Columbia University’s president faced renewed scrutiny on Friday as a campus oversight panel sharply criticised her administration’s handling of a pro-Palestinian protest.
President Nemat Minouche Shafik has drawn criticism from students, faculty, and observers for involving New York police in dismantling a tent encampment set up by protesters opposing Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
“After a two-hour meeting on Friday, the Columbia University Senate passed a resolution criticising the administration for undermining academic freedom and disregarding the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty members by calling in the police and shutting down the protest.
“The decision has raised serious concerns about the administration’s respect for shared governance and transparency in the university decision-making process,” the resolution stated.
The senate, consisting mainly of faculty and staff with a small student representation, refrained from directly naming Shafik in its resolution and opted for a milder tone instead of censure.
In response to the resolution, the senate established a task force to oversee the implementation of the “corrective actions” recommended to the administration regarding protest management.
Shafik, a senate member who was absent from Friday’s meeting, has not yet responded to the resolution.
Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang stated that the administration shares the senate’s objective of restoring calm to the campus and is dedicated to maintaining an ongoing dialogue.
Police detained over 100 individuals on Columbia’s campus the previous week and cleared the tents from the main lawn of the school’s Manhattan campus.
However, the protesters swiftly regrouped and reestablished the tents, limiting Columbia’s alternatives for addressing the encampment.
Subsequently, hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested at universities spanning from California to Boston as students emulate the camp set up at Columbia, urging their institutions to divest from companies linked to Israel’s military.
On Friday, at least 40 demonstrators were detained in Denver at the Auraria Campus, which is shared by the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the Community College of Denver, as per a press release from the institution.
Similar protests against Israel’s actions have surfaced abroad. At the esteemed Sciences Po university in Paris, pro-Israeli demonstrators confronted pro-Palestinian students who had occupied the building on Friday. Law enforcement officers ensured separation between the two factions.
A few blocks away from the White House, around 200 protesters at George Washington University continued their gathering for a second consecutive day on Friday.
The university stated that students failed to comply with directives to disperse, leading to several suspensions and temporary campus bans.
While the White House has upheld the importance of free speech on campus, Democratic President Joe Biden condemned “antisemitic protests” this week, emphasizing the necessity of ensuring campus safety.
Certain Republicans in Congress have criticised Shafik and other university officials for being lenient toward protesters and permitting the harassment of Jewish students on their campuses.
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