When Leo Elkins arrived in class at Columbia University on Monday, April 29, only a third of his fellow classmates were in attendance.
Mr. Elkins, who is Jewish, is in his junior year majoring in history.
“I want the school to take down the protest camps so we can live normal lives again, study, and actually get an education like we’re supposed to,” Mr. Elkins told The Epoch Times. “But if the police come in, it’ll probably make it a bigger issue internationally, so maybe that’s not a good idea.”
Today marks the 11th day the university in New York has been under siege by pro-Palestinian students and outsiders who are occupying the lawn in the middle of campus where graduation ceremonies are scheduled to take place on May 15.
Negotiations between university officials and student protest leaders broke down at 2 p.m. after the university rejected their demands to disclose and divest from any of its financial ties to Israel.
“We have begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts to ensure safety on our campus,” Columbia University spokesperson Ben Chang said during a virtual press briefing at 5 p.m. “Once disciplinary action is initiated, adjudication is handled by several different units within the university based on the nature of the offense.”
Student protestors who agree to leave the encampment and sign a compliance form stating a commitment to abide by university policies will be allowed to complete the semester, while students who do not will be suspended without eligibility to complete the semester or graduate.
But organizers of the encampment were displeased with the choices they were offered.
“We were engaging in good faith negotiations until the administration cut them off under threat of suspensions,” student organizer and negotiator Xueda Polat said at a 2:30 p.m. encampment press conference. “Where we asked for amnesty, they gave us more discipline. Ironically, the notices [of suspension] assure students that their rights to demonstrate will be protected by the university if they sign these papers. We refuse to operate on the basis of speculation. We want assurances.”
Ms. Polat was joined by two other students, Mahmoud Khalil and Jared Kennel, who said they would not be moved unless by force.Mr. Kennel, 26, who previously told The Epoch Times that he is Jewish, is a Columbia University graduate student.
“The university refused to seriously consider our demands for divestment, financial transparency, and amnesty for students and faculty disciplines in the movement for Palestinian liberation,” Mr. Kennel said at the press conference. “Columbia pulled out of negotiations over the weekend by threatening students with a mass campus lockdown and the eviction of every undergraduate from their dorms.”
Student protestors are demanding disclosure and divestiture of the university’s finances from companies and institutions that profit from alleged Israeli “apartheid”; an end to the alleged “land grabs” in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City and in Palestine; that there be no policing on the Columbia University campus; and no academic ties with Israeli universities.
Mr. Elkins, 21, was in a dual degree at Columbia in which he studied in Israel for two years.
“One of the main goals of these protests is to end that,” he said. “I feel discriminated against.”
In a statement online, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said she would arrange for the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing to review an expedited timeline of new student proposals and publish a process in which students could view a list of Columbia’s direct investment holdings.
Ms. Shafik also offered to support Gaza’s early childhood development and its displaced scholars.
But student negotiators rejected the concessions and instead labeled them bribes.
“Instead of closing down the Tel Aviv dual degree program, instead of shutting down the Tel Aviv Global Center, which has not yet broken ground, they said they would review access to these institutions and to these programs overlooking conveniently the fact that these programs can never be in line with the university’s own stated policies of non-discrimination and equal opportunity,” Ms. Polat added.
“This is a smokescreen. Bureaucracy is a prison, and the students refuse to trade in the blood of Palestinians. The university has conducted itself with obscenity and arrogance, refusing to be flexible on some of our most basic points.”
UAW Local 2710 Vice President Grant Miner led hundreds of protestors in a march around the encampment.
UAW Local 2710 represents student workers at Columbia University.
“It’s frankly scandalous how our students are being treated, how our fellow workers are being treated, and we’re here to show that we won’t stand for it,” Mr. Miner said. “We have thousands of protestors both within and outside the university showing Columbia that the way they are handling the situation is completely unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, Jewish students have lodged a class-action lawsuit alleging that Columbia breached its duty of care by failing to uphold a secure learning environment against its own policies. The lawsuit also seeks expedited legal action mandating Columbia to furnish security for the students.
Enrico Trigoso contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times