Columbia University Talks to Student Protesters—And Proposes Nothing

Columbia University has a message for the pro-Palestine student protesters: cut it out or get suspended.

After nearly two weeks of national attention on Columbia University’s student-led protest encampments calling on the university to divest from weapons manufacturers and other companies associated with Israel’s war on Gaza, university officials’ declared Monday they won’t won’t commit to any real policy changes.

The university told student protesters they must leave the campus by 2 p.m. Monday or else “be suspended pending further investigation” and prohibited from completing the spring semester.

That threat achieved exactly nothing.

DISCLOSE! DIVEST! WE WILL NOT STOP, WE WILL NOT REST!! ❤️‍????
Hundreds of Columbia University students are gathered for an emergency rally to protect the Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
We will continue until our demands are met. We will not be intimidated. #cu4Palestine pic.twitter.com/QNPeDhuVcq

— Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (@ColumbiaSJP) April 29, 2024

Interestingly, Columbia’s X account also posted a summary from Columbia President Minouche Shafik’s statement, noting that after a dialogue between “academic leaders” and student organizers, the university would not commit to divesting. Instead, Shafik outlined steps to consider student proposals and allow for more transparency in the university’s investments. The university ended up deleting that post and replacing it with a much shorter summary, presumably after blowback.

Since students set up protest encampments at Columbia over the war in Gaza earlier this month they have been met with a massive police response. Similar protests quickly spread at other campuses across the country, as many politicians missed the point and urged more punitive measures. Some pundits and politicians even tried to compare the peaceful, diverse protests to the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

As commencement approaches, university officials are desperate to make these protests go away, and avoid a situation like that of University of Southern California, where commencement ceremonies were ultimately canceled, following keynote speakers backing out and the initial cancellation of pro-Palestinian valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s speech. But as long as the U.S. continues its support for Israel’s deadly war on Gaza, students will continue to protest against their university connections to the war. And if universities persist in ignoring protest demands, or worse, massively cracking down on protests, they will not surely ignite a firestorm.