The deadline Columbia University imposed on anti-Israel demonstrations to clear all campus encampments by 2 p.m. Monday has lapsed, placing all remaining student protesters who defied the order in jeopardy of academic discipline.
CU president Minouche Shafik, who has faced increasing calls to resign over her handling of the prolonged campus upheaval, issued a lengthy statement Monday morning, giving students an ultimatum to disperse or face suspension after attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the protest groups had failed.
The school also distributed notices around campus directing students to turn themselves in to university officials by the deadline and commit to obeying university policies “through June 30, 2025 or the date of the conferral of your degree, whichever is earlier,” the notice read.
However, the protest groups convened at noon and voted to remain in the encampment past the 2 p.m. deadline, according to the Columbia Spectator, the university’s student newspaper.
Dozens of NYPD cops were seen lining up outside the Ivy League school’s Morningside Heights campus Monday morning in anticipation of the deadline, as another contingent of cops erected barriers outside Columbia’s bookstore at Broadway and 115th Street.
A block away, at the university’s W 116th St. entrance, another group of metal barriers went up in an attempt to corral a group of several dozen protesters who waved signs and chanted slogans like “expose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” and “Gaza, Gaza you will rise, NYC is on your side.”
According to the Spectator, students slapped with an interim suspension for flouting the deadline will be restricted from using all of Columbia’s “campuses, facilities and property, including all academic, residential and recreational spaces.”
Students’ Columbia ID cards would also be deactivated, which means they would be unable to access their campus housing.