Columbia has fallen - opinion

Columbia has fallen. The university administration, its hand forced by the faculty, has made repeated announcements that it no longer plans to evacuate the protest encampment like other colleges have done. The NYPD buses that waited nearby for a week gave up on giving the trespassing students a ride to the precinct.

This means that at best, the negotiations will stay at an impasse. The occupation of South-West Lawn by the encampment is now a fixture of campus. It is the new normal.

For most Israeli and Jewish faculty, students, and staff, this self-ruling enclave, at the very center of campus is practically out of bounds. Upholding it relies on the high visibility and hands-on participation of an extreme minority of faculty members, some of whom physically stand guard at the encampment entrance.

More importantly, it leans on the more distant support of a super-majority of the faculty, as evidenced by an 80% vote in the University Senate rebuking President Shafik and her administration for countering the most egregious violations of protest policy by recruiting outside help in activities beyond the capability and authority of campus Public Safety Officers.

These included external investigators who were able to quickly identify the therefore-suspended students responsible for a “Resistance 101” event, featuring explicit support for violence to the level of hijacking airplanes.

More famously, the President called in NYPD to disperse the first invasion of students onto South Lawn within 36 hours. She rarely gets credit for the tactical importance of this swift action: evacuation was peaceful and non-violent, which is unlikely for the current encampment, as protestors used the time for organized military-style, platoon-wise drilling of stances and formations that would ensure an uglier altercation next time around. 

Where do we go from here?

Where do we go from here? This selective rejection of enforcement of the rules creates a constantly hostile environment for learning and working. In legal terms, Columbia is in continuous violation of Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act, with the overwhelming support of its faculty. If we, Columbia, lose lawsuits or lose federal funding over this, we will have earned it, having stepped right into the trap set by outside bad-faith actors who would love to put our heads on a spike, especially in an election year.

The institution’s downfall will be hard. Not only will research vanish without grants, leading to a mass departure of anyone who can, but also student financial aid that is so critical to many who couldn't otherwise afford the bargain price of our degrees, 3 for a cool million. 

In the best-case scenario, we somehow survive this storm as an institution without a decades-long recession. In such a case we, Jewish and Israeli members of the Columbia community, face a similarly long period of 2nd-class citizenship.

This is important to brace for, but tough to stomach, because this institution is a community. A faculty signatory of the primary letter supporting unenforced violations had once escorted my child to the hospital. The encampment includes students who grew up with my children. 

Many other institutions solicit an exodus of such Jewish and Israeli faculty and students. I know good scholars who have started thinking about it seriously. But why should I leave? The bad guys should leave! In the meantime, we should have a stiff upper lip as we fight the hostilities. My finger is already blistered from the “submit” button for Title 6 complaints, but I have 9 more.

Finally, I should address my fellow professors. They label me as 1st-Gen to college, but Israelis and Jews know that I am 2nd-Gen, as the family educational history that matters here is where my father went at age 14 instead of high school - a sleepaway camp called Auschwitz.

Where Vietnam-era boomers see the reflection of 1968 in today’s protests, I see the shadows of 1938. You may or may not like birds, but you love oxygen, and we’re the canary in your coal mine. At this stage of the reign of terror, you too are among the victims, as I know university senators who were afraid to speak due to the mob mentality.

Yes, call the cops yesterday, or tomorrow they will come without asking you, and next week the National Guard. Last time we had to call the Red Army.

Itsik Pe'er is a Professor and Vice Chair at the Department of Computer Science at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University, and a Professor of Systems Biology at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.