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Columbia University

Columbia President Resigns After Violent Crackdown On Students

The president of Columbia University announced her resignation late Wednesday, months after she authorized a violent police crackdown on student demonstrators urging the school to divest from Israel over the country's devastating assault on the Gaza Strip. Minouche Shafik said in her announcement that recent months have been "a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community." Dozens of Columbia students were arrested and injured during a Shafik-approved police raid of a campus building in late April. "This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community," said Shafik, whose resignation was effective immediately.

Columbia University Hind’s Hall Defendants Reject Deals

We stand here today united by our action and the Palestinian cause. The state has attempted, once again, to divide us, dismissing some of our cases and offering others deals in accordance with their “outside agitator” narrative. As ever, we categorically reject this division as one drawn along arbitrary, classist lines meant to preserve the sanctity of Columbia University—not an institution “in the City of New York,” but always above and apart from it. All of us who took part in the liberation of Hind’s Hall were driven by the same necessity to escalate, to escalate for Gaza, to resist the savage genocide of our siblings in Palestine.

How Belgian Students Forced Their University To Cut Ties With Israel

The student uprising continues! Students at Ghent University have maintained a Gaza solidarity encampment for over a month, and even after winning a major victory with their university administration agreeing to cut some key ties with Israeli institutions – they are not stopping. Peoples Dispatch spoke to Mingtje Wang of COMAC, who is a masters students at the university and participant in the encampment.

Columbia Law Review Website Put Offline To Censor Palestinian Scholar

The Columbia Law Review (CLR) board of directors has taken down the publication’s website in response to its editors publishing a lengthy article about the Nakba by a Palestinian legal scholar, The Intercept reported on 4 June. The CLR publishes scholarly articles, essays, and student notes and is edited by Columbia Law School students. Five months ago, editors of the CLR had reached out to Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah, asking him to contribute an article establishing the “Nakba” as a formal legal concept. Palestinians use the word, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, to refer to the expulsion and dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1948.

The ‘Blurred Lines’ Of Columbia’s Task Force On Anti-Semitism

On May 16, as Columbia University’s Spring semester ended, the school newspaper published an Op-Ed from the “Task Force on Anti-Semitism” appointed by President Minouche Shafik last November. The Task Force, made up of pro-Israel faculty, announced at its inception its goal of making “ambitious changes” to the University’s “policies, rules, and practices,” and has already released one report supporting increased restrictions on student protests. While it has made a point of refusing to define what it means by “antisemitism,” its latest communication indicates that Columbia faculty and students critical of Israel and Zionism may well be in real danger should the Task Force deliver on its currently-stated goals.

The Billionaires And Establishment Officials Unleashing Violence

It has been weeks since the brutal state repression and right-wing violence unleashed against some of the most prominent Gaza Solidarity Encampments, including the encampments at the University of California – Los Angeles and Columbia University. Since then, independent reporting has uncovered disturbing links between extreme-right counterprotesters and billionaire donors, as well as collusion between city officials and police conducting violent repression. At UCLA, Zionist counterprotesters conducted several rounds of attacks against the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Student organizers reported counterprotesters releasing bags of mice injected with an unknown substance, as well as cockroaches.

Columbia Faculty Group Passes No-Confidence Measure On President

Columbia University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences approved a vote of no confidence Thursday against university President Minouche Shafik over her handling of the recent pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The vote, organized by the school’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), won with a 65 percent majority, though it has no real power against Shafik. The AAUP chapter released a statement highlighting the frustrations the group has with Shafik such as agreeing during a recent congressional hearing to fire a particular faculty member and ultimately bringing in the police to clear student protesters.

Class Nature Of Violence Against The Student Intifada

The student uprising that began at Columbia University in New York City on April 17 has evolved into a global phenomenon, reaching even Antarctica. What sparked this movement, a real Intifada that takes the form of Gaza Solidarity Encampments, is the ongoing horrific genocide in Gaza by the U.S.-backed Israeli apartheid regime that began in October. This genocide, which has played out on all forms of social media, has claimed over 35,000 lives and over 78,000 injured Palestinians as of May 5, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Columbia Crackdown Led By Professor Doubling As NYPD Spook

The violent crackdown carried out on Columbia University students protesting Israel’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip was led by a member of the school’s own faculty, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has declared. During a May 1 press conference, just hours after the New York Police Department arrested nearly 300 people on university grounds, Adams praised adjunct Columbia professor Rebecca Weiner, who moonlights as the head of the NYPD counter-terrorism bureau, for giving police the green light to clear out anti-genocide students by force.

This May Day, Workers Mobilized For Palestine

On May Day, workers around the world mobilized for the liberation of Palestine. “This May Day, workers of the world are called to declare their solidarity with Palestine, to denounce the Israeli Genocide, and to call for an end to all aggressions in the region and to all wars,” wrote the International People’s Assembly. “Beyond the call for a ceasefire we must say no to the transportation of arms and arms caches to Israel. Workers in all industries – especially workers in the transport sector – that can withhold their labor in order to halt the continued slaughter of the people of Palestine are emphatically called to do so!”

Hundreds Arrested In Gaza Solidarity Encampments In New York City

Hundreds of students, professors, and community members were beaten and arrested by police officers on the night of April 30, 2024 in New York City. The crackdown and mass arrests at Columbia University and City College, ordered by university administrations, were carried out to clear and evict Gaza solidarity encampments which have been launched by students at dozens of campuses across the country in the last two weeks. Legal observers estimated that several hundred people were arrested in the coordinated crackdown in the city.

NYPD Storm ‘Hind’s Hall‘ In Violent Raid Of Columbia University

Dozens of student protesters were cleared out from Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall building by New York police late on 30 April, after storming and occupying the building the night before as part of demonstrations in support of Palestine. Hundreds of police officers wearing helmets and carrying riot shields surrounded the building, with a number of policemen climbing into Hamilton Hall via a ramp extending from one of the police vehicles into a window of the building. Dozens of pro-Palestine students were detained and dragged away from the scene with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

Did Columbia University Violate The First Amendment?

Defending Rights & Dissent, a non-profit advocacy group, in their recent letter to Columbia President Minouche Shafik (which has lots of good information) stated: Although Columbia University is a private institution not governed by the First Amendment, the role of state actors — in this case members of Congress — in instigating the action would raise serious First Amendment concerns. This might seem odd to people. Many people think that private groups can disregard the First Amendment, which only limits government action. However, Defending Rights & Dissent is perfectly correct in noting this case may be different.

Columbia University Threatens To Deploy National Guard On Students

Columbia University students who are part of the Gaza solidarity encampment have raised the alarm that during negotiations, the university administration threatened to call in the National Guard to evacuate the camp. The threat from Columbia’s administration comes on the seventh day of the encampment of hundreds of students who are demanding that the university divest all finances, from corporations that profit in any way shape or form from Israeli genocide and cut academic ties with Israeli institutions. The Columbia encampment already withstood a violent eviction at the hands of the New York City Police Department on Thursday April 18.

New Students For A Democratic Society Calls For Nationwide Encampments

While standing in solidarity with Palestine, the student movement has once again escalated protests on campus with the campus encampment movement. Students are calling out their universities and its administrators for their decades’ long support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and are demanding that our universities divest and cut all ties to Israel! University administrators have no right to ignore the students as university administrators continue to support the genocide in Gaza and maintain support for Israel.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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