Columbia University president Minouche Shafik on Friday shared her first public message addressing the anti-Israel protests that have roiled the Ivy League campus in recent weeks.
“These past two weeks have been among the most difficult in Columbia’s history,” Shafik said in three-minute-long video message. “The turmoil and tension, division and disruption have impacted the entire community.”
Shafik said university administrators made a “sincere and good offer” to student protesters but it was “not accepted.”
“A group of protesters crossed a new line with the occupation of Hamilton Hall. It was a violent act that put our students at risk, as well as putting the protesters at risk. I walked through the building and saw the damage which was distressing.”
Protesters who seized the hall renamed it “Hinds Hall,” in commemoration of the death of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Demonstrators vandalized the building, breaking doors and windows, and blockaded entrances before the NYPD performed a sweep of the building earlier this week. At least 300 protesters were arrested at Columbia and the City College of New York on Tuesday night, including 119 people who barricaded themselves inside the admissions building on Columbia’s campus. New York City mayor Eric Adams said that he believed outside agitators were responsible for the protests’ escalation.
The increasingly antisemitic and violent nature of the protests led to university to shift to hybrid classes for the remainder of the semester.
Khymani James, one of the movement’s lead organizers, was banned from campus last week after video footage of him saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live” during a January disciplinary hearing came to light.
Still, Shafik said Friday that many who gathered at the encampment were “largely peaceful” and “cared deeply about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
She said in listening sessions of the past several months she was “heartened” by the “intelligence, thoughtfulness and kindness” shown by students.
“The issues that are challenging us — Palestinian–Israeli conflict, anti-Semitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias — have existed for a long time, and Columbia despite being a remarkable institution, cannot solve them single-handedly,” she said.
“We have a lot to do,” Shafik concluded. “But I am committed to working at it everyday and with each of you to rebuild community on our campus.”
More than 2,000 protesters have been arrested on college campuses across the U.S. in recent weeks, according to a tally from the Associated Press.
A Chicago-based lawyer filed a class-action lawsuit against Columbia on Monday, accusing the school’s leaders of breach of contract over the protest’s fallout.
Lawyer Jay Edelson argued university leaders have a duty to ensure that their campuses are safe and that their students’ educations are not disrupted by protesters.
The lawsuit alleges that some protesters have harassed Jewish students and faculty members, incited hate speech and violence, and have “actively blocked Jewish and other students” from “traversing the campus and attending classes.” Jewish students who are forced to attend classes virtually “get a second-class education,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Columbia has done nothing to curb this outrageous behavior or meaningfully discipline those responsible,” the lawsuit states, “and the administration’s inaction and willingness to capitulate to the demands of this extremist element of demonstrators have fanned the flames of antisemitism across campus.”