by Campus Administrator Crackdown on Protests at Columbia
When student protestors at Columbia University set up an encampment in protest of the war on Gaza and the complicity of their own university, they sparked a confrontation which has quickly captured the attention of the nation.
The day after the encampment began, university president Minouche Shafik came before congress to testify to a committee investigating anti-semitism on campus. Last December the committee had focused Zionist anger towards students at elite universities, hammering the leaders of Harvard and UPenn, and in the case of Harvard President Claudine Gay, cutting short her career. Now they turned their pressure towards Shafik and Columbia.
The same day as Shadik’s testimony, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik from upstate New York, the fourth ranking House Republican, held a press conference along with Columbia Zionist student leaders, channeling the full might of both the Republican media machine and the mainstream pro-Zionist press at the Columbia protests.
In reaction to the protests, both the mainstream media and both Democratic and Republican leaders have sought to smear protesters as anti-semites. Joe Biden condemned what he called “anti-semitic protests.” Jonathan Greenblat, of the ADL, claimed in an op-ed that campuses have become “lawless zones where anarchy reigns” and that the Columbia protests were “a preview of a future where persecution has been normalized.” Benjamin Netenyahu himself called the protests “unconscionable” and said “have to be stopped.”
It only took one day for Shafik to bow to this firestorm of media attention and political pressure, abandoning all pretense of a commitment to a liberal and open university. On Thursday, at the invitation of Shafik, NYPD officers stormed the encampment and arrested over 100 student protesters, charging them with trespassing.
The scenes drew immediate parallels with the anti-war protests at Columbia a half century ago, when SDS occupied the campus to oppose the Vietnam War. But in the intervening decades, police have become ever-more militarized, and on the internet videos quickly spread of arrested students dragged to jail by black-clad officers.
Protest Encampments Spread Nationwide
Videos of the police crackdown at Columbia immediately sparked calls for a nationwide encampment movement. By Sunday evening, student activists around the country set up their own solidarity protest encampments.
By Tuesday, encampments were in place at New York University, The New School, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Yale University, Vanderbilt, Emerson College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, University of New Mexico, California State Polytechnic University (CalPoly), University of California, Berkeley, and University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Although most protest encampments have been allowed to remain so far, events have escalated at a handful of campuses. 47 student protestors were arrested at Yale during a dawn police raid of their encampment Monday morning. Back in New York, scores were arrested on Monday evening as police attempted to clear the encampment at NYU. Later that evening police removed tents from the encampment at the University of New Mexico.
University officials at CalPoly Humbolt in Northern California closed that campus Monday night after students occupied a building. A video of a scrum between students and police, in which a student bonks the helmet of an officer with an empty 5-gallon bottle taken from a nearby water cooler, went viral on social media.
Under the confident direction of a young female student draped in a keffiyeh, a line of students blocking the entrance to the alley drilled in preparation to repel the police, as scouts watched cautiously for police cruisers or Zionist provocateurs.
At Emerson College in the heart of downtown Boston, students set up their tents in Boylston Place, a narrow public alley between university buildings. Across from Boston Common, the encampment is just steps away from the old sight of the Liberty Tree, where colonial revolutionaries used to gather to plan their resistance to the British Monarchy, and the alleyway quickly resembled a rag-tag military camp in its own right. Under the confident direction of a young female student draped in a keffiyeh, a line of students blocking the entrance to the alley drilled in preparation to repel the police, as scouts watched cautiously for police cruisers or Zionist provocateurs. Meanwhile, others attended to the various needs of the encampment, assembling donations of food and blankets at the supply tables, plating out meals, painting banners of green, black, and red, or simply huddling under blankets trying to stay warm in the chilly New England evening. The red bricks of the alley were covered in anti-war slogans and Palestinian flags. It was close to two in the morning on Monday evening before the chants began to die down and the bulk of the protestors hunkered down for the evening.
By Wednesday, encampments had spread to additional universities, including Northeastern; University of Southern California; University of Rochester; and the University of Texas, Dallas. We can expect additional encampments to be set up in the coming days. Harvard University, which has been at the center of national controversy since October 7th, on Sunday evening closed Harvard Yard to outsiders and reminded students that setting up structures or tents was prohibited. Defying administrators, on Wednesday afternoon protestors set up an encampment anyway.
Some unions have also come out in support of the protests, demanding the release of arrested students.
Socialists Must Support Student Protestors
While the movement has so far been contained to minor skirmishes between students and authorities, there is a real possibility of the encampment movement growing further and transforming into a historic clash with the Biden administration. Not only do the encampments grow day by day, but police repression, far right provocation, and further attacks from the media may simply add fuel to the fire sparked off by Columbia, and lead to larger street demonstrations.
The potential is there, although the student movement is also facing the ticking clock of the semester schedule; it will be more challenging to maintain the encampments as students turn their focus to finals or head home for the summer.
Even if there is not significant additional escalation in these protests, the foundation has been laid for a dynamic intervention in the Democratic National Convention, which is being held in Chicago in August. Parallels are already being drawn to the anti-war protests which captured national attention during the 1968 DNC, also held in Chicago. The fight for the soul of universities in the US – traditionally strongholds of the Democratic coalition – is a serious threat for Biden as he heads towards this November’s presidential election.
Campuses across the country are turning into barracks for the anti-war movement and the larger resistance to US imperialism and capitalism.
Campuses across the country are turning into barracks for the anti-war movement and the larger resistance to US imperialism and capitalism. Socialists must lend every aid to supporting and extending the protests on campus. This latest upsurge presents a significant opportunity to invigorate the Palestine solidarity movement and build a generation of anti-war students.
Comrades in DSA and YDSA are already helping to lead or support the student encampments. YDSA has provided constant coverage of the protests and hosted an all members call which attracted 165 attendees. But DSA can and must go further.
Student movements, although full of revolutionary energy, inherently lack resources and organizing experience. DSA comrades must immediately lend every support to the movement, including by:
- Joining the encampments, especially for overnight shifts when students are most vulnerable
- Organizing phonebanks of the DSA membership to mobilize other members to join the encampments
- Bringing donations of food, water, and supplies. Blankets, tents, and art supplies are especially needed.
- Organizing within our unions to win union support for the protest movement, especially in graduate or other campus unions. Draft a model union resolution.
- Providing advice on dealing with police, de-escalation training, press coaching, and other forms of valuable tactical experience
Socialists should be guided by a revolutionary approach, and support and encourage the student movement both to grow in its own right and to connect with larger layers of society. Student encampments are stronger if united, and DSA can provide the infrastructure and relationships to build stronger cross-city and nationwide links, and prepare for larger joint actions. Furthermore, while students can play a heroic and energetic role, it is ultimately the organized working class that has the numbers, resources, and power necessary to confront US imperialism and force the Biden administration to end support for Israeli genocide.
Henry De Groot
Henry De Groot, he/him, is involved with the Boston DSA Labor Working Group, an editor of Working Mass, and author of the book Student Radicals and the Rise of Russian Marxism.
