Columbia extends protest deadline after students agree to dismantle some tents

As anti-Israel encampments continued to spread to new universities on Wednesday, Columbia University pushed off a deadline for negotiations with the student base installed on the campus, reducing tensions over pending confrontations with the law.

Students were given 48 more hours to negotiate, according to Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine. Reuters reported that the students had agreed to remove a number of tents.

The Tuesday midnight deadline had already been extended to 8 AM, after which students were amassed at the university in response to a possible confrontation with police, according to the protest group People’s Forum New York City. The Palestinian Youth Movement said that students had organized themselves into group formations to prevent law enforcement from entering the encampment.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) claimed that the administrators warned activist negotiators that they would summon the National Guard and the New York Police Department if the students did not meet their demands.

“Since good faith negotiations are impossible if one side threatens to use force to extract concessions, the student negotiating team has left the table and refuses to return until there is a written commitment that the administration will not unleash the NYPD or the National Guard on its students,” CUAD coalition member Students for Justice in Palestine said in a statement.

In addition to demanding that the university adopt BDS policies, CUAD published an open letter from an arrested student on Tuesday, urging fellow activists to “halt the functioning of the university by any means necessary until Columbia grants full amnesty to students who participated in the Columbia solidarity encampment.”

“We ask you to take labor actions including but not limited to withholding grading labor, calling in sick, and refusing to administer exams or submit final grades until these demands are met,” said the letter.

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said in a Tuesday statement that she hoped that negotiations were successful. Still, if they were not, “we will have to consider alternative options for clearing the West Lawn and restoring calm to campus so that students can complete the term and graduate.”

“The encampment raises serious safety concerns"

“The encampment raises serious safety concerns, disrupts campus life, and has created a tense and, at times, hostile environment for many members of our community. It is essential that we move forward with a plan to dismantle it,” said Shafik.

“We will not tolerate intimidating, harassing, or discriminatory behavior. We are working to identify protestors who violated our policies against discrimination and harassment, and they will be put through appropriate disciplinary processes.

The right to protest is essential and protected at Columbia. Still, harassment and discrimination are antithetical to our values and an affront to our commitment to be a community of mutual respect and kindness.”

Shafik announced on Monday that all classes would be held remotely. She noted Tuesday that she was cognizant of Columbia’s seniors who had already spent their first year learning online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she wanted students to celebrate graduation properly.

Amid controversy over pro-terrorism rhetoric and threats to Jewish and pro-Israel students, additional security measures were taken at the Hillel Kraft Center and the security patrol. The school also increased perimeter security and identification checks as non-student activists have been able to enter the campus.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried the spread of encampments across the US in a statement in English on Wednesday, calling on authorities to take action.

"What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.

It’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally. But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful," said Netanyahu.

"So I ask all of you, Jews and non-Jews alike, who are concerned with our common future and our common values to do one thing: stand up, speak up, be counted. Stop antisemitism now."

Netanyahu said that there was an exponential rise in antisemitism as Israel defended itself against Hamas and that the state was slandered with accusations of genocide. He said that the attacks on Israel were bad enough but noted that protesters not only chanted “Death to Israel. Death to the Jews,” but “Death to America.”

"Now, what is important is for all of us, all of us who are interested in and cherish our values and our civilization, to stand up together and say enough is enough," said Netanyahu. We have to stop antisemitism because antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine. It always precedes larger conflagrations that engulf the entire world."

On Saturday, National SJP and several other national anti-Israel groups had called for the Columbia encampments to be replicated across the US to "seize our universities and force the administration to divest for the people of Gaza."

By Tuesday evening, encampments had been erected at Yale University, Emerson College, MIT, Tufts University, The New School, New York University, University of Michigan, University of Rochester, UC Berkeley, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.  

These were joined on Wednesday by reports of new encampments forming. Over a hundred students occupied a building at the University of Texas Dallas for over ten hours, according to the Party For Socialism & Liberation. Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee said that the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine Coalition had installed a "liberated zone" on campus.

The Los Angeles chapter of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism said that encampment was started at the University of Southern California "in defense of Gaza."  Brown University also saw an encampment established, with the Brown Divest Coalition calling more groups to join the movement.