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      Columbia’s University Senate Calls for an Investigation Into the Administration

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      The senators voted for a resolution that accused the administration of breaching the due-process rights of students and professors.Columbia University’s senate voted on Friday to approve a resolution that called for an investigation into the school’s leadership, accusing the administration of violating established protocols, undermining academic freedom, jeopardizing free inquiry and breaching the due process rights of both students and professors.The university’s president, Nemat Shafik, has been under attack for her decision last week to summon the New York Police Department to campus, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 student protesters, and for her earlier congressional testimony, in which professors accused her of capitulating to the demands of congressional Republicans over free speech and the disciplining of students and professors.The resolution, adopted by a vote of 62-14, with three abstentions, fell short of a proposal earlier in the week to censure Dr. Shafik, which many senators worried could be perceived as yielding to Republican lawmakers who had called for her resignation over her handling of antisemitism claims.The senate resolution was based partly on a damaging report by the senate executive committee, which accused Dr. Shafik’s administration of engaging in “many actions and decisions that have harmed” the institution — including the hiring of an “aggressive” private investigation firm.The report, which was discussed in Friday’s meeting, said that investigators harassed students and used “intrusive investigation methods,” which included “investigators’ attempt to enter student rooms and dormitories without students’ consent.”Investigators, the report said, demanded “to see students’ phones and text messages with threats of suspension for noncompliance.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Campus Protests Over Gaza Intensify Amid Pushback by Universities and Police

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      There were dozens of new arrests as universities moved to prevent pro-Palestinian encampments from taking hold as they have at Columbia University.A wave of pro-Palestinian protests spread and intensified on Wednesday as students gathered on campuses around the country, in some cases facing off with the police, in a widening showdown over campus speech and the war in Gaza.University administrators from Texas to California moved to clear protesters and prevent encampments from taking hold on their own campuses as they have at Columbia University, deploying police in tense new confrontations that already have led to dozens of arrests.At the same time, new protests continued erupting in places like Pittsburgh and San Antonio. Students expressed solidarity with their fellow students at Columbia, and with a pro-Palestinian movement that appeared to be galvanized by the pushback on other campuses and the looming end of the academic year.Protesters on several campuses said their demands included divestment by their universities from companies connected to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, disclosure of those and other investments and a recognition of the continuing right to protest without punishment.The demonstrations spread overseas as well, with students on campuses in Cairo, Paris and Sydney, Australia, gathering to voice support for Palestinians and opposition to the war.As new protests were emerging, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, visited the Columbia campus in New York, where university officials were seeking to negotiate with protest leaders to end the encampment of around 80 tents still pitched on a central campus lawn.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert Kraft’s Fight Against Antisemitism Began Long Before Oct. 7

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      The New England Patriots owner said this week that he was “no longer comfortable supporting” Columbia University, his alma mater, which has been disrupted by protests.Protests at Columbia University have attracted national headlines, prompted congressional hearings and led to the arrest of more than 100 students. This week, the New England Patriots owner, Robert K. Kraft, one of the school’s most famous and wealthiest graduates, stepped into the fray.Mr. Kraft, who graduated from Columbia in 1963 and has donated millions of dollars to the university, said he would stop giving money to the school until it took action to curtail the hate speech that had been directed at some students and staff members.“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff, and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” Mr. Kraft said in a statement on Monday.Protests have roiled the campus in Upper Manhattan this month, with students arrested after refusing to leave a pro-Palestinian encampment and crowds of protesters outside the school gates at times harassing Jewish students or shouting antisemitic comments.Mr. Kraft’s attempts to fight antisemitism have become increasingly public in recent years, well before the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel and the war in Gaza. In 2019, Mr. Kraft, who was alarmed by attacks on Jews and synagogues in Pittsburgh, Poway, Calif., and elsewhere, created the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, a nonprofit group trying to counter the surge in violent language on social media.The foundation is in the midst of a $25 million television campaign that has included running ads during the Academy Awards telecast on ABC this year. Similar ads were played during the N.F.L. season and the Super Bowl.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Night Different From Others as Pro-Palestinian Protests Break for Seder

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      On the first night of Passover, the singsong of the Four Questions echoed from Jewish homes and gatherings around the world, including from unlikely, contested spaces: the center of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia and other universities where demonstrations are taking place.As evening fell over Columbia’s tent encampment on Monday, about 100 students and faculty gathered in a circle around a blue tarp heaped with boxes of matzo and food they had prepared in a kosher kitchen. Some students wore kaffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarf, while others wore Jewish skullcaps. They distributed handmade Haggadahs — prayer books for the Passover holiday — and read prayers in Hebrew, keeping to the traditional order.But there were also changes and additions, like a watermelon on the Seder plate to represent the flag of Palestine. There were repeated references to the suffering of the Palestinian people and the need to ensure their liberation. There was grape juice instead of wine to respect the alcohol-free encampment, which was started last Wednesday and, despite a police crackdown last week, was stretching into its sixth day.The question asked each year — Why is this night different from all other nights?— echoed with new meaning.Jewish students served matzo at Columbia University at what they called a Gaza Liberation Seder on campus.Bing Guan for The New York TimesThe students read from handmade Haggadahs.Caitlin Ochs/ReutersAt other pro-Palestinian encampments and protests that have cropped up this week, similar scenes played out. Some protest organizers and participants are anti-Zionist Jewish students, and at Columbia, roughly 15 of the students who have been suspended for their involvement in the encampment are Jewish, organizers said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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

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      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.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Using Police to Clear Protesters, Universities Struggle to Calm Campuses

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      Students were arrested at N.Y.U. and Yale on Monday. But at Columbia, that approach led to a new encampment and demonstrations outside its gates.Police arrest protesters outside of New York University on Monday night. Adam Gray for The New York TimesAt New York University, the police swept in to arrest protesting students on Monday night, ending a standoff with the school’s administration.At Yale, the police placed protesters’ wrists into zip ties on Monday morning and escorted them onto campus shuttles to receive summonses for trespassing.Columbia kept its classroom doors closed on Monday, moving lectures online and urging students to stay home.Harvard Yard was shut to the public. Nearby, at campuses like Tufts and Emerson, administrators weighed how to handle encampments that looked much like the one that the police dismantled at Columbia last week — which protesters quickly resurrected. And on the West Coast, a new encampment bubbled at the University of California, Berkeley.Less than a week after the arrests of more than 100 protesters at Columbia, administrators at some of the country’s most influential universities were struggling, and largely failing, to calm campuses torn by the conflict in Gaza and Israel.Despite arrests at Columbia last week, protests continued on campus on Monday.C.S. Muncy for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What We Know About the Protests at Columbia University

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      Demonstrations outside the school gates have added to the upheaval, with protesters who appear unconnected to the university targeting Jewish students.Columbia University is grappling with the fallout from its president’s promise to Congress that she would crack down on unsanctioned protests, and her decision to ask the police to clear an encampment on campus.Demonstrations just outside Columbia’s gates, which are currently closed to the public, took an especially dark tone over the weekend, when protesters who did not appear to be connected to the university were accused of celebrating Hamas and targeting Jewish students.“The decibel of our disagreements has only increased in recent days,” Nemat Shafik, Columbia’s president, said in a statement early Monday. “These tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas. We need a reset.”All classes on Monday would be held virtually, Dr. Shafik said, and university officials urged students to stay away from the campus in Upper Manhattan if they did not live on it.How Columbia got hereSince the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, American college campuses have been hubs of protest and debate. The scene at Columbia has been particularly contentious, with protests drawing hundreds of demonstrators, and some faculty members drawing attention for statements that critics considered to be antisemitic.Columbia administrators, like their counterparts on campuses across the country, have struggled to fine-tune a response that balances discipline, free speech and institutional and national politics. For example, Columbia suspended two pro-Palestinian student groups after a walkout, and it has rewritten its protest policies, suspended some students and moved to cut or reduce ties to some faculty members.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Protests Continue at Columbia, Some Jewish Students Feel Targeted

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      After reports of harassment by demonstrators, some Jewish students said they felt unsafe. Others rejected that view, while condemning antisemitism.Days after Columbia University’s president testified before Congress, the atmosphere on campus remained fraught on Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests that have drawn the attention of the police and the concern of some Jewish students.Over the weekend, the student-led demonstrations on campus also attracted separate, more agitated protests by demonstrators who seemed to be unaffiliated with the university just outside Columbia’s gated campus in Upper Manhattan, which was closed to the public because of the protests.Some of those protests took a dark turn on Saturday evening, leading to the harassment of some Jewish students who were targeted with antisemitic vitriol. The verbal attacks left some of the 5,000 Jewish students at Columbia fearful for their safety on the campus and its vicinity, and even drew condemnation from the White House and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable and dangerous,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White House, said in a statement.But Jewish students who are supporting the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus said they felt solidarity, not a sense of danger, even as they denounced the acts of antisemitism.Grant Miner, a Jewish graduate student at Columbia University, says he doesn’t feel unsafe on campus.Bing Guan for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More