The university is to hold virtual classes after protests on campus culminated in the arrest of more than 100 students
Over 100 students at Columbia were arrested last week after refusing to leave a pro-Palestine protest encampment set up on the university’s main campus. The arrests have since set off a chain of events, including the re-establishing of the encampment and solidarity protests on other US college campuses.
On Monday, Columbia announced it will hold classes virtually to try to “reset” the situation on campus. Here’s what we know so far about what’s happening at Columbia.An encampment for divestment
Students started setting up a protest encampment in the center of Columbia’s campus at about 4am on Wednesday last week, building tents on the campus lawn in upper Manhattan. The student protesters said they would occupy the lawn until the university divests from companies with ties to Israel.
The encampment was timed with the upcoming congressional testimony of Columbia president Minouche Shafik that was taking place that day on the university’s response to antisemitism.
On Wednesday night, the university began warning protesters that those still occupying the lawn would be subject to arrest. In the early afternoon on Thursday, the NYPD arrested 108 students who were in the encampments.
Many of the students who were arrested have been temporarily suspended by the university, including Isra Hirsi, a student at Barnard, which is affiliated with Columbia. Hirsi is the daughter of the US congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
During a news conference later that day, NYPD commissioner Edward Caban said: “The students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say.”
In a campus-wide email, Shafik said she requested NYPD clear the encampment as it “severely disrupts campus life, and creates a harassing and intimidating environment for many of our students”.
The crackdown was condemned by a group of professors who said they were “shocked at [Shafik’s] failure to mount any defense of the free inquiry central to the educational mission of a university in a democratic society and at her willingness to appease legislators seeking to interfere with university affairs”.Columbia president’s congressional hearing
The day before the arrests, Shafik testified in front of the House on Columbia’s response to antisemitism on Wednesday, a highly charged hearing that was fraught with clashes among Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
