When I first started writing here about what was going on at Columbia, part of the motivation was that I didn’t understand myself a lot of what was happening, especially the actions of the trustees. Things are different now, I think I understand pretty well what is going on and why the trustees are doing what they are doing. A new cave-in is in the works and at some point I’ll write about the complicated story of that, perhaps waiting until it’s a done deal, which might be soon.<\/p>\n
At the moment though it seems to me important to just focus on a basic point of morality: an appalling genocide is going on in Gaza, and Columbia University’s response to this genocide is an all-out campaign to stop people from protesting it. This is completely disgraceful.<\/p>\n
It’s difficult to get reliable information about what is happening in Gaza, partly because the Israelis have killed most journalists there (and are starving to death the few remaining<\/a>). All indications are that the Israeli government is pursuing a policy of destroying all homes and infrastructure there, to make sure the inhabitants driven out have nothing to return to. Civilians are being killed and starved with the goal of forcing them somehow to leave. Among the most reliable sources of information are the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, which have detailed stories (see here<\/a> and here<\/a>) explaining how starving people seeking food are being killed.<\/p>\n The New York Times has recently published a long article by an Israeli scholar considered a leading authority on genocide entitled I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.<\/a> that strongly makes the case that what is going on is genocide.<\/p>\n What has been Columbia University’s response to the moral challenge of this ongoing US-supported genocide?<\/p>\n The question of what to do about students who engage in disruptive protests is a complicated one. For a history of how Columbia has dealt with such cases in the past, see here<\/a>. What the trustees and some administrators have done today appears to be completely unprecedented, and part of a deeply immoral set of policy decisions about how to respond to the problems caused by the genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n Update<\/strong>: For more of the story of how the disciplinary process at Columbia was taken over by the trustees, in contradiction to university statutes, see here<\/a>. I can’t find on university websites a list of current members of the new University Judicial Boards. Much of the information on university websites still refers to the old Senate-controlled board (see for instance the link describing the UJB at this page<\/a>). There is an updated FAQ posted yesterday<\/a>.<\/p>\n The only description I can find of the new UJB panels is that they are made up of “professors and administrators”. Until now, the cave-in has been mostly in the hands of the trustees. With these new actions the moral rot has spread from the trustees to the office of the provost and to (unknown?) groups of faculty and administrators who have signed on to participate in this. There now is some sort of appeals process which is in the hands of “three deans”. Will we find out who they are and will they go along with this?<\/p>\n Haaretz today has this story<\/a> with the details of how the murder of civilians through starvation is being accomplished.<\/p>\n Update<\/strong>: As expected, Columbia has reached some sort of agreement with the Trump people. I’ll try and write something about this tomorrow. In the meantime, there’s a story at the NYT<\/a>, and also a very good NYT opinion piece by Suresh Naidu<\/a>.<\/p>\n For comments discussing the agreement, better if you can wait for the next blog post which will be about that topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I first started writing here about what was going on at Columbia, part of the motivation was that I didn’t understand myself a lot of what was happening, especially the actions of the trustees. Things are different now, I … Continue reading \n