[News] Columbia students continue Gaza solidarity encampment in defiance of police crackdown

[Anti-Imperialist News]

peoplesdispatch.org
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/04/19/columbia-students-continue-gaza-solidarity-encampment-in-defiance-of-police-crackdown/>
Columbia students continue Gaza solidarity encampment in defiance of police
crackdown
Natalia Marques
April 19, 2024
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Gaza solidarity encampment. Photo: Wyatt Souers

On the morning of April 19, Columbia students emerged from their tents
camped out on the main lawn of Columbia University’s campus in New York
City, after having held their ground for over 48 hours in what organizers
dubbed the “Gaza solidarity encampment.”
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/04/17/hundreds-of-students-occupy-columbia-university-in-solidarity-with-gaza/>
This action was coordinated entirely by the students, who are part of
various organizations including Columbia University Apartheid Divest,
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, and Columbia Jewish Voice for
Peace.

On Friday, inspired by the bold action taken by student organizers,
students at both the University of North Carolina and Miami University in
Ohio have begun to stage their own encampment in solidarity with Columbia
students and Gaza. In response to the upsurge in student solidarity
actions, National Students for Justice in Palestine has issued a “call to
action” for students in universities across the country to “seize the
university and force the administration to divest, for the people of Gaza.”

Outside of Columbia University, a large crowd has taken to the streets in
solidarity with the encampment.

Students initially took over the lawn at 4 a.m. on Wednesday, April 19, and
managed to hold their ground for over 24 hours. The energy on the ground at
the encampment reached a peak last night when arrests of students on campus
appeared to be imminent. Over 400 students poured into campus and formed a
march around the encampment to protect students from a potential crackdown
by either the New York Police Department or the Columbia administration.
Students chanted “We will not stop, we will not rest, we will divest!”
Soon, Columbia President Minoushe Shafik would call in the New York Police
Department to arrest 122 students on Thursday afternoon. Police then
confiscated student belongings, throwing them haphazardly in an alleyway in
between dorm buildings on campus.

After the mass arrest, the hundreds of students who had been picketing
around the encampment in solidarity moved immediately into action. Around
1,000 poured into the other side of the lawn to start a second encampment,
and have been able to successfully hold the lawn since then.

The last of the arrested students were released late into the night on
Thursday, to resounding cheers from fellow students and supporters who
stood outside of the 1 Police Plaza NYPD headquarters in solidarity with
those held inside.

Early on day 2 of the encampment, three students at Barnard College, the
women’s college that is part of the larger Columbia University system, woke
up to their suspensions via email and the disabling of their student IDs.
The Columbia administration is reportedly issuing a new wave of suspensions
to any student who attempts to pick up their belongings.

Columbia students are drawing from the example of the 1968 occupation of
the University’s Hamilton Hall by students in protest of the Vietnam War.
This time around, students are protesting their institution’s complicity in
the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Their demands are that “Columbia
University divests all finances, including the endowment, from corporations
that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.”

“Morale on campus is high. People initially expected that we were gonna
bleed members on the second day, but that’s not happening,” Grant Miner,
Vice President of the Student Workers of Columbia, the union of graduate
student workers, told *Peoples Dispatch* on Thursday, shortly before he
himself was arrested. “We’re here to stay until we get divestment. We won’t
be moved until we are moved by force, or until Columbia meets our demands.
No compromises.” Miner was one of the last to be released late on Thursday
night.
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