#Columbia Daily Spectator

[american-troubadour]

Phil Ochs performing at the "Remember the War" benefit at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, New York. December 6, 1971.

Photographed by Don Koblitz

Columbia Daily Spectator; Vol. CXVI No. 37, December 7, 1971:

[drsonnet]

(2024)

APRIL 1968..#ColumbiaUniversity In 1968, students occupied buildings and hundreds were arrested. Credit...Larry C. Morris/ TheNewYorkTimes

A protest 56 years ago became an important part of Columbia’s culture.

During the Vietnam War, students seized campus buildings for a week until university officials and the police cracked down.

By Vimal Patel April 18, 2024

Columbia University is no stranger to major student protests, and the uproar that unfolded at the institution on Thursday had echoes of a much bigger revolt in 1968 — another time of upheaval over a war many students deeply believed was immoral.

That year, in April, in the throes of the Vietnam War, Columbia and Barnard students seized five campus buildings, took a dean hostage and shut down the university.

By April 30, a week after the protest started, university officials cracked down.

At about 2 a.m., police began clearing students from Hamilton Hall “after entering the building through underground tunnels,” according to the student newspaper, The Columbia Daily Spectator. Minutes later, police entered Low Library, again through tunnels, removing occupying students by force.

By 4 a.m., they had cleared all buildings, resulting in more than 700 arrests — one of the largest mass detentions in New York City history — and 148 reports of injuries, the student newspaper reported. Officers trampled protesters, hit them with nightsticks, punched and kicked them and dragged them down stairs, according to a New York Times report.

Most of the injuries were cuts and bruises, relatively minor as compared to some of the brutal arrests of protesters at the height of antiwar and civil rights demonstrations at the time. The university also sustained some property damage, including smashed furniture, toppled shelves and broken windows.

In the end, the protesters won their goals of stopping the construction of a gym on public land in Morningside Park, cutting ties with a Pentagon institute doing research for the Vietnam War and gaining amnesty for demonstrators.

The protests would also lead to the early resignations of Columbia’s president, Grayson L. Kirk, and its provost, David B. Truman.

The fallout from the violence hurt the university’s reputation and led to reforms favoring student activism. Today the university touts its tradition of protest as part of its brand.

On Thursday, another Columbia president, Nemat Shafik, took what she called an “extraordinary step” and authorized the New York Police Department to clear out a student encampment on campus.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By  Amanda Woods and Olivia Land

An Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia University’s main library this week — amid heightened tensions on the Ivy League campus over the Israel-Hamas war.

Cops responded to a report of a 24-year-old man assaulted at 535 W. 114th St. — right outside Butler Library — around 6:10 p.m. Wednesday, the NYPD said.

The victim and a 19-year-old woman were having an argument, which turned physical when she allegedly beat him in the hand with a wooden stick, according to police.

The suspect, Maxwell Friedman, of Brooklyn, was arrested and charged with an assault, cops said, adding that the victim refused medical attention at the scene.

The victim — an Israeli student at Columbia’s School of General Studies — said he confronted the woman after seeing her ripping down flyers with names and pictures of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas this week, according to the university’s student newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator, which first reported the attack.

“This is because me being an Israeli these days. Not me because being myself,” said the man — who asked to be identified by the initials “I.A.” due to concerns for his safety.

“It is because me being an Israeli who is under a certain kind of threat.”

[victusinveritas]

March 11, 1969: The Columbia Daily Spectator publishes Jim Dunnigan's board game "Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker," a "playable game simulation of spring on Morningside Heights" in 1968, pitting the administration against campus radicals at Columbia.

[beardedmrbean]

Videos showing pro-Palestinian student protesters who set up an encampment on Columbia University's campus forming a human chain against people they say are Zionists have gone viral on social media.

Hundreds of protesters formed the blockade against "a small group of Jewish students," Sahar Tartak, the editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, alongside a clip.

Another video posted on X by Jessica Schwalb, a reporter with the Columbia Daily Spectator, a student newspaper, showed one person calling for others to form the human chain because of "Zionists that have entered the campus."

"Can I get everyone's attention?" the person can be heard saying in the video.

The person then calls on others to repeat: "We have Zionists who have entered the camp. We are going to create a human chain where I am standing so that they do not pass this point and infringe upon our privacy and try to destruct our community. Please join me in this chain."

At one point, a man can be seen confronting a protester and asking: "Excuse me, do you see what you're doing to us? Do you see how hostile this is and you're asking me not to record?"

Protesters can then be seen linking arms and taking steps forward, chanting: "We ask that you please respect our privacy and our community guidelines which you have so far disrespected and leave our camp."

Tensions on university campuses have been high over the past six months as Israel continues its war in Gaza.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the Associated Press reported, citing local health officials. It erupted after Hamas' unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which killed around 1,200 people and saw about 250 others taken hostage.

Last Wednesday, students at Columbia set up a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on campus to protest Israel's ongoing military action in Gaza and Columbia's "continued financial investment in corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine."

The university called in New York police to clear the encampment on Thursday. More than 100 students were arrested, and the university has said they have been suspended.

Student protesters have since resumed their encampment, saying in a statement that they "demand [their] voices be heard against the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza."

There have been reports of Jewish students facing harassment on campus, prompting condemnation from the White House and other officials.

In a statement, the student protest coalition said it was "frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us." A reporter for NBC wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that they didn't see a "single instance of violence or aggression" at the student encampment on Thursday and Friday.

On Sunday, a rabbi associated with the university urged Jewish students to go home, saying recent events "have made it clear that Columbia University's Public Safety and the NYPD [New York Police Department] cannot guarantee Jewish students' safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy."

A Columbia spokesperson told Newsweek on Sunday that the university is acting on students' concerns.

"Columbia students have the right to protest, but they are not allowed to disrupt campus life or harass and intimidate fellow students and members of our community," the spokesperson said. "We are acting on concerns we are hearing from our Jewish students and are providing additional support and resources to ensure that our community remains safe."

The university cancelled in-person classes on Monday, with university President Nemat Minouche Shafik saying it was an effort to "deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps."

Shafik said that a "working group of Deans, university administrators and faculty members will try to bring this crisis to a resolution" in the coming days. "That includes continuing discussions with the student protestors and identifying actions we can take as a community to enable us to peacefully complete the term and return to respectful engagement with each other," she said.

New York Mayor Eric Adams said on Sunday that the NYPD has increased the presence of officers around the Columbia campus to "protect students and all New Yorkers on nearby public streets."

He said the NYPD cannot have a presence on the campus unless it is requested by senior university officials but that officers "stand ready to respond if another request is made by the university, as they did on Thursday."

The Columbia student protesters' statement late on Sunday said they will continue to peacefully call for "divestment from genocide."

"At universities across the nation, our movement is united in valuing every human life," it said. "Our members have been misidentified by a politically motivated mob, doxxed in the press, arrested by the NYPD, and locked out of their homes by the university. We have knowingly put ourselves in danger because we can no longer be complicit in Columbia funneling our tuition dollars and grant funding into companies that profit from death."

It added: "We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students—Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black, and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country."

[xtruss]

NYPD officers in riot gear march onto Columbia’s campus on April 30, 2024, in NYC. Photo: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

How Much Money Did The NYPD Waste Quashing Student Protests? We Tallied It Up.

The last big protests cost $150 million in NYPD overtime — with tens of millions more in lawsuit settlements.

— Bryce Covert | May 7 2024

IN THE EARLY hours of April 30, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced that negotiations with student protesters had failed. She ordered the students, who were demanding that the school divest from Israel, to disband their encampments and end their protests.

Instead, students occupied Hamilton Hall. They renamed the building — which has a long history of occupations — Hind’s Hall in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces after calling for help in January.

“Every dollar that we spend on policing, especially policing that is suppressing our constitutional rights in a democracy, is an affront.”

That evening, at Shafik’s request, the New York City Police Department stormed the campus for the second time in two weeks. Hundreds of officers in riot gear showed up around 8 p.m., violently mass arresting students, and stayed until at least midnight, when the university said the area had been cleared.

Mayor Eric Adams has called for Columbia to foot some of the bill, but New York City residents are, for now, the ones paying for that violent evening. Based on estimates of the size of the police force and the cost per officer, New York spent at least $200,000 on overtime alone for the four-hour raid to clear Hamilton Hall, according to an analysis by The Intercept.

“Every dollar that we spend on policing, especially policing that is suppressing our constitutional rights in a democracy, is an affront against so many New Yorkers who are in desperate need for economic and social support,” said Jawanza Williams, director of organizing at VOCAL-NY, a community activist group. “The administration has a totally flipped, upside-down perspective when it comes to what should be a priority in the city’s spending and the city’s budget.”

Two hundred thousand dollars may not sound like much, but Williams pointed out that it could, for example, be used staff up the city’s housing discrimination office or even help families stay housed themselves.

The cost of the crackdown — part of a wider NYPD dragnet against Gaza protests — is likely to increase exponentially, especially as protests continue to grow. Large numbers of police can now be seen at most of the daily protests popping up around the city. (The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.)

Based on past protests, the fiscal toll of the NYPD’s response could easily reach nine figures. Policing of the 2020 George Floyd protests in New York ended up costing the city nearly $150 million in overtime alone — with tens of millions, and counting, in additional settlement payouts in police abuse lawsuits.

Overtime in Overdrive

To make its estimate for the cost of the size of the police force bearing down on Columbia’s campus, The Intercept used public eyewitness accounts, publicly available photo evidence, and software tools for estimating crowd size.

Carla Mende, a graduate student who filmed what happened with a documentary team and recounted her experience to the Columbia Spectator, counted about 500 officers rushing by her. A crowd estimation tool counts nearly 200 officers in two Getty photos of helmeted police swarming the campus. At least 90 officers can be seen in footage of police climbing an armored police vehicle with a ramp on top to enter Hamilton Hall.

The cost of paying NYPD overtime, on average, is $100 per hour per officer, according to an estimate given to The Intercept by the New York City Comptroller’s Office. That means the hundreds of police who showed up at Columbia that night cost New York City hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime.

Just going by the Mende’s estimate of 500 officers, the city spent $200,000 to clear Hamilton Hall — and that doesn’t count the officers who stayed around after Columbia declared the campus cleared, the use of military-style equipment, or other costs for the massive police mobilization.

Shafik requested that NYPD officers stay on campus from April 30 through May 17.

One student who was arrested that night told student-run radio station WKCR that police taunted the student protesters by telling them about all the overtime they were making.

Millions in Payouts

The April 30 raid on Columbia was just one of a series of recent crackdowns in which police stormed onto New York City college campuses. That same evening, according to Hell Gate, “hundreds” of officers flooded onto the City College of New York’s campus and violently disbanded its encampment. “Well over” 100 cops showed up to disband an encampment at the New School in the early hours of May 3, according to the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.

In total, the NYPD has arrested nearly 500 people at Columbia, CCNY, Fordham University, the New School, and New York University so far.

The cost of sending NYPD streaming onto college campuses will have to be absorbed by a city budget already under harsh austerity measures imposed by Adams. In September, he told all city agencies to absorb a 15 percent cut after imposing multiple rounds of cuts in 2022.

Public libraries have already eliminated Sunday service, and they’ve warned they’ll soon be forced to cut Saturday service as well. Schools that lost enrollment in the pandemic are at risk of losing funding. The city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds is getting hollowed out. The city’s drop-off compost sites are permanently closing this month. In his April budget, Adams restored some of the slashed funding, but not all. Among the big-ticket items that the mayor reinstated funding for was money for new classes of police.

Meanwhile, the cost of the current crackdown is only going to grow. The last large-scale NYPD protest crackdown cost the city 1,000 times more than what The Intercept estimates police spent raiding colleges on April 30.

In 2020, when protests over the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor erupted over the summer, huge police forces violently suppressed them. It cost the city $145.7 million in overtime, pushing total NYPD overtime costs to $721 million in 2020, up from $600 million the year before. The figure was the highest number Comptroller Brad Lander’s office documented between 2013 and 2022.

The cost of police overtime also doesn’t account for what the city will have to pay out when protesters sue over mistreatment, as they are likely to do.

The NYPD’s response to the 2020 protests resulted in a $13.7 million settlement for attacking protesters and a $7 million settlement for kettling them. Individual lawsuits added another $12 million in costs as of last summer.

Other large protests, even one-offs, have led to massive legal settlements. The police response to the 2004 Republican National Convention in Manhattan resulted in a $10.3 million settlement paid to protesters and $7.6 million spent on lawyers’ fees.

The city has paid more than $500 million in misconduct settlements over the last six years.

[plethoraworldatlas]

Hundreds of New York City police officers descended on Columbia University Tuesday night to arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian student protesters and dismantle a Gaza solidarity encampment that inspired campus protests across the United States, with demonstrators calling on their schools to divest from companies profiting off Israel's devastating war.

Police, some wearing riot gear, entered Columbia's campus at the request of the university's president, Minouche Shafik, who authorized the NYPD to "clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments."

Video footage shows officers entering a campus building that students occupied hours earlier, renaming it "Hind's Hall" after a 6-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces earlier this year. The Columbia Daily Spectator, the university's student newspaper, reported that "as they entered the building, officers threw down the metal and wooden tables barricading the doors and shattered the glass on the leftmost doors of Hamilton to enter with shields in hand."

"Several officers drew their guns, according to footage posted by NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry," the newspaper added. "At around 9:37 pm, officers led dozens of protesters out the entrance of Hamilton. The protesters' hands were zip-tied behind their backs. The arrested individuals chanted, 'Free, free Palestine' as they were led away from the building."

Other footage shows NYPD officers forcing their way through students who locked arms in front of the occupied campus building. One cop is seen kneeing a student on the ground.

Students reported that police used tear gas, which is banned in war, on demonstrators.

"Tonight, my university called in a militarized police force—armed in riot gear, with guns drawn, deploying weapons banned under international law—to attack teenagers," Lea Salim, a student member of Jewish Voice for Peace-Columbia/Barnard, said in a statement. "All because Columbia refuses to divest from the Israeli military and its genocidal campaign on the people of Gaza."

[crystalis]

...Why does a university that flaunts its “storied history” of successful student activism seek to contain and suppress student mobilization? Why is the same university that capitalizes on the legacy of Edward Said and enshrines The Wretched of the Earth into its Core Curriculum so scared to speak about decolonization in practice?

editorial by the Columbia University student newspaper

[lboogie1906]

Charles Henry Alston (November 28, 1907 – April 27, 1977) was a painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist, and teacher who lived and worked in Harlem. He was active in the Harlem Renaissance; he was the first African-American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. He designed and painted murals at the Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building. His bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became the first image of an African American displayed at the White House. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, where he was nominated for academic excellence and was the art editor of the school's magazine, The Magpie. He was a member of the Arista - National Honor Society and studied drawing and anatomy at the Saturday school of the National Academy of Art. In high school, he was given his first oil paints and learned about his aunt Bessye Bearden's art salons, which stars like Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes attended. He attended Columbia University, turning down a scholarship to the Yale School of Fine Arts. He entered the pre-architectural program but lost interest after realizing what difficulties many African-American architects had in the field. After taking classes in pre-med, he decided that math, physics, and chemistry "was not just my bag", and he entered the fine arts program. During his time at Columbia, he joined Alpha Phi Alpha, worked on the university's Columbia Daily Spectator, and drew cartoons for the school's magazine Jester. He explored Harlem restaurants and clubs, where his love for jazz and black music would be fostered. He received a fellowship to study at Teachers College, where he obtained his MA. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha https://www.instagram.com/p/ClgPSPArVxp/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[tortiefrancis]

[ ID 1: Black text on a white background, which reads: The Takeover. May 4, 2024. Listen Up, Columbia! Portraits from a campus in crisis. Photographs by Gabriella Gregor Splaver. /End ID ]

[ ID 2: A series of photos of people against a white background, either facing the camera or facing away from it. They have white paper with black text taped to themselves, with different text. Individual descriptions below:

1) A person with light tone skin and long, straight, black hair in a ponytail, wearing a cross necklace, a black top and a black and white keffiyeh around their arms, facing the camera. The text reads: "There are no universities left in Gaza".

2) A person with light medium tone skin, long, straight, brown hair with blonde streaks and sharp eyes, wearing a black face mask, a white tank top and a black and white keffiyeh wrapped around their head. They face the camera and have their hands on their hips. The text reads: "$80K to get arrested, suspended and evicted?"

3) A person with light tone skin and straight, dark, graying hair in a bun, wearing glasses and a black coat, frowning with their hands on their hips. The text reads: "Student protest is U.S. history".

4) A person with light tone skin, short, straight, blonde hair and a very thin beard, wearing a dark green beanie, a dark green t-shirt with Hebrew text and a Star of David necklace, facing the camera and holding up a skateboard. Text on the skateboard reads: "Cops off our campus".

5) A person with light tone skin and dark hair wearing a black and white keffiyeh around their head and a long sleeved, white shirt. The text reads: "Evicting me won't stop me from speaking up. Free Palestine always".

6) A person with dark tone skin and long, black, braided hair in a bun, wearing glasses, an orange shirt and a large, black coat, facing the camera. The text reads: "Police brutality won't stop the people".

7) A person with dark tone skin and short, dark, coily hair with bleached tips wearing a brown and white flannel t-shirt, pointing to themself while facing away from the camera. The text reads: "Be on the right side of history. Divest!!!"

8) A person with light tone skin and long, straight, ginger hair, wearing a long sleeved, black shirt and facepaint, with text on one cheek reading "Jew 4 (for)", and on the other cheek a Palestine flag and Star of David. They face the camera. Text reads: "If we didn't protest genocide, our education would be worthless".

/End ID ]

[ ID 3: Black text on a white background, which reads: On Friday, April 26, photographers for the Columbia Daily Spectator set up a white backdrop in front of Butler Library, opposite the encampment student protesters had erected days earlier on the campus's central lawn. They began asking anyone who walked by students entering and leaving the encampment, professors, counterprotesters, and those just trying to get to the library — if they would stop for a portrait. Those who said "yes" were given tape and a marker and asked to write their message to the university and affix it to their clothing. /End ID ]

Check out the full photo shoot here

[safehavenhqs]

Un nuevo habitante llega al pueblo con el nombre de THEIA LEIGH LOVETT. Sus datos confirman que su profesión es EMPLEADA DE TALES & TOMES además de EDITORA FREELANCER tiene 29 AÑOS y es originario de PORTLAND, MAINE. Algunas personas lo confunden con BARBARA PALVIN.

¡Bienvenido a Safe Haven, BERRY! Tienes 48 horas para enviar la cuenta de tu personaje. Esperamos que tu estadía en el pueblo sea de tu agrado.

Información del usuario:

Apodo: berry.

Pronombres: cualquier pronombre.

País/Zona horaria: gmt-6.

Trigger warnings: serpientes, non-con, pedofilia.

Rostro reservado: barbara palvin.

Cupo reservado: 13.2

Información del personaje:

Nombre:  theia leigh lovett.

Pronombres: ella / suya.

Fecha de nacimiento: 21 / 12 / 1994. ( 29 años )

Lugar de nacimiento:  portland, maine.

Grupo al que pertenece: forastero.

Profesión: empleada de tales & tomes, editora freelancer.

Perfil

Habilidades:

agilidad mental, cuenta con una destreza casi impecable a la hora de resolver crucigramas o cualquier tipo de juegos mentales. buena memoria, presta atención a los detalles, recuerda detalles con precisión. piensa primero, actúa después. en cuanto a habilidades físicas se trata, hace lo posible por mantenerse en forma; yoga por las mañanas, se mueve por el pueblo en su bicicleta y sale a trotar ocasionalmente.

Enfermedades: 

ninguna en particular, goza de buena salud y buenos hábitos que la mantienen sana. solo sufre de un dolor en su muñeca causado por un esguince hace cinco años, el dolor solo se presenta en días particularmente fríos.

Puntos de habilidad: 

Velocidad: 2.

Agilidad: 1.

Resistencia: 1.

Ingenio: 4.

Sigilo: 4.

Ataque: 0.

Defensa: 1.

Fuerza: 1.

Residencia: 

tras firmar su divorcio, theia sentía haberlo perdido todo. el fin de su matrimonio se llevó consigo todo aquello por lo que había trabajado durante su vida adulta. sin hogar, sin ahorros, con la incertidumbre asfixiante del qué pasará mañana. fue entonces que llegó al pueblo, safe haven le abrió los brazos prometiendo un nuevo comienzo. desde hace seis meses se ha convertido en miembro activo de la comunidad. aunque es originaria de portland, ha encontrado en safe haven la calma que venía anhelando desde hace mucho tiempo.

Curiosidades: 

i. hija única de un matrimonio donde el amor no faltaba, pero no se expresaba con frecuencia. creció leyendo sobre el romance, anhelando todo aquello que en su hogar nunca hubo: un beso apasionado, un te quiero a los cuatro vientos. quizás fue por ello que se enamoró perdidamente del primer hombre que, sin miedo o titubeos, le prometió amor eterno mientras tomaba de su mano, jurando jamás soltarla. ii. columbia sería el primer paso para comerse el mundo. un sueño que compartió con devon, con quien para ese punto de la relación habían decidido contraer nupcias apenas se graduaran, el anillo en su dedo era el recuerdo de aquella promesa. durante sus años universitarios se inclinó por la literatura, formando parte de talleres de escritura creativa y ganándose un lugar en el columbia daily spectator como editora. iii. la cocina se ha vuelto una parte escencial en su vida, vuelca preocupaciones en la elaboración de algun platillo, siendo los postres aquellos que encuentra más terapéuticos. ha perfeccionado infinidad de recetas dulces, incluso hay quien dice que hace los mejores brownies de todo maine.

Familiar desaparecido: n/a.

Personas de interés

lorelai taylor, treinta años, mejor amiga.

dupla inseparable desde la infancia. compañeras de risas y lagrimas, de corazones rotos y decisiones importantes. los años, la distancia y peleas esporádicas no han sido capaz de romper ese vínculo. casi seguras de que han coincidido en otra vida por la forma en que se complementan. lorelai es energía, tan alegre como los primeros días de verano, mientras theia es calma, similar a la de una tarde de otoño. fue lorelai quien convenció a theia de mudarse a safe haven tras su divorcio.

elijah taylor, cinco años, ahijado.

elijah y theia comparten una conexión especial. ella estuvo ahí desde el día de su nacimiento, ayudando y cuidando de él y de su mejor amiga. cómplices de travesuras, eli ha sido ese rayito de luz y esperanza durante sus días más oscuros.

En este apartado te pedimos que describas a dos personas (PNJ) de su círculo cercano y que sean de importancia para tu personaje. Pueden tratarse de familiares, amigos, compañeros o simples conocidos que les han marcado positiva o negativamente. La única petición es que se traten de personas vivas y con quienes mantengan contacto, preferiblemente que radiquen en el pueblo o sus cercanías. 

[✔] Al enviar este formulario doy permiso a la administración de utilizar a mi personaje de la forma que consideren adecuada en el desarrollo de la historia grupal. Para más información al respecto leer la normativa.

[readingsquotes]

"On April 17, University President Minouche Shafik became the latest in a line of leaders in higher education to testify before Congress. As part of the House probe into antisemitism on college campuses, the hearing, titled “Columbia in Crisis,” was theoretically the fruit of a bipartisan effort to combat bigotry by holding administrations across the country accountable for their handling of it. However, as evidenced by Wednesday’s hearing, the committee is clearly more concerned with vanquishing the specters of “Soviet-style education” and “left-wing academia”—lest we “be cursed by God”—than protecting Jewish students. The uncannily McCarthyite interrogation to which the Columbia delegation was subjected was disingenuous, often hostile, and conducted in bad faith. Simultaneously, Shafik and her fellow administrators were all too willing to succumb to pressure from representatives, essentially conflating pro-Palestinian campus activism with antisemitism and repeatedly condemning the words and actions of both students and faculty to appease committee members."

...

Only one day after her hearing, Shafik has proven to her students yet again the administration’s commitment to silencing and marginalizing its own student body.

Shafik’s authorization of the New York Police Department to enter campus and forcibly remove peaceful protesters spotlights the emptiness and duplicity of the promises she made to Congress and the Columbia community.

...

Even Shafik’s commitment to a qualified form of freedom of speech is insincere. A nonviolent protest employing rhetoric that has “historically meant different things to different people” is not making anyone unsafe—feeling uncomfortable is not the same as being unsafe.

...

Columbia’s crisis is not as the committee has attempted to define it—a characterization stemming from the belief that the University has become a hotbed of antisemitic thought and behavior. Rather, the crisis is rooted in a lack of genuine community engagement on the part of the administration, as well as a failure to fulfill its duty of care to all affiliates. We have witnessed the creation of countless ineffectual task forces, listening forums with lottery participation, student suspensions, inconvenient and poorly communicated gate closures, disciplinary warnings and hearings, dorm door monitoring, interim policy introductions, proud NYPD and FBI collaborations, campus militarization, and most recently, the arrest of over 108 peaceful protestors at the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

[hello-bechnaseekhocom-fan]

Alaska Hit by Moderate Quake: 5.9 Magnitude Earthquake Update

Breaking News: Alaska experiences a 5.9 magnitude earthquake, prompting seismic updates and vigilance in the region.

Join Our Telegram Channel To Get Daily Update

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Over the past nine decades, this fault system has witnessed seismic crescendos, with the most striking performance being the 1949 M8.1 earthquake. Originating in the rugged terrains of British Columbia, this seismic maestro conducted a symphony of rupture, extending both south and north for an astounding 300 miles (483 km) and elegantly crossing borders into the Alaskan realm.

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[sumquiasum]

There's another one! Once again Columbia Daily Spectator.

[eretzyisrael]

The editors of the Columbia Daily Spectator — the student newspaper at the New York Ivy League school — apologized on Sunday for running what they called a “deeply inappropriate” pro-Israel advertisement.

The ad — created by the Columbia chapter of the Students Supporting Israel (SSI) group — urged students to “vote no” in an upcoming BDS referendum at the university’s undergraduate college.

In a message addressed to Spectator readers, the paper’s Editor-in-Chief Karen Xia, Managing Editor Shubham Saharan and Publisher Isabel Jauregui said, “The message, which referenced the Columbia University Apartheid Divest referendum, was clearly inappropriate and did not meet our standards for distribution. We deeply apologize for giving this advertisement space on our platform and are immediately reviewing our internal processes to ensure that publication of such material will never happen again. Neither The Columbia Spectator nor Spectator Publishing Company endorses Students Supporting Israel and Columbia or its products, services or views.”

The SSI ad was published ahead of a vote this week on a BDS referendum which seeks to “divest [Columbia’s] stocks, funds and endowment from companies that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s acts towards Palestinians.”

The Finnish branch of a neo-Nazi movement that is active in five Scandinavian nations failed on Tuesday in its attempt...

The initiative is the fourth attempt by anti-Israel students at Columbia to impose an institutional boycott on the Jewish state. Three prior bids failed.

The latest effort is being led the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) movement.

Pushing back against CUAD, the SSI ad urged readers to “to keep Jewish students safe on campus” by opposing the referendum.

The ad stated, “CUAD’s BDS REFERENDUM IS JEW HATRED.”

In response to the paper’s apology over the ad, the president of Columbia’s SSI chapter, Ofir Dayan, criticized the Spectator for “implicitly sen[ding] a political message” by “negating the advertisement’s message and negating our organization as a unit.”

According to Dayan, SSI only submitted the ad after inquiring with a member of the Spectator staff “about the guidelines and procedures of advertising.”

Dayan said that the staff member “confirmed [the ad was] acceptable and met Spectator standards.”

Referendum voting began on Tuesday morning and will end on Friday night — all during the Jewish High Holy Days. The results will be announced next week.

[bonjourbinch]

Edward Said, Columbia Daily Spectator, March 4, 1982