On Columbia’s Campus, a Protest Encampment Grows and Tensions Flare

With a light blue academic robe tucked under her arm, Professor Marianne Hirsch hurried to get through a security line at a Columbia University entryway on Monday morning. To pass the gates, everyone had to scan IDs, in compliance with an announcement from the university’s administration that only students and faculty would be allowed on campus.

Dr. Hirsch was not on her way to a graduation ceremony, however, but to protest the university’s president, Nemat Shafik. Last Wednesday, Dr. Shafik testified at a tense congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses, and the next day she called in the police to empty an encampment of demonstrators protesting the war in Gaza and the university’s ties to Israel. More than 100 students were arrested.

“I am here because of her infringement on academic freedom in the congressional hearing and because of her decision to bring police on to campus to arrest students,” said Dr. Hirsch, a professor emerita in the English and Comparative Literature Department.

Around and on Columbia’s campus on Monday — as protests unfolded under perfect blue skies, just hours before the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover — there was one sentiment shared by nearly everyone, no matter their viewpoint on the war: anger at Dr. Shafik.

Students have been sleeping in tents on campus for several nights, and confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters have occasionally broken out both inside and outside Columbia’s gates. On Monday, the action on Broadway began at about 9:30 a.m., when several dozen people, several wrapped in Israeli flags, listened to a speech from Professor Shai Davidai, who has been a vocal critic of Columbia’s response to antisemitism on campus.

A trio of women who live nearby saw Dr. Davidai’s posts saying he would be at Columbia and felt an urge to attend, despite needing to prepare Passover meals for dozens of guests.