After unrest at Columbia University reached its peak earlier this week, police in New York City are remaining on campus — but it has several students upset about the increased presence in the waning days of the school year.
Final exams begin for the university on Friday and continue for the next week. Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, in her letter to the New York City Police Department on Tuesday, asked police to keep a presence on campus through May 17, after commencement is scheduled to be completed.
“It is going to take time to heal, but I know we can do that together. I hope that we can use the weeks ahead to restore calm, allow students to complete their academic work, and honor their achievements at Commencement,” Shafik said in a message to the university on Wednesday.
Opinions of students interviewed by the Wall Street Journal ranged from those who are relieved to see police attempting to restore order, after protests intimidated and threatened Jewish students, to those who want police off of the university campus.
“I don’t really know how to process the fact that, at the bare minimum, there are going to be 100 cops at the celebration,” university student Suleyman Ahmed said. “I doubt whether the potential threat of students is worth having the sustained police presence here.”
Other students also said they were uneasy over police presence. Mia McIlwain said she is unsettled over police actions on campus and “the fact that they will be here for weeks to come,” while Nikolina Lee said the closures on campus after the protests are “a huge nuisance.”
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Police were called to quell the unrest on Tuesday night after protesters had forcibly taken over a building on campus the prior night. Shafik gave the approval for the NYPD to enter campus that night, doing it “with the utmost regret,” according to her letter to police.
The looming police presence to end the semester comes as other schools, including the University of California, Los Angeles, have also called in police to put down unruly protests, which, in some cases, have devolved into violence. Some schools, such as the University of Southern California, have canceled their main commencement ceremonies over safety concerns as the 2023-2024 school year comes to an end.