Columbia University cancels in-person classes as Gaza protests grow

Chicago/Washington — Police arrested dozens of people at a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Yale University on Monday, hours after Columbia University cancelled in-person classes in response to protesters setting up tent encampments at its New York City campus.

Demonstrators blocked traffic around Yale's campus in New Haven, Connecticut, demanding the school divest from military weapons manufacturers, video footage aired on social media showed. Police arrested more than 45 protesters, according to the Yale Daily News, a student-run news site. Yale University officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Protests at Yale, Columbia and other university campuses across the US began in response to the latest escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following the deadly cross-border raid by Hamas Islamist militants on October 7 and Israel’s fierce response in the Gaza enclave controlled by Hamas.

Human rights advocates have reported a general rise in bias and hate incidents against Jews, Arabs and Muslims since October 7. There was particular concern in recent days, with the Jewish holiday of Passover beginning on Monday.

In an email to Columbia staff and students on Monday, Columbia president Minouche Shafik said the university was cancelling in-person classes and moving to online teaching to “de-escalate the rancour and give us all a chance to consider next steps”.

Last week, Shafik called in New York police to clear a tent encampment protesters had set up on Columbia’s main lawn to demand the school divest from Israel-related investments, an unusual move condemned by some faculty.

The school said the encampment violated rules. Police arrested more than 100 students from Columbia and neighbouring Barnard College on charges of trespassing. Columbia and Barnard have suspended dozens of students involved in the protests.

“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,” said Shafik, who last week testified before a US House of Representatives committee, defending the school’s response to alleged anti-Semitism by protesters. “We need a reset.”

The New York police department has had scores of officers out on the busy Manhattan streets around Columbia’s campus, where angry confrontations have unfolded between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups.

“We have received reports that Israeli students walking on campus had their flags taken away from them, snatched out of their hands,” Tarik Shappard, the chief police spokesperson, said at a press conference on Monday outside the campus. “But we have not received any reports of any physical harm against any student.”

Student protesters spent several nights sleeping in the open on the lawn, and have since set up tents again. Students have organised both Muslim and Jewish prayers at the encampment, and some have given speeches condemning Israel and Zionism and praising Palestinian armed resistance. Similar pro-Palestinian encampments were also set up at Boston’s Emerson College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in neighbouring Cambridge.

‘Dangerous’

US President Joe Biden, who has been criticised by the protesters for supplying funding and weapons to Israel, said in a statement on Sunday that his administration has put the full force of the federal government behind protecting the Jewish community.

“Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews,” he said. “This blatant anti-Semitism is reprehensible and dangerous — and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

New York City mayor Eric Adams, in a statement on Sunday, said he was “horrified and disgusted with the anti-Semitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus”.

He gave examples of a woman who had been “yelling, ‘We are Hamas’, or groups of students chanting ‘We don’t want no Zionists here’.'”

Student organisers from the Columbia University encampment criticised the Biden and Adams statements and their claims of anti-Semitism, noting that some of the organisers are Jewish and that news outlets had focused on “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us”.

“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against nonstudents attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students — Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues,” they said in a statement.

The student activists said they are demanding the school divest from corporations that profit from Israel actions in Gaza, transparency of the school’s financial investments and amnesty for students and faculty disciplined over their calls for Palestinian liberation.

The Columbia president wrote in her campuswide email that the protesters must be open to compromise. “We cannot have one group dictate terms and attempt to disrupt important milestones like graduation to advance their point of view,” Shafik said.

Columbia’s commencement is scheduled for May 15.

Reuters