The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Approximately 30% of the so-called protestors were not affiliated with the university; it isn't clear how they were able to enter campus which has been closed to students and employees.

QuoteLocks, Chains, Diversions: How Columbia Students Seized Hamilton Hall
Some of those arrested during the pro-Palestinian demonstration were outsiders, who appeared to be unaffiliated with the school, according to an analysis of Police Department data.

QuoteBut the takeover of Hamilton Hall was a new turning point. The university decided to call in the police to clear the building — drawing both harsh criticism and praise, and raising new questions about who, exactly, was behind the growing unrest.

The people who took over the building were an offshoot of a larger group of protesters who had been camping out on campus in an unauthorized pro-Palestinian demonstration. On Tuesday night, more than 100 of them — people inside the hall along with others outside on campus and those beyond Columbia's gates — were arrested.

QuoteOn Thursday, Mayor Adams and Edward A. Caban, the police commissioner, released a statement saying that of the 112 people arrested at Columbia, 29 percent were not affiliated with the school. That percentage was similar to the findings of a Times analysis of a Police Department list of people who were arrested that night.

At City College, north of Columbia in Manhattan, 170 individuals were arrested, and about 60 percent of them were not affiliated with the school, the statement said.

According to the Times analysis, most of those arrested on and around Columbia's campus appeared to be graduate students, undergraduates or people otherwise affiliated with the school.

At least a few, however, appeared to have no connection to the university, according to The Times's review of the list. One was a 40-year-old man who had been arrested at antigovernment protests around the country, according to a different internal police document. His role in the organization of the protest is still unclear.

QuoteThe day after New York City police officers stormed into the building through a second-floor window and rooted out the protesters from Hamilton Hall, new details emerged about both the takeover of the building and the operation to reclaim it. The details revealed a 17-hour-long student occupation that was destructive and damaging to property, amateurish, but in some respects, carefully organized.

As for the demands, initially the protests were in support of Gaza. The current demands call for divesting from companies that support Israel. Scroll down several paragraphs for a list of demands and why universities are unable to comply with these.

QuoteThe difficulty administrators face stems in large part from one of the demands that student protesters are making: that schools end financial ties with companies supporting Israel. Students at Columbia and elsewhere also want universities to publicly disclose all of their investments, to ensure accountability for divestment.

For universities, considering those demands raises a host of problems, both logistical and political, that may make acquiescing nearly impossible.

Subsequently the demands included divesting from a long list of companies including Google and Airbnb.

QuoteIn a written proposal submitted last December, activists at Columbia listed a number of companies they wanted the school to divest from, including Google, which has a large contract with the Israeli military, and Airbnb, which advertises listings on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It also named the university's indirect holdings in companies like Caterpillar, a maker of armored bulldozers for the Israeli government, which Columbia owns in an exchange-trade fund managed by BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager.

Divesting from Israel is illegal in NY:

QuoteIn addition, most states, including New York, also have laws that bar public institutions from divesting from Israel, or ban them from entering into contracts with companies that call for boycotts of Israel, to guard against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that targets Israel. Opponents see the movement as antisemitic for singling out the world's only Jewish-majority state.

There are also technical reasons that divestment would be more difficult now than it was following protests in decades past.

I just found out that a former colleague attended a Puddles Pity Party concert.

Primary sources may be outside your scope, but our library has an online archive, Creation of Israel: British Foreign Office Correspondence on Palestine and Transjordan, 1940-1948 (Module 43), that you might find useful. More info: https://proquest.libguides.com/historyvault/israel1940

Quote from: Volhiker78 on Today at 06:57:01 PMI went to my 45th Reunion and had a good time.  I'm introverted but made an effort to talk to people that I knew and also introduce myself to people I didn't know.  I think 🧐 general rules like staying away from hot topics (politics) in conversations,  watching your alcohol intake, and not expecting too much in regards to emotional connections apply. 

45th makes sense for an academic. No academic wants to attend their 10th reunion, because who wants to say that they are still in school.

I went to my 45th Reunion and had a good time.  I'm introverted but made an effort to talk to people that I knew and also introduce myself to people I didn't know.  I think 🧐 general rules like staying away from hot topics (politics) in conversations,  watching your alcohol intake, and not expecting too much in regards to emotional connections apply. 

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on Today at 10:59:52 AMMore on T1, will finish reading for my referee report.

Did a good chunk of the first, managed the second by the skin of my teeth.

The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.

Quote from: jimbogumbo on Today at 12:10:29 PMDid I mention the snipers? Yes, State Police head Carter has confirmed that over the two days this "action" was undertaken there were in fact police snipers on rooftops. All to combat a protest which featured no violence, no destruction and in fact little (if any) disruption of campus activities.

Holy shit. What the ever-living fuck?! Talk about making 'some' students feel unsafe on campus.

Different topic, but an interthread connection (first two paragraphs): https://prospect.org/education/2024-05-02-many-faces-of-campus-activism/

It is simler in this way also. Administrators always overreact, contrary to Fox News headlines.


I asked someone once about a student I suspected of lying about an instructor. All I to my source was I'm going to say a name, tell me what you think. Her response: " He lies, he lies all the time. He can't help himself. He lies even when the truth would be better for him."


That was definitely the case at IU, and AZ, and WI etc etc. The response simply makes things worse for the campus. In the IU case, yes they could ask the police in (albeit under a shady pretext), but it wasn't in the administration's best interest. They did it anyway.


Even if justified to have police get students to disperse, batons, let alone snipers, rubber bullets or chemical gas is unjustified for peaceful gatherings. Almost all of these were peaceful UNTIL cops started busting.


No matter whether the students are justified, ill-informed or pawns, the institutional response is often counter productive.


And in case you think I'm over reacting, in two days it will be May 4, followed soon by May 15. We've done it before, and learned nothing.