Reports of antisemitic incidents amid an ongoing pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia University have sparked condemnation from officials, but protesters and school officials have said the demonstrators are not affiliated with the university.
"We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students-Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black, and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country," the student coalition behind the protest encampment said in a statement posted on social media on Sunday.
Protests have rocked college campuses across the U.S. amid the mounting Palestinian death toll in Gaza in the Israel-Hamas war, which erupted after Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people while about 250 others were taken hostage. About half were released during a week-long ceasefire in November.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive in Gaza, the Associated Press reported, citing local health officials, while more than 80 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced.
Student protesters set up a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on Columbia's campus in Upper Manhattan early Wednesday, opposing Israeli military action in Gaza and Columbia's "continued financial investment in corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine."
A day later, university officials authorized the New York Police Department to sweep the encampment, saying that the students had violated the school's policies. Officers in riot gear arrested more than 100 students and the university said those students have been suspended.
Students soon resumed demonstrating on the campus, and some began putting up tents again on Sunday.
Over the weekend, the student-led demonstration appeared to attract separate, angrier protests outside Columbia's campus.
Reports of harassment of Jewish students began surfacing on social media on Saturday night. One video posted on X, formerly Twitter, showed a masked protester outside the university's gates appearing to chant: "Go back to Poland!"
Another video showed a man telling Jewish students outside the campus gates that "the 7th of October is going to be every day for you."
Chabad at Columbia University, a chapter of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, said on social media that people hurled expletives at Jewish students on Columbia's campus on Saturday night, and told them to "go back to Europe" and "all you do is colonize." The organization also said it had hired armed guards to chaperone students as they make their way home.
The reports prompted a rabbi at Columbia to send a message to Jewish students, urging them to leave campus for their own safety. Rabbi Elie Buechler said it was clear that Columbia and New York police "cannot guarantee Jewish students' safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy."
They also drew condemnation from the White House and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
"While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous — they have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America," White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
Adams said he was "horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus." He said he has "instructed the NYPD to investigate any violation of law that is reported."
Amid the furor, Columbia University President Nemat "Minouche" Shafik said classes would be held virtually on Monday, and that "a working group of deans, university administrators and faculty members will try to bring this crisis to a resolution" in the coming days.
"Over the past days, there have been too many examples of intimidating and harassing behavior on our campus," Shafik said. "Antisemitic language, like any other language that is used to hurt and frighten people, is unacceptable and appropriate action will be taken."
Shafik added that the tensions "have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas. We need a reset." Shafik pledged to crack down on antisemitism on campus during a congressional hearing on Wednesday.
A Columbia spokesperson previously told Newsweek that the university is "acting on concerns we are hearing from our Jewish students and are providing additional support and resources to ensure that our community remains safe."
However, reporters have noted that the student-led protest on Columbia's campus has been peaceful.
NBC reporter Anthonia Hylton wrote on X that she "didn't see a single instance of violence or aggression on the lawn or at the student encampment" while reporting on and around the campus last week. The only moments of conflict occurred outside the university's gates, Hylton wrote.
"If you're watching or sharing videos from the last few days, provide context," she added. "The public protests happening on the street are not the same as the encampment inside. Don't imply students at Columbia/Barnard are involved in events that they were not present or responsible for."
The Columbia student coalition's statement on Sunday about their community values said they were "frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us."
Student protesters "have been misidentified by a politically motivated mob, doxxed in the press, arrested by the NYPD, and locked out of their homes by the university," it said. "We have knowingly put ourselves in danger because we can no longer be complicit in Columbia funneling our tuition dollars and grant funding into companies that profit from death. As a diverse group united by love and justice, we demand our voices be heard against the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
"Our university is complicit in this violence and this is why we protest."
Meanwhile, professors have condemned the university's crackdown on the peaceful pro-Palestine student protesters and called on all suspensions and charges to be dismissed and expunged from their records.
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Administration's suspension of students engaged in peaceful protest and their arrest by the New York City Police Department," said a declaration from the Columbia and Barnard chapters of the American Association of University Professors. "These acts violate the letter and the spirit of the University Statutes, shared governance, students' rights, and the University's absolute obligation to defend students' freedom of speech and to ensure their safety."
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