Columbia University President Minouche Shafik declared Monday that the Ivy League institution was facing a “crisis,” ordered classes to be held remotely and stepped up security over escalating anti-Israel protests that have Jewish students fearing for their safety.
Ms. Shafik said she convened a working group of administrators to “try to bring this crisis to a resolution” after police arrested 108 protesters on trespassing charges. The New York Police Department was called to break up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
“The decibel of our disagreements has only increased in recent days,” Ms. Shafik, who took the job in July, said in a statement. “These tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas. We need a reset.”
Rabbi Elie Buechler, who heads the Orthodox Union on the Columbia-Barnard campuses, issued a guidance Sunday urging Jewish students to “return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”
“What we are witnessing in and around campus is terrible and tragic,” Rabbi Buechler said in the email shared by the Orthodox Union. “The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy.”
The pro-Palestinian demonstrations are spreading. Dozens were arrested at Yale University, and the gates to Harvard Yard were closed to the public on Monday. Encampments are cropping up nationwide, including at the University of Michigan, New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
SEE ALSO: AOC hails ‘peaceful’ anti-Israel protests on college campuses
New York elected officials condemned the unrest at Columbia.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said the “recent harassment is vile and abhorrent.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he was “horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus.”
Mr. Adams, a Democrat, cited several examples, including a young woman yelling “We are Hamas” and another “holding a sign with an arrow pointing to Jewish students stating ‘Al-Qasam’s Next Targets.’”
Al-Qasam is the military wing of Hamas, which slaughtered 1,200 Israeli civilians and others in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel.
“Supporting a terrorist organization that aims to kill Jews is sickening and despicable,” Mr. Adams said.
Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots football team and funded the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life across from Columbia’s campus, said he was suspending donations to the university.
SEE ALSO: Columbia President Minouche Shafik faces rising calls from Congress to step down
“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” he said in a statement.
In his Passover message, President Biden condemned the “alarming surge of Antisemitism — in our schools, communities, and online.” He did not mention Columbia by name.
The president didn’t refer to “Columbia” on Monday either. He told reporters that he condemned antisemitism and expressed sympathy for Palestinians.
“I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I have set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going with the Palestinians,” he said after a speech marking Earth Day at Prince William Forest Park in Virginia.
Mr. Biden’s comments were among his most pointed to date against the protesters, who have shut down college campuses across the country since the Israel-Hamas war began in October. He waited five days after the anti-Israel protests erupted at the nation’s elite institutions before condemning the actions.
The president’s remarks contradicted a statement from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, who hailed the protests as “peaceful” just moments earlier at the same event.
“It is especially important that we remember the power of young people shaping this country today, of all days, as we once again witness the leadership of those peaceful, student-led protests on campuses like Columbia, Yale, Berkeley, and many others,” she said.
Police arrested 47 protesters Monday at Yale University after they defied the administration’s warnings to leave Beinecke Plaza, the Yale Daily News reported.
“These protests have grown significantly over the weekend, and some members of the broader community have joined our students,” Yale President Peter Salovey said in a statement.
Mr. Salovey said university officials have warned students of disciplinary consequences for erecting structures and refusing to disperse, but students are receiving a far different message from the National Students for Justice in Palestine.
The national group, which has more than 200 campus chapters, egged on the chaos with Instagram posts cheering the encampments at Columbia, Yale and Rutgers University. It promised to “seize our universities and force the administration to divest, for the people of Gaza.”
“The supposed power of our administrators is nothing compared to the strength of the united students, staff, and faculty committed to realizing justice and upholding Palestinian liberation on campus,” the national chapter posted on Instagram.
Also backing the protesters was an open letter from the “untenured faculty at Barnard, Teachers College, and Columbia,” which denounced arrests on Thursday.
“We stand with you in solidarity, we are appalled by what has been happening on our campus, and we want to help you reclaim your University,” said the letter, posted in the Columbia Daily Spectator, the student newspaper.
The Palestine Solidarity Working Group posted a petition from Columbia University Apartheid Divest calling for the university to divest from “corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid,” an academic boycott of Israel, “amnesty” from any criminal charges and a reversal of student suspensions.
Ms. Shafik has problems that go beyond the student protesters. Last week, House Republicans at an Education and the Workforce Committee hearing blasted her and other school officials over rising campus antisemitism.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Republican and committee chair, followed up Sunday with a letter to Ms. Shafik warning that Columbia is in violation of Title VI, which bars discrimination based on race, color and national origin, including religion.
“Columbia’s continued failure to restore order and safety promptly to campus constitutes a major breach of the University’s Title VI obligations, upon which federal financial assistance is contingent, and which must immediately be rectified,” Ms. Foxx said in the letter. “If you do not rectify this danger, then the Committee will not hesitate in holding you accountable.”
Other members of Congress called for Ms. Shafik to step down over what they described as her failure to protect Jewish students and contain the increasingly virulent and disruptive protests.
The eight-member New York House Republican delegation urged Ms. Shafik to resign in a Monday letter. The lawmakers blamed the unrest on her “lax enforcement” of campus rules and “a direct product of your policies and misguided decisions.”
Sen. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania Democrat, compared the situation to the 2017 “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia. In a post on X, he said, “Add some tiki torches and it’s Charlottesville for these Jewish students.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, urged Mr. Biden to call up the National Guard to protect Jewish students. He cited the 1957 decision to send in the 101st Airborne Division to escort Black students into a segregated school in Little Rock, Arkansas.
“Eisenhower sent the 101st to Little Rock,” Mr. Hawley said on X. “It’s time for Biden to call out the National Guard at our universities to protect Jewish Americans.”
Columbia’s upgraded security measures announced Monday included increased perimeter security and identification checks at campus entry points, but the enhanced security kept out Shai Davidai, an assistant professor in the business school.
Mr. Davidai, an outspoken critic of the campus protests, said he discovered that his keycard had been deactivated when he tried to enter the Morningside Heights campus grounds.
“Earlier today, @Columbia University refused to let me onto campus,” Mr. Davidai posted on X. “Why? Because they cannot protect my safety as a Jewish professor. This is 1938.”
Mr. Davidai, who is Jewish, held an impromptu rally outside the gate, where his supporters chanted “Shame” and “Let him in.”
Later, members of the Columbia faculty staged a mass walkout in support of the pro-Palestinian students who were arrested. They held signs with messages such as “Hands Off Our Students.”
At a press conference, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Michael Gerber said Columbia asked for officers to clear out trespassers last week, but for the most part, “they have made clear that we’re not to be there. And so we’re not there.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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