Note: I’ve moved content from the previous post to this separate post, about the events today at Butler library. For early comments, see the last post, for newer ones on this topic please comment here.
Around 3:15pm, some students started a protest in a room in Butler library, and many are still there. I went over there to take a look (first heard about this from a blog commenter here…). Three helicopters hovering over the campus, otherwise everything normal except around the entrance to the library. A crowd has gathered there, including a small number of protestors, with the usual “Free Palestine” shouts. Someone with a bullhorn at a window in the room was saying that students were trapped in the library, public safety would not let them out. A few people in the crowd chanted “Let them out!”. When I got back, here’s the email sent out to the university:
Unfortunately, the University is dealing with a disruption in reading room 301 of Butler Library. Columbia’s Public Safety Team is responding and working to mitigate the situation. Individuals have been asked for identification, which will be recorded, and asked to disperse. They have been told that failure to comply will result in violations of our rules and policies and possible arrest. No individuals who have been protesting in the reading room have chosen, at this point, to identify themselves and depart. Individuals who were not involved in the protest have been allowed to leave. While this is isolated to one room in the library, it is completely unacceptable that some individuals are choosing to disrupt academic activities as our students are studying and preparing for final exams. These disruptions of our campus and academic activities will not be tolerated. Individuals found to be in violation of University Rules and policies will face disciplinary consequences. We ask our community members to please avoid the immediate area near Butler Library in the near term.
No idea what is going on in the library. There’s a crowd with cell-phones out trying to film what is going on inside. Every so often someone comes out, but no one going in. Sounds like the students are not occupying the library (they say they are trying to get out), but that public safety won’t let them out unless they identify themselves.
There’s reporting at the Columbia Spectator, which says that starting at 3:55
a Public Safety officer inside the reading room said over a speaker that protesters must present their IDs or would be subject to arrest for trespass.
A message from the acting president:
I want to update the community on the latest information regarding the disruption at Butler Library. The individuals who disrupted activities in Butler Reading Room 301 still refuse to identify themselves and leave the building. Due to the number of individuals participating in the disruption inside and outside of the building, a large group of people attempting to force their way into Butler Library creating a safety hazard, and what we believe to be the significant presence of individuals not affiliated with the University, Columbia has taken the necessary step of requesting the presence of NYPD to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community.
Sadly, during the course of this disruption, two of our Columbia Public Safety Officers sustained injuries during a crowd surge when individuals attempted to force their way into the building and into Room 301. These actions are outrageous.
Individuals participating in the Reading Room 301 disruption were repeatedly asked for identification and to leave, and were repeatedly told that failure to comply would result in violations of our rules and policies and possible arrest for trespassing. We have been clear from the outset about applying our protocols and advising participants of the potential consequences of not complying. Requesting the presence of the NYPD is not the outcome we wanted, but it was absolutely necessary to secure the safety of our community.
Disruptions to our academic activities will not be tolerated and are violations of our rules and policies; this is especially unacceptable while our students study and prepare for final exams. Columbia strongly condemns violence on our campus, antisemitism and all forms of hate and discrimination, some of which we witnessed today. We are resolute that calls for violence or harm have no place at our University. We will continue to keep our community apprised as the situation evolves.
Sincerely,
Claire Shipman
Acting President, Columbia University in the City of New York
I’ve written some more about what I saw in the comments. I was outside the entrance to the library around the time of the “crowd surge” that is said to have injured two of the public safety officers. From what I could see, the group of people pushing towards the building entrance included many journalists with cameras, as well as people who appeared to be just trying to push forward to try and get a better shot on their cell-phone. These people mostly did not seem to be protestors (e.g. no keffiyehs). I also doubt the claim above that these were people not affiliated with the university (the security here remains tight, and they looked like Columbia students).
In retrospect, I think a mistake the security people were making was that there were none of them outside the entrance. If a couple people had been politely asking people to stay back and not push towards the entrance, for everyone’s safety, that would have been helpful.
Update: On my walk home, the campus was completely peaceful, very few people now at the Butler entrance. Nothing happening at the campus entrance at 116th, but the NYPD had closed off much of 114th street, which is the south boundary of campus and has entrances from the back to Butler library. At the time they were clearly preparing for going into the library and arresting for trespassing those students who refused to identify themselves to campus security. Some protestors and a lot of lookers-on had gathered at 114th and Broadway. The most reliable outside protestors were there: the group of anti-Zionist Hasids. Somebody with a camera at 114th and Broadway (while I was walking past him) took a full trashcan, dumped all the trash into the street and turned over the trashcan so he could stand on it and get a better shot of what the NYPD were doing.
Update: I’m back in the office this morning and the campus and neighborhood are back to the usual peace and quiet. Butler library and the reading room there are open again. For today the university is only allowing guest passes requested by faculty, not those requested by students or staff. There seems to be some suspicion that non-Columbia affiliates yesterday got on campus through abuse of the guest pass system. Our acting president is a TV journalist, so she has the right background to put out statements on video, here’s the latest one.
Some thoughts on the events here yesterday:
- The actual disruption was rather small, basically just that Butler library was closed for several hours. It’s one of many places on campus students can study (classes recently ended and students are studying for final exams). Since few people these days read physical books, likely hardly anyone was inconvenienced by not being able to get a book there. The biggest disruption was the helicopters hovering above campus. Having three news helicopters and then an NYPD helicopter all in the airspace above the campus was both disruptively loud and seemed to me more than a little dangerous.
- The new policies the university has put in place to deal with disruptive demonstrations seem to have worked out exactly as planned. Those involved were offered the opportunity to identify themselves and leave, or to refuse to do so, stay and be arrested by the NYPD for trespassing. The NYPD arrived fairly quickly, made arrests and the campus was soon back to normal.
- There was no “antisemitic threat to Jewish students”, with the only interaction of the protestors with Jewish students the fact that likely some of them were Jewish.
- Fortunately, it seems that no one was seriously hurt. The most serious violence did not involve the occupation of the room in the library, but the actions of people at the main door to the building (more about this later).
- The group organizing this was CUAD, you can read their statement about how they were turning the library into “Basel Al-Araj Popular University”. Their program is not just to protest what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank, for which they likely could get a large amount of support, but also to call for a much wider “anti-imperialist” struggle, demanding for instance “END COLUMBIA’S OCCUPATION OF HARLEM; RETURN LAND TO HARLEMITES AND OPEN THE GATES!”. Tactically, they do things like vandalizing the reading room while they were there, and engaging in delusional claims about their interactions with security people, for instance yesterday issuing the statement:
“Despite over three hours of kettling and assault by Columbia Public Safety, we continue to hold the line,” the post read. “We are facing one of the largest militarized police forces in the world. Deputized Public Safety officers have choked and beaten us, but we have not wavered.”
“We refuse to show our IDs under militarized arrest,” the post read. “We refuse to go down quietly.”
- When I left the campus last night, NYPD had blocked off part of 114th Street, bringing arrested protestors out the back of Butler. A group of people had gathered at the end of the street, shouting obscenities at the police and trying to taunt them into a violent reaction.
- Looking at X and Bluesky this morning, social media discussion is mostly either really stupid “Columbia is taken over by violent anti-semites, the university is doing nothing and deserves to be burned to the ground” commentary or the equally stupid “The NYPD and Columbia security are cracking the skulls of innocent students. The Fascist university deserves to be burned to the ground”. If you look hard you can find some actual true information there, but on the whole social media is a sewer wrecking our society.
Looking at the helicopters, the students in the reading room, people outside the front of the library with their video equipment, and those gathered at 114th and Broadway, what struck me is that there were an awful lot of people out there who very much wanted to see someone get hurt. Thanks to the Columbia security and NYPD people who did their job and stopped these people from getting what they wanted.
I still don’t understand one thing that happened, the violent confrontation in the entrance vestibule to Butler around 5pm. You can watch a video of this here. I was outside the building at exactly this time (in the video you see someone helping someone else get out, I saw them come out through the crowd from the other side). I took a picture from outside, here it is
At the time I didn’t know what was going on. There were some students shouting “Let Them Out” and a student with a bullhorn at a window above the entrance saying there were 120 students there trapped by security, which would not let them leave. The people I could see pushing to get closer to the entrance included some protestors in keffiyehs, but mostly what appeared to be curiousity-seekers trying to see into the lobby to see what was going on. Basically everyone had either a cell-phone or professional camera and was holding it high trying to video what was happening. For a second I was tempted to get closer to see what was going on, but decided that was a bad idea.
If you look at the video filmed inside the vestibule, there are a lot of security people trying to keep the door closed and stop anyone from coming into the building. At least one person is shouting at them and demanding entrance. The rest seem to be some combination of several people with press badges, several photographers, some other people who might want to try and get in the building, some who wanted to shout abuse at security while filming, and possibly several who were trapped by the crowd pushing from the outside that you see in the photo.
I’d be curious to read an actual report from one of the press people there. If anyone has seen such a thing, let me know. As discussed above, my general impression of this crowd in the vestibule is that just about everyone in it was consciously or not hoping for a violent confrontation with security, a few wanting to be part of it, most wanting to get a video of it.
Update: Another possible reason the president and trustees are anxious to revamp the Senate is that current rules require her to consult with the Executive Committee of the Senate before bringing the police on campus, something that likely did not happen yesterday.
Update: The Trump Task Force approves.
Update: There’s an article in the Nation which may answer some of my questions about the violence going on in the Butler vestibule. A picture of the scene is captioned “Students attempting to retrieve personal belongings from the library, protesters, journalists, and legal observers, struggled against Public Safety to be let into Butler.” I’m finding it hard to believe that any sane student trying to get back their stuff thought it a good idea to try and fight their way through a doorway held closed by a large group of public safety officers. “protestors, journalists and legal observers” does sound plausible: most people were shooting video the whole time. More from the article:
Outside the library, Public Safety employed similarly aggressive tactics on the critical mass gathering at Butler’s main doors. Students attempting to retrieve personal belongings from the library, protesters, journalists, and legal observers elbowed their way into the library vestibule before being violently shoved by officers attempting to hinder further entry. One protester ended up on the floor trampled and injured, before two fellow demonstrators removed her from the area.
Ian Borim, a student who was present at Butler’s exterior, says this is the worst violence from Public Safety officers he has witnessed to date. “I truly saw the university in crisis,” he commented. Indeed, up until recently, it was highly atypical for Public Safety to put hands on students…
Out of “urgent concern for the well being of students,” Borim asked multiple Public Safety officials who was in charge, and how students may identify the new special patrol with arrest powers. They refused to respond. Later, when he propped open the handcuffed door with his hands and legs to locate a Public Safety representative who might help mediate the situation, officers shut the door on him. “His arm is in there! Do you not care about the safety of your students?” cried one observer.
“The actions wouldn’t keep escalating if…the administration didn’t just repeatedly take authoritarian decisions in how it handles advocacy for…Palestine,” said Borim. “There is an underlying assumption that…student protesters are just insubordinates that need to be forced into compliance. That’s the approach that the administration has been taking for the past two years, and it’s not really working for them or anyone else.”…
Several public safety officers pushed and barricaded credentialed journalists attempting to enter the premises.
From the Nation story, I’m guessing the Ashli Babbitt figure was Ian Borim, whose behavior is described by
when he propped open the handcuffed door with his hands and legs to locate a Public Safety representative who might help mediate the situation, officers shut the door on him. “His arm is in there! Do you not care about the safety of your students?” cried one observer.
Also in the vestibule I guess were “credentialed journalists attempting to enter the premises”. From the video they’re next to the protester who ended up on the floor trampled and injured. Can they report who trampled and injured the protester since they were standing right there?
Update: I just watched the youtube video again, after reading the Nation article. I don’t have much of an opinion about what the right discipline is for students protesting by taking over a study room, but the violent behavior by the students in that video seems to me much, much worse.
Update: News reports (e.g. this one) say 80 students arrested for trespassing, and that the university put 65 current students on “interim suspension” and banned 33 others (alumni, affiliates, from other institutions) from campus. If you believe Fox News, those arrested were largely (65 out of 80) women.
Update: Ian Borim writes in here to explain that what was described in the Nation happened a little bit later than the video. He’s right that the description of him interacting with a door closed by handcuffs was not what was happening in the video as I assumed. My apologies for getting that wrong.
Peter,
Given your view that Columbia fully capitulated to the Trump administration’s demands, how do you predict these ~100 protestors will be disciplined?
Seems likely a lot of arrests-the video I just saw was 10 seconds and showed 14 students in zip ties being led out of Butler. There were more coming when the video cut short. My guess is nearly every person in that reading room got led out in zip ties.
Vladimir,
I don’t really see the connection between the two parts of your sentence (and, from what I can tell, the trustees are still working on a full capitulation…). I don’t really know much or have strong opinions about how the university deals with disciplining different kinds of problematic actions of protestors. Because of last year I suppose the university now has much clearer policies about what they do in this kind of situation and they will follow them.
Spectator reports at least 75 arrests. More arrests seemingly going on outside Columbia.
Peter,
Don’t worry, there will soon be an article in the NYT about this “violent antisemitic riot.”
God help us.
Zoki
And here we go:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/nyregion/columbia-protest-library-occupied.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
• “While Columbia students try to study for finals, they’re being bombarded with chants for a ‘global intifada,’” Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican lawmaker pushing for universities to do more to protect Jewish students, posted on social media. “Not a single taxpayer dollar should go to a university that allows chaos, antisemitism, and civil rights violations on its campus.”
Zoki,
Also a reminder that there are other huge groups of influential people who would be overjoyed if someone got hurt here during a protest.
Peter, thanks for your reporting. Even if you hate me and lob obscenities at me, I still trust you to report honestly what you see with your own eyes.
You know, I immediately granted you the right to say “I told you so” that the Trump thugs would, indeed, not be satisfied with reasonable actions on antisemitism, but would continue trying to destroy the hated universities under any pretext they could find. Do I likewise get to say “I told you so” that, even after everything that’s happened, CUAD would remain undeterred, and would keep trying to commandeer your university unless and until stopped by campus security or law enforcement? Doesn’t the university finally standing up firmly to CUAD, as it didn’t last year, represent a small step toward sanity? Or is it no big deal if CUAD turns libraries and study areas into Zionist-free zones as long as they only have enough people to take over one at a time, so any Zionists can study at the other ones while they’re doing it?
reminder :Zionist != Jewish person
Scott,
From Peter’s description, it’s just a protest. A fairly normal one, as these things go. Sure, it’s somewhat inconvenient for other students trying to study, but the civil rights movement has a long and celebrated history of “inconvenient” protests (https://www.history.com/articles/for-martin-luther-king-jr-nonviolent-protest-never-meant-wait-and-see). Protests that bother nobody and inconvenience nobody often also influence nobody.
Is every university protest “commandeering your university”? It seems like you actually take issue with the fact that the students are protesting Zionism, specifically.
Scott,
First of all, I certainly don’t hate you, quite the opposite. I do think you are a fanatic on a narrow issue, and the particular fanaticism you’re engaged in (together with others who share it) unfortunately has done (and continues to do) an immense amount of damage to my institution and others.
About CUAD. First of all, it’s a bit unclear what that organization really is these days, how many people it involves, etc. So far this year all it has managed to do that I’m aware of is disrupt a class by handing out flyers at the beginning of the semester, and now hang banners, etc. in a library reading room for a couple hours until they were removed. An order of magnitude guess for the size of the organization would be around .1% of the Columbia student population.
They consider themselves anti-imperialist revolutionaries, remind me of a similar organization of my college days at Harvard, the Spartacist Youth League. If you don’t know who they were, see
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/9/28/spartacus-youth-league/
They also were anti-Zionist and liked to chant anti-Zionist slogans. This was 50 years ago, some things never change.
The big difference is that, for good reason, no one cared even slightly about the SYL or what it was doing. There were no Scott Aaronsons arguing that it was the face of Harvard University and proved that Harvard had a terrible antisemitism problem. There were no Fascists in control of the US government using the SYL as an excuse to defund Harvard.
As far as I know, the Butler protestors weren’t setting up a “Zionist-free” zone or expelling Zionists, they were just setting up a “Popular University for Gaza”, where I’m sure you’d be welcome to come study and learn the error of your ways just like anyone else…
I see that your comment is starting up an argument over Zionism of the sort I don’t want to host and moderate. All, please no more of that.
-From Peter’s description, it’s just a protest. A fairly normal one, as these things go
It really wasn’t normal. It was outrageous-multiple people got hurt (at least 2 safety officers and at least 2 protesters), the situation was unsafe in the vestibule, the library was defaced, and multiple students studying in the library for finals were displaced-some having to leave their belongings in the library. The normalization of this kind of behavior really is an issue. I don’t feel like Scott does about the politics of the protests, but I think it would be most helpful for people to be honest this this is not an acceptable way to protest, and that if Columbia had responded more resolutely and properly (as I have mentioned several times here) in the past 2 years this kind of thing would be unlikely to still be happening.
Dave,
I agree that this involved the most violence and injury to people of any such demonstration in recent memory. That some people thought it was a good idea to get into physical confrontations with Columbia Public Safety employees that injured them is really bad.
From what I can tell though, the violence was not taking place in the CUAD demonstration in the reading room (maybe there are other videos, but the most violent thing I saw on video happening there was a public safety person shoving someone, likely in response to getting shoved themselves). The violence in the vestibule was more serious, gave off Ashli Babbitt vibes, with one or more idiots trying to force their way through a doorway against a group of security people trying to hold the door shut. Who was the moron at the front trying to force his way in? Did he have anything to do with CUAD or those occupying the study room? Why were the other people in that vestibule there, and what were they doing (other than all making videos)?
I still don’t understand what that was about, all I could tell from seeing it from the outside was that it was not an organized group of pro-Palestinian activists acting together, it was a much more heterogeneous group.
Peter: Yes, I’m a fanatic on the narrow issue of my little corner of the world not getting taken over by people who celebrate the shooting, stabbing, and burning alive of my Israeli friends and family and colleagues, viewing that as a hopeful sign of the liberation of the world’s masses from racism and imperialism and capitalism. (And no one can tell me that isn’t their view, because I’ve read them.)
Just like both of us are — rightly! — fanatics on the narrow issue of our little corner of the world not getting defunded by fascist thugs.
And if university buildings were commandeered by students chanting slogans about dismembering (say) Mexico or Japan and murdering all of their inhabitants, and the university just let them, I hope it’d be equally clear that at some point we’ve have a Title VI hostile environment / national origin discrimination problem, and we’d be equally fanatical.
AJewishGuy: Campus protests, even for horrifying causes, deserve a very high level of protection, as long as they follow reasonable time, place, and manner rules. When they don’t (as this one didn’t), when they injure people and damage property and disrupt academic activity (as this one did), they start to constitute a threat.
Peter-I agree the most troubling thing was the danger associated with the vestibule-someone really could get suffocated in a situation like that. However I also don’t find the other aspects of the protest acceptable. Defacing the library and purposely disrupting students from studying for finals is not acceptable protest. There is no way around that. Each of these students should be suspended and on a second strike expelled. There is no reason that students who knowingly and brazenly violate rules like this should get exceptional treatment others would not receive.
Scott,
About your response to AJewishGuy. I think it’s important not to make accusations that don’t correspond to what happened. I know of no accusation that any of the CUAD people protesting in the reading room injured anyone. The two public safety people that were injured were injured by the actions of the people in the building vestibule documented on the youtube video I linked to. This was not part of the “University for Gaza” demonstration in the reading room.
I just saw that there’s an article in the Nation that may answer this question, indicating that much of what was going on in the vestibule was student journalists trying to force their way in.
I’ll add a link and comments about this to the posting.
> As far as I know, the Butler protestors weren’t setting up a “Zionist-free” zone or expelling Zionists, they were just setting up a “Popular University for Gaza”, where I’m sure you’d be welcome to come study and learn the error of your ways just like anyone else…
Huh. When I ran into this video yesterday, I had a feeling I’ll end up posting it here:
https://x.com/Davidlederer6/status/1920238476550639976
Scott,
Once again you are hallucinating nasty opinions from people who disagree with you. I don’t want or celebrate genocide, and nothing in Peter’s report suggests the protesters did either. You seem to interpret every protest against Israel’s behavior as a threat to destroy Israel entirely – why are you stuck in this all-or-nothing mindset?
Vladimir,
That’s ridiculous. This guy of course knew the building was closed and why. He was pushing his way through the crowd pretending that he was just a student who needed to study for his finals, filming a video so he could show “Zionist student stopped from studying for his finals”. When you go to the library to study, do you usually video yourself doing it?
What he recorded was being told “Get the fuck out of here”, not the “don’t let this guy in, he’s a f**ing Zionist.” he claims to have been told. The people in the crowd were not stopping anyone from going in, it was public safety trying to keep the door closed.
Peter,
“Don’t let this guy in, he’s a f**ing Zionist” is heard quite clearly in the video (0:10-0:12). Yes, of course he tried to get in as a political act. What of it? At the risk of once again being accused of wasting your time with stupid analogies, Rosa Parks didn’t refuse to move to the back of the bus because she was too tired to stand up.
Vladimir,
Maybe we’re talking about a different video, or my oldster ears aren’t good enough, because I’m not hearing that.
Yes, the Rosa Parks analogy is stupid, also really offensive. This guy is shooting a video intended to mislead people into thinking he was not let into a building to study because he is a Zionist, which he knows to be untrue. Makes you wonder about all the claims made last year about “antisemitism” at Columbia, doesn’t it?
Just a comment on the “journalists”: My wife is friends with one of the sanctioned faculty mediators that were allowed into to the Lawrence Wein Reading Room-she texted my wife this morning that the worst thing for her (and the most infuriating) was having cell phones shoved literally an inch from her face as she was leaving by journalists.
AJewishGuy: “You seem to interpret every protest against Israel’s behavior as a threat to destroy Israel entirely – why are you stuck in this all-or-nothing mindset?”
Sorry, I didn’t provide links, as I assumed the basic facts were well-known. We’re talking about CUAD, aren’t we? If you want to know CUAD’s official position on what should be done to Israelis, here’s a primer from that notorious right-wing rag, The New York Times.
Scott,
I do think the messaging described in that article is unacceptably violent, so, point taken. But I was talking about this particular protest, which you directly implied was full of people chanting for murder and dismemberment, despite accepting Peter’s report that nothing of the sort was happening.
Also, most of the rhetoric described in that article is targeted at Zionists, not Israel in general. In this context, I understand “Zionist” to mean someone who supports Israeli expansion as a god-given right, not just someone who lives in Israel. Again, I find their messaging here unacceptably violent, but I also think it’s paramount to keep these distinctions in mind. There are many non-Zionists in Israel.
AJewishGuy: That’s simply not what “Zionist” means … as a Jewish guy, you should know this stuff! A Zionist today is anyone who supports the continued existence of a Jewish state in Israel. I’m liberal Zionist, for example; you’re talking about crazy right-wing Zionists. (By analogy, it would offend many of us to say “American patriot” necessarily means “Trump supporter.”) CUAD, which organized the Butler Library protest, really is against all Zionism in that they want Israel destroyed; this is also what the “river to the sea” chant means (the Arabic version of it is literally “from river to sea, Palestine will be Arab”). Yes, there are non-Zionists in Israel, but very few!
Scott/AJewishGuy/All,
No more about Zionism, my mistake for letting this go on. I’ll just comment that maybe we need new words for the different versions of Zionism, indicating what the plan is for dealing with the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere.
Professor,
I’m glad to see you’ve been writing about this, though I disagree with some of the characterizations you’ve made, particularly the one about myself. I was not present in the vestibule at the time of the surge and I am not your ‘Ashli Babbitt.’ Please allow me to clarify:
At 5 pm, I was attempting to speak with Public Safety security guards I could find outside, on the east side of the building, trying to figure out what was going on. I asked them what information they had, who was in charge, what their plan was if they had one, etc. I also asked about these 36 new “peace officers” authorized to arrest that the university was apparently hiring and I asked how they could be identified. The guards were dismissive, apparently unaware of any plan, and apparently even confused of their role on campus. One said he was “getting orders” and there “as a soldier”—a rather bizarre mindset for a campus security guard.
Having heard that there were students with head injuries inside, around 5:10 or 5:15 or so, I urgently made my way to the front of the crowd in the vestibule, which was mostly filled with press trying to get inside to cover the events. (Spectator reported that student journalists inside Butler were later hit with interim suspensions; see more on Columbia targeting student journalists with discipline in CJR for the Barnard sit-in and the New Arab for a protest last summer.) I held the doors, which were handcuffed together with three pairs of handcuffs, ajar attempting to engage in conversation. The Public Safety people there dismissed my questions about who was in charge and what the plan was and tried to push the door shut on my hands. Meanwhile, I was seeking to de-escalate, open a channel of communication between the inside and the outside, see if I could help establish some kind of faculty mediation and ensure that medical attention could be provided if it was needed. A large man, apparently a higher-ranking figure, was also dismissive and combative and joined in the effort to shove the door shut on my arm. I was eventually able to communicate with the large man, and we made a deal in which I would bring a faculty member to mediate, and he would get someone in charge. I offered my hand and told me he refused to shake it, I guess assuming I was in the surge or something. I went to go get the faculty member anyway, we came back, and they did not hold up their end of the bargain. I then ran up to the Public Safety office in Low trying to find an administrator or anyone who knew what was going on and could help, but it was a fool’s errand. Everyone is just following commands, but somehow nobody is in charge.
The Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition has published more information on the circumstances of the May 7 events, alleging that Columbia officials knew about the planned protest and allowed it to happen so that those involved could be caught and punished:
https://www.instagram.com/columbia.psc/p/DJcxjoWtuSQ/?hl=en
They have also published on the abuses of Public Safety that day, with a video of a student howling in pain under a pile of Public Safety officers while EMS and students recording were obstructed, as well as a post about how Public Safety apparently confiscated a student’s camera and wiped the memory card.
I’ve emailed you in case you’d like to further discuss.
Ian Borim,
My apologies. You’re right that the description of you as interacting with security through a door locked by handcuffs does not correspond to the youtube video. It sounds like you were there doing this a little while after the video. I’ll add a note to the blog posting and a link to your comment.
I still don’t know then what the people in the vestibule in that video thought they were doing. Many of them were pushing forward against the group of security people trying to keep people out of the building, and it’s just luck that no one was seriously hurt. Hard to be sure from the video, but it looks like the young woman who was trampled was trampled by the crowd, with a female security officer the one who intervened to protect her. I can’t fathom why anyone would be in the middle of this and think anything other than that it was important that they get out of the vestibule, not be part of the push forward. Everyone seemed to be pushing forward, cell-phones out to be sure to video the people getting hurt that they were part of causing.
Sorry, but I think the idea that officials knew about this and let it happen as part of a plot is just really absurd. The student journalist suspensions were soon lifted once it was realized they were a mistake. The security people you describe interacting with were doing a difficult job in a confusing situation. There may be valid criticisms of what these people did to deal with the protest, but it’s not helping to make invalid ones.