Columbia to offer hybrid learning for classes on main campus until summer
Classes at Columbia University’s main campus will be hybrid, if the technology permits it, until the end of the spring semester, Provost Angela V. Olinto said in guidance to the Manhattan institution, which has had demonstrations over the war in Gaza.
Faculty with classes equipped with hybrid technology “should enable them to provide virtual learning options to students who need such a learning modality,” she wrote.
Those without should hold classes remotely if students request it, she wrote. The guidance applies to the university’s main campus in Morningside Heights.
There have been large demonstrations over the war in Gaza, and last week over 100 people were arrested there after the university asked the NYPD to remove protesters who occupied a space on campus for more than 30 hours.
Columbia President President Minouche Shafik said in a letter to the university community today that “I am deeply saddened by what is happening on our campus.”
“The decibel of our disagreements has only increased in recent days,” Shafik said. “These tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas. We need a reset.”
She added that “over the past days, there have been too many examples of intimidating and harassing behavior on our campus” and that antisemitic language will not be tolerated.
Barnard offers suspended students a deal
Barnard College says it has offered the students who were suspended after a 30-hour encampment protest at Columbia last week a way to get off interim suspension.
The students were suspended after police cleared the encampment, set up in support of Gaza, on April 18. New York police arrested more than 100 people.
Barnard President Laura Ann Rosenbury said in a letter today that “the vast majority of the students on interim suspension have not previously engaged in misconduct under Barnard’s rules.”
“Last night, the College sent written notices to these students offering to lift the interim suspensions, and immediately restore their access to College buildings, if they agree to follow all Barnard rules during a probationary period,” Rosenbury said.
If they do, the incident will not appear on transcripts or reportable student disciplinary records, she said.
More than 108 people were arrested during the demonstration, authorities have said.
Students mark Passover with interfaith Seders
BERKELEY, Calif. — Jewish students have organized interfaith Passover Seders at the Gaza solidarity encampments at college campuses across the U.S.
Photos and videos from Columbia University in New York City and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor were shared online and show students in keffiyeh scarves, surrounded by tents, sitting down to a Passover Seder.
A spokesperson for the Jewish Voice for Peace chapter at the University of California, Berkeley, said the group would also be hosting a Seder.
“A lot of us had other plans for our first-night Seder, but we want to observe Passover with our community,” said a spokesperson for Berkeley’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. “It’s a strange time dealing with the story of Passover.”
N.J. man charged with hate crime in break-in at Rutgers Islamic center
A 24-year-old New Jersey man has been charged with a federal hate crime and accused of breaking into an Islamic center on the campus of Rutgers University this month, federal prosecutors said today.
Jacob Beacher, of Somerset County, is charged with one count of intentional or attempted obstruction of religious practice and one count of making false statements to federal authorities, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey said in a statement.
Beacher is accused of breaking into the Center for Islamic Life at the New Brunswick campus around 2:40 a.m. April 10.
He broke through the glass pane of a rear door to unlock it, an FBI special agent wrote in an affidavit associated with the criminal complaint, and then allegedly damaged religious artifacts and stole a Palestinian flag.
Around $40,000 in damage was done, the affidavit says. When he was questioned, Beacher said he was the person in surveillance video near the center, but he denied breaking into the building, the FBI agent wrote.
A suspected motive is not described in the affidavit. A federal public defender listed in court records as representing Beacher did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Court records show Beacher was being held in custody.
U.S. Holocaust Museum calls on colleges to address ‘shocking eruption of antisemitism’ on campuses
The U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., today called on colleges to do more to address what it called a “shocking eruption of antisemitism” on campuses due to tensions over the war in Gaza.
“Demonstrators at Columbia University calling for Jews to return to Poland — where three million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators — is an outrageous insult to Holocaust memory, a failure to appreciate its lessons, and an act of dangerous antisemitism,” the Holocaust Museum said in a statement.
“America is hardly the Third Reich, but the Holocaust teaches the dangers of pervasive societal antisemitism, and awareness of this history must guide our actions in the present,” it said. “Nazi ideology was official state policy, but it found a receptive audience on university campuses based on well established contempt towards Jews.”
In a letter shared yesterday on social media, Chabad at Columbia University said students have had offensive rhetoric hurled at them, including being told to “go back to Poland” and “stop killing children.”
Demonstrators taken into custody at NYU
New York police said they took multiple people into custody at New York University tonight after the university called police and requested the removal of demonstrators.
How many people were taken into custody was not immediately clear. Video from the Manhattan campus showed police with helmets and batons and warning people to leave.
NYU said on social media earlier that protesters had until 4 p.m. to leave Gould Plaza after barricades were breached and after “we witnessed disorderly, disruptive, and antagonizing behavior that has interfered with the safety and security of our community.”
Video tonight showed some demonstrators chanting “NYPD KKK” and “shame on you.”
The NYPD arrested more than 100 people last week at a Gaza protest encampment at Columbia University, also in Manhattan. Columbia had also requested police assistance, officials said.
Jewish students march in solidarity
BERKELEY, Calif. — Jewish students at several college campuses are marching in solidarity with demonstrators calling for an end to the war in Gaza and the divestment of universities from Israeli companies.
At the University of California, Berkeley, in the San Francisco Bay Area, members of the local Jews for Peace chapter camped alongside pro-Palestinian protesters on the Mario Savio steps, named after a founding member of the Free Speech Movement.
A spokesperson for the group, which plans an interfaith Passover Seder tonight, said members are there to “protect” the free speech of anti-war demonstrators.
At the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Jews for Peace members held signs that read “Jews say no to genocide” and “Anti Zionism is not antisemitism.”
Columbia student organizers condemn hate; NYPD says arrests will be made ‘if there is a crime’
Michael Gerber, the deputy New York police commissioner for legal matters, told reporters that officers would step in if crimes were committed on or around Columbia University’s campus as some Jewish students express fear for their safety.
He said that includes “harassment or threats or menacing or stalking or anything like that that is not protected by the First Amendment.”
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, one of the student groups organizing the protest, condemned hate and bigotry in a statement yesterday. The statement blamed nonstudents outside the encampment for inciting harmful incidents over the weekend.
“We have been peaceful,” the statement said. “We follow in the footsteps of the civil rights and anti-war movements in our quest for liberation.”
Barnard faculty member calls for suspensions to be lifted
Barnard University faculty member Jackie Orr was out with protesters today “because of an unfolding genocide in Gaza” and to show support for students and staff members.
Orr said she was there specifically to join calls for Barnard and associated Columbia University cancel the suspensions of students who were suspended last week after they refused to leave an encampment to show support for Gaza.
The Barnard students have been evicted from their dorms, dining halls and classrooms and all of campus, she said.
“We’re here to demand that the universities immediately unsuspend those students — over 50 students at Barnard are without housing, without access to the classrooms and the faculty, without access to food,” Orr said.
Orr said it is the responsibility of faculty members to stand for students and support the speech of all students.
“The only students whose political speech and activism has been surveyed, targeted and punished have been students who have been speaking in solidarity with Palestine and students who have been speaking and acting forcefully against a genocidal war,” she said.
Barnard and Columbia, across the street from each other in Manhattan, have a partnership and students share facilities.
Patriots owner Kraft says he won’t support Columbia until changes made
New England Patriots owner and Columbia University alumnus Robert Kraft said today he will no longer support the university “until corrective action is taken.”
In a statement, Kraft, who graduated from Columbia in 1963, said the university “is no longer an institution I recognize.”
“I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country. I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” he said.
“It is my hope that Columbia and its leadership will stand up to this hate by ending these protests immediately and will work to earn back the respect and trust of the many of us who have lost faith in the institution,” he said.
Pro-Palestinian student group at Harvard says it has been suspended
The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee said on its social media platforms today that it has been suspended by the institution.
Harvard’s public affairs and communications office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The group, also known as Harvard for Palestine, has helped organize protests on campus in solidarity with pro-Palestinian encampments and protests at Columbia University, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The organization National Students for Justice in Palestine said on X the suspension at Harvard was “intended to prevent students from replicating the solidarity encampments” across the country.
Columbia undergraduate students approve referendums on divestment, ending ties to Tel Aviv
Columbia College, the undergraduate liberal arts school at Columbia University, voted to approve three referendums today calling on the school to divest from Israel as well as cut its ties to Tel Aviv.
According to the student-run Columbia Spectator, the three referendums urged the school to divest funding from Israel, end its dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University and close its Global Center in Tel Aviv. The votes are an indicator of the student’s wishes but do not change university policy.
A university spokesperson told the Spectator that the school “welcomes and embraces the Israeli students, faculty, and staff on our campus.”
“We are proud of our students and military veterans from Israel and around the world whose experience adds considerable value to the classroom and beyond,” the spokesperson said.
UC Berkeley becomes first West Coast campus to join call for solidarity
BERKELEY, Calif. — Dozens of students gathered on the Savio Steps, named for Mario Savio, the leader of the 1960s Free Speech Movement, at the University of California, Berkeley, today to protest the Israel-Hamas war and the UC system’s investments in companies that do business with Israel.
Protesters said they planned to set up an encampment on campus as UC Berkeley became the first West Coast university to join a call for solidarity among colleges across the country to show their opposition to Israel’s military action in Gaza.
The Savio Steps lead to Sproul Hall, which housed the offices of the chancellor and administrators in the 1960s and were occupied by students from the Free Speech Movement.
The movement is considered the first mass act of civil disobedience on a U.S. campus in the ’60s as students demanded the school lift a ban on on-campus political activity and secure their right to free speech and academic freedom.
‘We’re going to keep demanding for a free Palestine,’ Yale protester says after arrests
The arrests of 47 students at Yale University this morning will not dissuade people from calling for the Ivy League school to disclose its investments and divest from companies linked to war or weapons, a student vowed today.
“This morning, the cops completely ambushed us. It was 6:40 a.m.; most people were still asleep,” Yale protester Chisato Kimura told NBC Connecticut.
Demonstrators had been gathering on Beinecke Plaza on the campus in New Haven all last week, and Kimura said that when their demands of Yale went unanswered, they began taking up space with people and tents on the plaza over the weekend.
“We’re going to keep demanding for a free Palestine,” Kimura said. She said some of the people arrested had already returned to protests by this afternoon.
Kimura said that the protesters want Yale to make it clear that it is not investing in ways connected to weapons or war but that Yale has refused their request for disclosure. “We don’t want to be complicit as students,” she said.
“I don’t know what Yale was thinking when they arrested the students, but if they thought they were going to shut us up or make us quiet — I mean, it completely backfired,” Kimura told NBC Connecticut as a rally was being held.
Yale said in a statement that it repeatedly warned students that continuing to violate university policies could result in action that included arrest and that it tried to negotiate with students to leave the plaza without success. It said that negotiations ended at 11:30 p.m. and that today Yale issued summonses to people who refused to leave voluntarily.
Yale also said that it “became aware of police reports identifying harmful acts and threatening language used against individuals at or near the protest sites,” some by people from Yale and some from outsiders. Several hundred people were at the plaza over the weekend, the university said.
Michigan students establish encampment in heart of campus
Protesters at the University of Michigan renewed their criticism of Israeli warfare today by erecting an encampment in the heart of the Ann Arbor campus, on the Diag, or Diagonal Green.
The protest was organized in part by the group Transparency Accountability Humanity Reparations Investment Resistance, better known as the TAHRIR Coalition.
Earlier in the day students marched along the Diag chanting, “If you don’t get no justice, we don’t get no peace.”
The coalition’s main goal is university divestment from companies or funds that support Israel’s war in Gaza, home to a population that has faced mass displacement since Hamas militants’ Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.
The university has addressed the demand previously, with Regent Michael Behm saying in late March: “The endowment has no direct investment in any Israeli company. What we do have are funds that one of those companies may be part of a fund. Less than 1/10 of 1% of the endowment is invested indirectly in such companies.”
University of Michigan police did not immediately respond to a request for information about its response to today’s actions on campus.
Biden condemns antisemitic protests, ‘those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians’
Reporters asked Biden in Triangle, Virginia, this afternoon for his message to protestors and whether he condemned antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses.
“I condemn the antisemitic protests; that’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that,” Biden told reporters.
“I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians,” he added.
The comment appeared to be a reference to an effort announced last year to initiate partnerships between the departments of Justice and Homeland Security and campus law enforcement agencies to track hate-related threats and supply schools with federal resources to combat a rise in antisemitism.
Rep. Ilhan Omar praises solidarity movement on campuses
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., praised the solidarity emerging as campuses across the country protest the Israel-Hamas war after faculty at Columbia University staged a walkout over the administration’s crackdown.
“On Thursday, Columbia arrested and suspended its students who were peacefully protesting and have now ignited a nationwide Gaza Solidarity movement,” Omar wrote on X. “This is more than the students hoped for and I am glad to see this type of solidarity.”
Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, was arrested participating in the protests and suspended from Columbia’s nearby sister school, Barnard College. Omar said she was “enormously proud” of her daughter.
Hirsi told MSNBC she believed the school targeted for suspension students who were speaking to the media. She denied the protest encampment on campus was threatening, describing it as a “beautiful” community and saying students held Shabbat during that time.
Columbia courses go virtual as protests continue; faculty stage walkout in support
Students at Columbia University are on their sixth day of camping out on the school’s South Lawn, a re-creation of an anti-war demonstration students held in 1968 opposing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
Columbia President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik said today that classes would be held virtually and that school leaders would be coming together to discuss a way to bring an end to “this crisis.” The original 1968 protests lasted roughly a week before police forcibly removed students in full-scale police riots, alumnus Oren Root described in an opinion essay.
A large group of faculty members staged a walkout today in support of students. Students were arrested last week when the school administration asked police to remove students, citing a threat to safety, though NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told the Columbia Spectator that the protestors were peaceful and “offered no resistance whatsoever.”
The Columbia encampment has inspired similar demonstrations at other campuses, including New York University, Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley. Protesters have also gathered outside the gate to Columbia University, where antisemitic incidents and aggressive crowds have been reported.
Pro-Palestinian supporters arrested at encampment on Yale plaza
Police officers today arrested protesters who had set up an encampment on Yale University’s campus in support of the Palestinian cause, one of a growing number of American universities where there have been demonstrations surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.
Protesters had been on their third night of camping out to urge Yale to divest from military weapons manufacturers, the Yale Daily News reported.
Officers gathered at the protest site at Beinecke Plaza shortly before 7 a.m. Monday and were seen approaching the encampment and “flipping up the entrances to the tents,” the school paper wrote on X.
Then officers issued a warning for students and journalists to leave or they’d be arrested. Minutes later, the school paper wrote on X that police were arresting people.
In total, 47 students were issued summonses, Yale said in a statement today.
A high-energy crowd at NYU
People gathered in front of New York University’s Stern School of Business to protest on Gould Plaza this afternoon. The crowd maintained high energy while chanting “free Palestine.” The group also held a communal prayer and observed a moment of silence for those who have died in Gaza.
New York police were on the scene.
A few people gathered across the street, with at least one person holding an Israeli flag.
Karely Perez, an NYU alumna, said she joined the protest to show her support for the student organizations behind the encampment.
“Once the students start getting mad, things start to change,” she said.
Perez said she was proud of the students and added that although the encampments on university campuses are new, pro-Palestinian activism has always existed at schools like NYU.
