Opinion

Protesting students will not be shamed, badgered or bribed into silence

Far from being naive idealists, the students are clear-eyed about the state of affairs on campus and beyond

Columbia University after police cleared out a Gaza protest encampment and cancelled its main graduation ceremony out of fear and concern for disruptions during the event. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Jack Sheehan
Wed May 8 2024 - 06:00

From where I live in Harlem, you could hear the screaming of sirens as legions of police descended on Columbia University. The protests against Israel’s war on Gaza on campus have grown since last October, each version met with increasing escalation from the university administration. Organised by Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student umbrella group, their goal is to put pressure on the university to divest from organisations which benefit financially from the occupation of Palestine.

The students built an encampment in the middle of April, declaring it a “Liberated Zone”, disrupting the normal affairs of the college through avowedly non-violent resistance. Camps have sprung up at universities all over the country and abroad. Evicted once from the lawn, students then occupied a university building, renaming it “Hind’s Hall” in honour of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israel Defense Forces. On April 30th, hundreds of heavily armed and armoured riot police from the NYPD, accompanied by tank-like military vehicles, stormed the campus at the invitation of the university president. They arrested more than 100 people, including students and staff, some violently.

Columbia is not alone. Student protests have taken place in hundreds of US universities, leading to the arrests of more than 2,300 people on campuses, according to a tally by the Washington Post. Violence against pro-Palestinian protesters was even worse at UCLA, where counter-protesters were allowed to attack peaceful encampments with bear spray, fireworks and wooden planks while police stood by, arresting only those protesting for a ceasefire in Gaza. The following day, California police returned in force, shooting protesters with rubber bullets and arresting many.

These occupations call to mind the tactics of the decade of protests in the 2010s

Student occupations are nothing new, but this level of police repression, in collusion with administrators, is. In the 1980s, students at Columbia protested for the university to divest from Apartheid South Africa. They occupied the very same Hamilton Hall and were ultimately successful.

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These occupations call to mind the tactics of the decade of protests in the 2010s. It’s hard to look at rows of tents and human chains and not be reminded of Tahrir Square in 2011 or Zuccotti Park during the Occupy NYC movement later that year. They have learned from their predecessors, as have the authorities. The strategy from universities, the police and politicians appears to be to meet mild provocation with maximum force, in an attempt to strangle the movement before it can grow. The university is deploying not only riot police but also tactics of suspension, expulsion, eviction and lawfare, trying to not only break the protesters’ wills but ruin their lives too.

Far from being naive idealists, the students are clear-eyed about the state of affairs on campus. What they have understood that has yet to sink in for the world at large is how elite universities themselves have been transformed. They have moved from being primarily educational institutions to something like diversified corporations, enormous bureaucracies with vast endowments, staggering property interests and deep connections to industry and military interests. Picture a lab that receives millions from international defence contractors, not a tweed-jacketed professor teaching Chaucer. They operate as managed democracies, where real decisions are beyond the power of staff or students.

The protests have spread to universities in Australia, the UK, France, Canada, Mexico, and Ireland

Emblematic of this is Columbia’s embattled president, Minouche Shafik, an administrator who made her career not as an educator but at large global institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, before taking the top job at the London School of Economics. Her choice to crack down hard and invite police on to campus seems driven by a fear of large donors deserting the institution, and a personal desire to avoid being drummed out by right-wing politicians in Congress, like her peers at Harvard and Penn.

The protests have spread to universities in Australia, the UK, France, Canada, Mexico, and Ireland. The newly radical Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union set up an encampment last Friday, after it was revealed that the college was attempting to levy a €214,000 fine on the union for revenue “losses” incurred during previous protest actions, and even to hold individual students financially responsible.

These tactics appear to have backfired, and a war of words has ensued in student inboxes between the union, led by its president László Molnárfi and Trinity provost Linda Doyle. On Monday, following a fourth day of protest, the university said it would pull its investments in Israeli companies that feature on a United Nations “blacklist”, a process it said would be completed by June, while a taskforce to explore engagement with Israeli institutions is to be set up.

Having initially appeared to portray the encampments as a threat to public safety, or worse yet, the God-given right of an American tourist to pay €25 to gawk at the Book of Kells, the university said that “in view of the disproportionate response” seen at some institutions overseas, it was committed to addressing the “encampment as an internal process.” “We fully understand the driving force ... and we are in solidarity with the students in our horror at what is happening in Gaza.”

Contrary to the condescending coverage of the students as reactionary and simple-minded, their demands are reasonable and deeply researched

The union characterised the communication as a “partial victory”, but added that it was committed to continuing until all its demands were met in full, including an amnesty for protesters and the rescinding of the €214,000 bill. Another meeting between management and students was due to have taken place on Tuesday.

Still, there remained a sense that the reasons why the students, from New York to Dublin, were doing this were lost in all the back and forth. Despite the late, reluctant opposition of most of the world’s leaders, Israel continues its brutal war in Gaza, this week apparently in the early stages of a truly catastrophic invasion of Rafah that would almost certainly kill tens of thousands. And we, through our taxes, the usage of our airports, the compliance of our politicians, our silence, let it happen.

Contrary to the condescending coverage of the students as reactionary and simple-minded, their demands are reasonable and deeply researched.

They have made it clear that their voices will not be shamed, badgered, bribed or even — in the case of students at some US universities — beaten into silence.

  • Jack Sheehan is a writer based in New York. He recently completed a PhD in History at Trinity College Dublin
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