Columbia University started suspending pro-Palestinian protesters early on Monday evening after they ignored an ultimatum to abandon their encampment or risk suspension.
“We have begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts to ensure safety on our campus,” the university said in an update on its website. “Once disciplinary action is initiated, adjudication is handled by several different units within the university based on the nature of the offense.”
The ultimatum, setting a Monday deadline of 2pm, had come after the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, announced that efforts to reach a compromise with protest organisers had failed. She said the institution would not bow to demands to divest from Israel.
“It is important for you to know that the university has already identified many students in the encampment,” a letter written on university notepaper and headed “Notice to Encampment” read. “If you do not leave by 2pm, you will be suspended pending further investigation.”
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It added: “If you voluntarily leave by 2pm, identify yourself to university officials, and sign the provided form where you commit to abide by all university policies through June 30 2025, or the date of the conferral of your degree, whichever is earlier, you will be eligible to complete the semester in good standing.”
Protest negotiators informed the university on Monday that the demonstrators had responded to the ultimatum by voting not to dismantle the encampment.
Footage posted on social media showed protesters, wearing face masks and bright tops and with their arms linked, forming a “human wall” apparently designed to block any attempt by police to break up the protest site.
In a statement, protest organisers accused the university of a “violent escalation” and declared a readiness to intensify their actions in response.
“Today’s threat comes after days of fruitless negotiations in which the university refused to seriously consider our demands for divestment, financial transparency and amnesty for students and faculty disciplined in the movement for Palestinian liberation,” the statement added.
Columbia’s New York campus has become the centre of a spate of college protests across the US against Israel’s six-month war in Gaza, that has led to the death of more than 34,000 Palestinians, the displacement of hundreds of thousands more and brought the coastal territory to the brink of famine.
The demonstrations have triggered allegations of anti-Semitism amid reports by Jewish students that they have been subjected to threats and slurs.
Protest activists, in response, have asserted that the charges of anti-Semitism have been ramped up in an effort to silence criticism of Israel.
In her emailed statement to staff and students, Ms Shafik – who this month underwent a fraught cross-examination from a congressional committee on alleged anti-Semitism at the university campus – said the tented protest community in the centre of the campus had “created an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty”.
“I know that many of our Jewish students, and other students as well, have found the atmosphere intolerable in recent weeks. Many have left campus, and that is a tragedy,” she wrote, putting much of the blame on “external actors”. – Guardian