(JTA) — Columbia University has rejected a demand to divest from Israel and has failed to reach an agreement with pro-Palestinian student protesters who are occupying a portion of the school’s New York City campus, according to a letter sent Monday morning to the community by President Minouche Shafik.
“All year, we have sought to facilitate opportunities for our students and faculty to engage in constructive dialogue, and we have provided ample space for protests and vigils to take place peacefully and without disruptions to academic life,” Shafik said. “But we must take into account the rights of all members of our community.”
Communications that the lead protest group posted to social media indicated that the university had issued a deadline of 2 p.m. Monday for students in the encampment to vacate the space and commit to following university rules or risk a yearlong suspension.
Protesting students voted at noon to make a collective decision to stay, according to the Columbia Spectator student newspaper, and the protest group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, called a 1 p.m. rally on the campus near the encampment, posting pictures of signs that suggested that some individual students did not intend to acquiesce.
“Suspension for Gaza is the highest honor. Viva Palestina!” said a sign fastened to a student’s back in one picture posted as an Instagram story by Columbia University Alumni for Palestine. Videos showed several hundred students picketing and listening to speeches.
At 1:45 p.m., the university sent a terse message to recipients of its press briefings. “The rumor of a ‘state of emergency’ at Columbia University is a fabrication and totally false,” it said. “There is no state of emergency.”
The developments suggest that the campus showdown that has spurred copycat demonstrations at colleges across the United States and beyond could soon explode after a period of relative calm. It comes 10 days after Shafik asked NYPD officers to clear a first encampment by pro-Palestinian students and their allies, which had been erected while she testified to a congressional panel about antisemitism on her campus. More than 100 people were arrested that day and many were immediately suspended from Columbia and its affiliated women’s college, Barnard; dozens were reinstated at Barnard on Sunday.
The crackdown fueled the creation of an even larger encampment that has occupied a significant portion of Columbia’s campus since. Columbia closed the campus to outsiders, although politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties visited the encampment to advance their platforms on the Israel-Hamas war and campus free speech, and anti- and pro-Israel activists continued to rally at times on the city streets adjacent to campus.
The encampment has been largely orderly and has included some Jewish students. But incidents of antisemitic speech inside and outside the campus went viral on social media, and a student leader was barred from campus after being revealed to have said “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” A campus rabbi told Jewish students he did not think he could guarantee their safety, and many students — Jewish and non-Jewish — left the campus early, facilitated by the university’s decision to permit course to be completed online.
Now, the message to the encampment said, with negotiations at an impasse and exams and graduation looming, it was time to shut down the protest. The notice said an on-campus space for protest would be supplied after commencement, scheduled for May 15, but called on students to vacate immediately or face steep disciplinary consequences.
“It is important for you to know that the University has already identified many students in the encampment,” the notice posted to CUAD social media said, in bold. “If you do not identify yourself upon leaving and sign the form now, you will not be eligible to sign and complete the semester in good standing. If you do not leave by 2 p.m., you will be suspended pending further investigation.”
In her letter to the community, Shafik said the university had made concessions toward the protesting students’ demands, promising to increase transparency into the university’s investments and expedite reviews of student proposals around socially responsible investing. It.had also offered to “make investments in health and education in Gaza, including supporting early childhood development and support for displaced scholars,” she said.
But the university declined to give in on a core demand, divesting from Israel, which would involve both redirecting financial holdings and severing ties with Israeli academic institutions.
While the negotiators on both sides “worked in good faith to reach common ground,” Shafik wrote, the impasse meant that the university needed to turn its attention to ensuring a smooth conclusion to the school year.
“Please recall that many in this graduating class did not get a celebration when graduating from high school because of the pandemic, and many of them are the first in their families to earn a university degree. We owe it to all of our graduates and their loved ones to honor their achievement. We want to reassure our community who are trying to make plans that we will indeed hold a commencement,” she wrote. “For all of the reasons above, we urge those in the encampment to voluntarily disperse.”
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