Protests and police on campus

[Langue_doc]

In other news,

Columbia Faculty Group Passes No-Confidence Resolution Against President
Hundreds of professors at the university weighed in on the resolution, which said the president, Nemat Shafik, had committed an "unprecedented assault on student's rights."

She did throw some of the faculty under the bus during the hearings, but still...

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University passed a resolution of no confidence in the school's president, Nemat Shafik, on Thursday, saying she had violated the "fundamental requirements of academic freedom and shared governance," and engaged in an "unprecedented assault on students' rights."

The move, while largely symbolic, underscores the anger that Dr. Shafik faces on campus as she tries to recover from her divisive handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and her public pledge to a congressional committee last month that she would discipline several faculty members who had espoused views against Israel that some have argued are antisemitic.

The no-confidence resolution was introduced by the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a professional faculty organization. Of the 709 professors who voted, 65 percent were in favor of the resolution and 29 percent were against it. Six percent abstained.

The resolution particularly criticized Dr. Shafik's decision to call the police into campus to clear a pro-Palestinian student encampment on April 18, even after the executive committee of the University Senate had unanimously told her not to do it. The resolution said that she had "falsely claimed" that the students were a "clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the university," arguing instead that they were peaceful.

She also violated the norms of academic freedom when she promised to fire faculty members in testimony before a congressional committee on antisemitism on April 17, the resolution said.

"The president's choices to ignore our statutes and our norms of academic freedom and shared governance, to have our students arrested and to impose a lockdown of our campus with continuing police presence, have gravely undermined our confidence in her," the resolution stated.

The police were called after a group of students and people unaffiliated with Columbia U had broken into Hamilton Hall, terrorized the employees working there, and had continued to barricade themselves in the building. There are no "correct" responses by college presidents because a president who agreed to the students' demands was put on leave:

California university president put on leave for 'insubordination' after meeting Gaza protesters' demands

California State University placed Sonoma State campus President Mike Lee on leave Wednesday after he agreed to protesters' demands to involve them in university decision-making and pursue divestment from Israel.

Lee sent a campus-wide memo Tuesday indicating that he had made several concessions to occupants of a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus. The memo was sent "without the appropriate approvals," CSU Chancellor Mildred García said in a statement, adding that she and the 23-campus CSU system's board are "actively reviewing the matter."

"For now, because of this insubordination and the consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave," García said.

[Parasaurolophus]

Langue_doc: the Hamilton Hall arrests were the second batch of arrests at Columbia. More than 100 students were arrested a couple of days earlier.

Let's not go around rewriting events to suit the narrative.

[Langue_doc]

Langue_doc: the Hamilton Hall arrests were the second batch of arrests at Columbia. More than 100 students were arrested a couple of days earlier.

Let's not go around rewriting events to suit the narrative.

See the timeline of the protests, the closing of campus, and the arrests.

Students who had paid their tuition, apartment/dorm rent, and other expenses with the expectation of a semester's worth of instruction and access to classrooms, libraries, dining halls, counseling centers and other campus facilities were abruptly denied access to these and other campus buildings because of the protesters who had taken it upon themselves to speak/act on behalf of their fellow-students. I recall a segment from our local news just before the first set of arrests where students who did not support the protests were complaining about not being able to get to their dorms and also not being able to access the dining rooms.

I don't think the faculty suffered any pay losses but the maintenance and other employees who weren't allowed to come to campus when it was closed probably did, especially the part-timers.

Columbia did ask the faculty to be flexible with their final exams and grading, but students who were expecting uninterrupted instruction, access to dorms and dining plans that they had paid for are the losers and are bound to sue the university.

Most people who live or work near NYC universities don't welcome these protests because they disrupt traffic and transportation. There were reports in the news about a group of protesters unaffiliated with Columbia trying to storm Penn station (I don't recall if this was before the first or the second "encampment") so that they could take the #1 train to Columbia. This was during rush hour, and everyone was relieved that the large group had been stopped before tying up traffic for people wanting to get home to the outer boroughs, suburbs, Long Island, and New Jersey.

Most New Yorkers had a similar reaction to the Occupy Wall Street protests where a group of affluent people (many of those arrested had Manhattan or other upscale addresses) took over a park nowhere near Wall Street, and disrupted not only traffic but also prevented the employees from adjacents buildings/streets who usually took their lunch break there, as well as disrupting the sleep of the residents living along nearby streets with their constant drumming throughout the night.

[treeoflife]

The comparison to Occupy Wall Street is a good one. The total failure of the movement is also an important element  to think about.

[Hibush]

The cover of the New Yorker captures the tension at graduation nicely.

The person handing out diplomas is in purple regalia, so this is not Columbia. Perhaps NYU?

[spork]

[. . .]

If you're old enough to remember, picture it being read in the voice of a K-Tel commercial.

I resemble that remark!

In other news,

Columbia Faculty Group Passes No-Confidence Resolution Against President

[. . .]

But she's an immigrant! An Arab! A political exile! Does this mean she's been identified as a . . . race traitor?

[dismalist]

In other news,
Columbia Faculty Group Passes No-Confidence Resolution Against President
Hundreds of professors at the university weighed in on the resolution, which said the president, Nemat Shafik, had committed an "unprecedented assault on student's rights."

A wonderful example of [Robert] Conquest's Third Law of Politics: The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies, here the faculty.