FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK – At Columbia the last day of (hybrid) classes is April 29, but the graduation ceremony in May risks becoming a stage for protest. After the arrests, the camp grew. In a briefing with journalists last night, Columbia’s deputy head of communications Ben Chang reiterated the administration’s concern (“Security is not just the absence of violence, protest violates the rules”) and the fear of people outside the university although the latter is now closed to those without a badge.
But Rector Shafik is under attack by hundreds of teachers for calling the police. “The teachers are moving towards at least a motion of censure against him, even if some want him to resign,” says Stephanie McCurry, who teaches history. «It wasn’t impossible to manage the situation, universities always do it. Students are idealistic, sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. It is not the first time that there have been calls for “divestment”, from apartheid to oil.” The Planning Committee representing the professors has condemned any anti-Semitic but also anti-Muslim attitude asks the media not to confuse the provocateurs and the videos shot outside the university with the students inside of.
There were also dozens of arrests at Yale and New York University. But other universities, after seeing the counterproductive reaction to Columbia, are trying different approaches. At the University of Michigan the authorities promise areas for protests: “Graduation ceremonies have been a place of free and peaceful expression for decades and will continue to be so.” At Barnard College, where many of the students arrested at Columbia come from, President Laura Ann Rosenbury extends an olive branch: she is ready to restore access to campus to suspended students if they promise to abide by the rules (they will have access to the canteen and will be able to finish the semester remotely). “Exposure to different ideas is a vital component of education,” Rosenbury says. “But no student should fear for their safety.”
Many Jewish students say they feel threatened, even though the Jewish Voices for Peace organization says more than a dozen of those arrested and suspended are Jews. «As a Jewish faculty member at Columbia, the only time I felt unsafe on campus was when the NYPD in riot gear came in large numbers to drag away the protesting students peacefully,” Susan Bernofsky, professor of Writing, tells us. «The camp is noticeable and visually annoying but is not dangerous in any way. On Monday evening, a colleague attended the ceremonial Seder dinner that opens Passover; there were 75 Jewish students and 12 professors at the camp.” McCurry criticizes «right-wing politicians in Washington who have never been champions of the fight against anti-Semitism and now use it to attack universities, with which they have a pre-existing conflict because they are sources of independent and ethical thought.”
