Faculty panel chastises Columbia authorities for using excessive force against protestors

The beleaguered president of Columbia University faced more criticism on Friday after her administration was harshly condemned by a campus monitoring council for suppressing a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the Ivy League university.

Many students, faculty members, and other observers have expressed their disapproval of President Nemat Minouche Shafik for calling in the New York police to break up a tent camp put up on campus by demonstrators against Israel’s assault against Hamas in Gaza.

Following a two-hour meeting on Friday, the Columbia University Senate adopted a resolution stating that by bringing in the police and dismantling the demonstration, Shafik’s administration had compromised academic freedom and violated the rights of students and staff to privacy and due process.

According to the statement, the decision has brought up major questions regarding the administration’s adherence to openness and shared governance in the university’s decision-making process.

The majority staff and faculty members of the senate, together with a small number of students, abstained from naming Shafik in their resolution and refrained from using the more severe wording of a censure.

The resolution created a task group to oversee the “corrective actions” that the Senate had requested the administration do in response to protests.

Shafik, a senator who was not present at the meeting on Friday, did not immediately respond to the resolution. Speaking on behalf of Columbia, Ben Chang stated that the administration was dedicated to “an ongoing dialogue” and that it had the same objective as the senate: to bring peace back to campus.

After more than a hundred individuals were taken into custody by Columbia University last week, the protestors swiftly returned and erected more tents on the school’s Manhattan campus, making it more difficult for Columbia to break up the encampment.

Since then, students have set up camps like to the one at Columbia and demanded that their schools withdraw from businesses that deal with the Israeli military. As a result, hundreds of protestors have been detained at colleges around the country, from California to Boston.

According to a press release from the school, at least 40 protestors were taken into custody on Friday at the Auraria Campus in Denver, which is home to the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the University of Colorado Denver.

Protests against Israel’s activities by like-minded individuals have expanded abroad. Pro-Israeli demonstrators arrived at the esteemed Sciences Pouniversity in Paris on Friday to confront pro-Palestinian students who were seizing the facility. The police separated the two groups.

About 200 protestors at George Washington University stayed assembled for a second day on Friday, only streets away from the White House. According to the school, some pupils were punished and temporarily prohibited from campus because they disobeyed instructions to leave.

While the Democratic President Joe Biden decried “antisemitic protests” last week and emphasized that colleges must be protected, the White House has backed free speech on campus.

Two days after he and Republican Governor Greg Abbott sent in the police to break up a pro-Palestinian rally, Jay Hartzell, the president of the University of Texas at Austin, encountered a similar response from the faculty on Friday.

Charges against dozens of protestors were dropped when it was determined that there was insufficient justification, or probable cause, for the arrests, according to the Travis County Attorney’s office.

A statement signed by over 200 university faculty members said that Hartzell “needlessly put students, staff, and faculty in danger” when riot gear and horse-drawn police advanced on the demonstrators.

The decision, according to Hartzell, was taken because the protest organizers wanted to “severely disrupt” the school for an extended amount of time.

The Texas altercation was just one of several that occurred this week between protestors and police called in by university administrators, who claim the demonstrations endanger student safety and occasionally expose Jewish students to antisemitic remarks and abuse.

Civil rights organizations have denounced the detentions and asked the government to uphold the right to free expression.

However, Khymani James, a camp participant at Columbia, expressed regret on Friday for declaring in a January social media video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

James stated in a statement, “What I said was wrong.” Without exception, every member of our community has a right to feel secure. James has been barred from campus and is subject to disciplinary action, according to a university official.

Arizona State University said that three demonstrators had been taken into custody for unlawful trespassing at one of its camps.