The University President is using hyperbole here. And quite needlessly so. Decorum and collegiate etiquette would have sufficed.
You think it is hyperbolic to call an environment with these kind of incidents threatening and intimidating to many students?
I don't think it is hyperbolic. I think it may be accurate representation of some students' perceptions. But their perception does not make it a reasonable one.
Mayor Adams said:
“I am horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus — like the example of a young woman holding a sign with an arrow pointing to Jewish students stating ‘Al-Qasam’s Next Targets,’ or another where a woman is literally yelling ‘We are Hamas,’ or another where groups of students are chanting ‘We don’t want no Zionists here’
And there have been others:
On Sunday, those allegations gathered further steam after footage on social media appeared to show pro-Palestine activists outside the Columbia campus telling pro-Israel students to “go back to Poland”. One activist said that
October 7 “will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1,000 more times, but 10,000 times”...A chapter of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, Chabad at Columbia University, released a statement saying that protesters also told Jewish students, “You have no culture”, “All you do is colonise” and to “Go back to Europe”.
Those examples violate my sense of decorum but I don't think it is reasonable for anyone to be intimidated or feel harassed by such taunts.
That's a judgment call, and we also don't know the specific contents of all the student complaints.
I think a university should err on the side of keeping students in a safe and welcoming environment and keep main university functions running relatively uninterrupted over allowing students to set up protest encampments.
Allowing reasonable protests is erring on the side of educating students on the fundamental notion of freedom of speech and the exchange of ideas. This is an university in NYC, not some kindergarten.
Frankly, I know from experience that student and faculty quickly learn how to game the "victimhood" mantle in order to stifle disagreement or views they don't like.
I disagree with expelling any students for the encampment but I think it is reasonable to put a stop to it. Expulsion should be based on specific threats and harassment by specific individuals against specific individuals, with due process rights respected.
Suspending or expelling protesting students two weeks before the last day of classes (April 29 from what I can tell) without a damn good reason is simply cowardice. Unless these students were actual threats, there are other ways to deal with them.
I wanted to add two main points to this discussion after getting a handle on some additional information and also after observing a pattern here. I wasn't sure which post to respond to regarding the subject of victims at universities and due process. I chose this post to respond to, but it could have been any number of earlier posts about Columbia and questions about gaming the system or the subjectivity of feeling intimidated.
So, first,
intimidation......
As in many other political issues, let me say that spectra are a thing. There is diversity among the Jewish community. It isn't quite that there is a radical group called Jewish Voice for Peace and then every other Jew against them, but instead, there is a spectrum of religious and political views. How that applies here: After looking at a number of happenings at universities, I have noticed a pattern. The persons who say they feel intimidated by the protests are most often orthodox Jews. The Jewish persons who participate in the protests are most often Jewish Voice for Peace. If the orthodox Jews are ultra-orthodox conservative Jews, then they are kind of polar opposites in one sense. However, if you look at the Jewish group at MIT (see video from earlier) who is protesting, they call themselves
MIT Jews 4 Ceasefire and so presumably among them are less radical than merely Jewish Voice for Peace. If you look at the video of the MIT Jewish professor, he calls them "lost souls," so you have a professor using religious terminology about students and he also infers they are anti-semitic because of their political position. So when we hear statements of anti-Semitism, we have to put that into context. To add--one of the JVP members at Columbia and another member of the protestors had chemicals sprayed at them by Jewish students opposed to the protests. These were students who had come from Israel and at least one that
I read had served in the IDF, meaning they were Zionist, and probably also very conservative. Next, Netanyahu himself recently has said that protesting the war or calling for a ceasefire is anti-semitic. Netanyahu is not quite at the furthest extreme of right-wingedness but is allied to some real crazies. Most recently, Bernie Sanders has responded to him in an
open letter. As we know Bernie is against the war and is calling for a ceasefire. BUT Bernie is not the only one. A recent
Gallup poll says the majority of Americans are for a ceasefire and that means if Netanyahu is right, America is anti-semitic. BUT, we're not the only ones, there are right now protests in Israel by Jewish people against Netanyahu and for a ceasefire to negotiate for hostages. Presumably, Jews in Israel are Zionists by and large, and so we have Zionist Jews for a ceasefire, i.e. according to the thinking, they have to be anti-semitic, too! The wide range of views among Jews shows how the label of anti-semitism is being used unreasonably.
If you look at the link above for MIT Jews 4 Ceasefire, it shows an article written in The Tech. It's pretty good and identifies the term "crybullying." I think that is apt, BUT I also think it is important to point out because there is a spectrum of people and experiences, it can't all be this one thing. Some people probably legitimately feel intimidated on all sides. Even if we can logically show that the term anti-semitism is being weaponized, it doesn't mean that no anti-semitism exists.
Second, I have taken a look at the statutes of Columbia University and things really are not as straightforward as some people have assumed insofar as the
authority of the President and due process. People may imagine a world where the Columbia University President is a dictator, but we must remember this is an Ivy League institution, centuries-old, an elite liberal arts university with tons of history of protests and an idea of democracy not to mention it needs to respect the rights of people besides all that.
I believe that there are 3 relevant sections in the statutes.
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Section 1 Powers The President shall be the chief officer of the University and, subject to the Trustees, shall have general charge of the affairs of the University. The President shall be the presiding officer of the University Senate and the chair of every Faculty and Administrative Board established by the Trustees. His or her concurrence shall be necessary to every act of a Faculty or of an Administrative Board, unless after his or her nonconcurrence, the act or resolution shall be again passed by a vote of two-thirds of the entire body at the same or at the next succeeding meeting thereof. In all cases where there shall be nonconcurrence between the President and a majority of the faculty or Administrative Board present at the time, the names of those voting on each side shall be entered on the minutes and each member shall be entitled to have entered on the minutes his or her reasons for his or her vote.
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Section 23 General policies Subject to the reserve power of the Trustees and the provisions of Section 25, the University Senate shall be a policy-making body which may consider all matters of Universitywide concern, all matters affecting more than one Faculty or school, and all matters pertaining to the implementation and execution of agreements with the other educational institutions that are now or may hereafter become affiliated with the University. Without limitation by enumeration the University Senate shall ...
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Section 444 ... (f) ... If the President, upon consultation with a majority of a panel established by the University Senate’s Executive Committee, decides that a demonstration poses a clear and present danger to persons, property, or the substantial functioning of any division of the University, he or she shall take all necessary steps to secure the cooperation of external authorities to bring about the end of the disruption. The President shall make public his or her decision to the fullest extent possible as soon as it is feasible. Nothing in the above shall be construed to limit the President’s emergency authority to protect persons or property.
The President has to consult with the Senate's executive committee upon calling in police on a demonstration. She did so, but the committee unanimously rejected the idea to call the police. The statute leaves open the possibility that she can still call the police under "emergency authority to protect persons and property" in context meaning "clear and present danger." There was no emergency issue to property. There was no clear and present danger to persons.
It's true that some people could have felt intimidated. Some of that is propagandized and weaponized calls of anti-semitism. That said, some of the so-called "outside agitators," presumably having made their way in could certainly increase unease among the students. However, there's also just the issue of orthodox activist leadership declaring all these demonstrations as anti-semitic. The President's decision was also preceded by political pressure directly from Congress who have on record all the activities against THE JEWISH PROTESTORS. They wrote a letter to Congress from several colleges and how JVP has been mistreated. But this is not the narrative and not the superficial media treatment of what has happened. So she was being threatened by the government of being fired, possibly lawsuits, too.
When she made the statement that the protest "severely disrupts campus life, and creates a harassing and intimidating environment for many of our students" she was justifying it by portions of the statute.
After ignoring the Senate which has all the information to see through the complicated issue and ignore superficial media and propaganda from the government...and has less worry about being fired than she does, the Senate was going to
censure her. They still can besides that with 2/3 majority veto many things she can order. So, again, she is not a dictator.
They all seem to be slowly working on a compromise. They have worked with students to
reduce the tents so that it is less of a disruption. They have also gotten students to agree not to allow in outsiders which they had already made statements they were against outside extremist statements...anyway. The school seems to have agreed to
more transparency.
After some negotiation, they seem to be at an impasse, but the President has also been censured less so than she would have been.
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