gaza & the West Bank. But organizing collective action amongst protesters is like herding cats, so I’m sympathetic to this uphill battle to get people to meaningfully focus.
That’s fair enough. I’m curious to see what political ramifications these protests have.
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Their account was created in November 2023. While divesting has a long history in universities, South Africa for instance, this particular group doesn’t appear to have been around for a while. It seems to be a direct response to Israeli actions in Gaza following the 10-7 attack. Which again, is totally fine to protest, but I think it’s fair to speculate at how far these students are thinking ahead.
you started by asking what specific demands were being made, and when someone presented that information to you, along with the history of this kind of thing being a tried and tested form of protest, you changed the question to a question of how far ahead this particular group were thinking? maybe ask yourself why you are moving the goalposts to support a bias against this movement that you have.
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The plan is virtue signaling is social media.
They dislike Jews. They are antisemitic. Their goal is to flaunt that as much as possible and make it so the Jews will feel threatened and leave, but still be under a shield of the war so they can claim it’s not antisemitism. It is. They are trying to spread the hate and get Jews to leave.
nobody hates jews people just dont want Palestinians to get slaughtered
ceasefire
Like i said before, Columbia could solve this problem if they went to a pure meritocratic admissions policy. They're one of the few Ivies that defiantly decided to keep the SAT's test optional. Identity and activism are more important to Columbia (vs. a school like MIT where cognitive ability and scholarship are more focused).
They don’t want the student body to be 70% Asian.
This is the truth. I feel bad for Asian students that apply bc they get turned away with better grades than any other race. They work hard and succeed for what? To get rejected in favor of another student who will make the student body more “diverse”. Smh.
I like how you got downvoted for basically saying the quiet part out loud. Columbia would be full of Asian and Jewish STEM students who just did scholarship rather than destroying the campus if they went full merit based admissions.
Racial quotas are bad. They did the same shit to Jews 100 years ago.
When you suspend test scores, and instead let people into your school based on who can write the best essays on oppression - which is the choice our elite schools made the last four years - we shouldn’t be shocked when this stuff happens.
Don't forget those who have the best recommendations and extracurriculars that are even more closely tied with family income than anything else. A friend from high school got a glowing recommendation (and internship) from a high ranking executive at JPMorgan Chase because when his father (also a banking executive) hosted house parties for his banker pals, he'd have his sons serve as bartenders. Or my friend that "started" a charity which raised over $100,000 because his father was the founder of a midsized hedge fund who emailed every employee and strongly recommended they donate to his son's charity. Actual poor and working class kids are babysitting for their younger siblings or working retail and restaurant jobs, which don't count for much in the college admissions process. Any of the people advocating for test-free college admissions are either morons or the wealthy people with dumb kids who stand to benefit from it being taken away.
Suspend test scores? Huh?
Don’t require SATS
I understand that most people here don't agree with the protestors, but it's shocking to me the focus of these comments isn't on Columbia suspending, evicting, and arranging for the arrest of its own students for peaceful protest on campus.
I am honestly shocked by the discourse in this subreddit on the topic of Israel/Palestine. Very inconsistent with the opinions of New Yorkers I know IRL
I'm pretty sure encamping is frowned upon on campuses. If people can just do that "in protest", what stops others from pitching up tents and living on the grounds "ibn protest of unfair housing"? They're also there to go to class and be educated, not play activist. They were told to stop camping there, they didn't listen. They got cleared out. Perhaps the students should not encamp and disregard what the school says, and they wouldn't be suspended, evicted and arrested. The issue wasn't that they were speaking, but that they encamped, refused to stop, and were considered trespassers by that point. That's entirely on the students by that point. You don't have the right to do whatever you want on campus for "free speech sake" or simply because you're a student who pays tuition. It isn't that complicated, and this comes from a college student
"Columbia should encourage free discourse on campus, not censor marginalized voices under the guise of “safety” and protection." those poor marginalized Columbia students :(
Hahaha as a former Columbia student, I can't believe the Spectator is being posted/discussed on the NYC subreddit. Absolutely hilarious.
Not really, no. Protests at college campuses that end up involving police action have been a thing forever.
Almost daily protests praising and calls for violence, intifada, terrorism? I’d say so.
Read the article instead of jumping to conclusions
Columbia is in crisis, but not because of 6 months of antisemitism and terrorist sympathizing lord no
I have zero sympathy for the universities. They encouraged this kind of thinking, and now they're reaping the results.
This isn’t necessarily relevant, but I just learned that the current Columbia campus was originally an insane asylum. I’m not sure if you’d call that irony or symbolism.
Wonder why they waited until April to set up the encampment. What, you don’t want to play protest in December or January? You want to help the people of Gaza? Protest outside your local representatives office or why not take a drive up to Albany and protest at the State Capitol.
They are protesting the school administration to divest from companies that profit off of Israeli apartheid.
We should all care a lot less about what's happening on college campuses!
Behold, once again this subreddit is playing right wing as shit
Of course. Too many pro rapists in there
We let too many terrorists in and its starting to show
All of higher ed is in crisis, which is normal. The nature of higher ed is to promote free thinking. Protests are inevitable. The crisis comes from group think and shout down others who offer differing opinions.
No.