It’s one pm.
(The Trump administration is considering placing a consent decree on Columbia, effectively cementing federal oversight on the university by using a judge to enforce Columbia’s compliance with government demands.)
I have lost my headphones several days prior, and I am walking across campus, in tune with my surroundings in a way I have not been in months.
As I pass through The Law Bridge, I see two clumps of visitors, one on each side of the bridge.
(It was from this very bridge that a banner once read “FREE MAHMOUD KHALIL” and “NAME THE TRUSTEES”.)
As I walk to the other side of the bridge, a man in a “SECURITY” jacket stares at me.
(Columbia University has recently added 36 new “Special Officers” with the power to arrest people on any Columbia property.)
I get stuck behind a tour group on my way down the steps. Awkwardly waiting for the crowd to move, I overhear someone asking a tour guide if it is possible to double major across different schools at Columbia. I mumble a curt no — I know because I tried to do so myself.
(Meanwhile, Mahmoud Khalil — a Palestinian student negotiator and lawful permanent resident who was abducted by ICE — remains in Louisiana, with a judge ruling that he can be deported.)
I hear the hum of a landscaping truck as I make my way down the steps. It is parked in the middle of College Walk, right by the sundial.
(It’s been over a week since the Jewish students who chained themselves to the gates were separated from the gates by Public Safety officers with bolt cutters, and removed from campus.)
Right past the truck, a man declares to his wife: that was a behind-the-scenes tour. I am not sure what he means by this.
(We are looking for answers. We are looking for accountability.)
Then, after a pause: that was a great tour.
It’s one pm. It is business as usual, here at Columbia University.
My previous article, Student/Body, focused generally on the collaboration of Columbia University with local police authorities. Today, we are looking at a vastly different reality — one where the university is capitulating to a federal, and increasingly publicised, crackdown on student autonomy and free speech. Under Trump’s administration, the spheres of educational and carceral jurisdiction are quickly converging. In this follow-up, I set out to focus on resistance and hope — on the ways in which the students of Columbia are continuing to fight for divestment, amnesty, accountability, and autonomy.
While the fate of student protestors in the US and around the world looks grim — especially after the recent entrapment and abduction of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian Columbia student, at his citizenship interview — the fight is far from over. The students are resisting, and refusing to let their bodies be policed — refusing to let their bodily labour and tuition payments contribute to ‘Israel’s’ mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Today — Thursday 17th April — at around 12:30pm EST, students plan to walk out of class to participate in a rally, open forum, and march organised by the Columbia University Student Union and co-sponsored by Student Workers of Columbia (United Auto Workers Local 2710), Columbia/Barnard Jewish Voices for Peace, Columbia Students for a Democratic Society, and other organisations.
“Based on their prior actions, we, the students of Columbia University, do not have faith in the current university administration to address threats from the federal government nor protect student safety in a time of crisis,” a spokesperson for the Student Union said.
This action comes with the following demands, set out by a Student Union spokesperson:
We must resist the consent decree; we must resist ICE, DHS, and Police kidnapping and brutalising beloved community members for their pro-Palestinian speech; we must resist receivership for [Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies], we must resist the destruction of Columbia University!
This is not the only recent action organised by a union at Columbia. On Thursday March 27th, the Student Workers of Columbia, Columbia Postdoctoral Workers, Teacher’s College Student Workers, and the Technical, Office, and Professional Workers of Columbia co-organised a rally on the Low Steps in order to present their demands to the Columbia administration. These demands included amnesty for suspended/expelled students, probiting ICE officers to enter Columbia’s properties without a warrant, and providing assistance to secure Mahmoud Khalil’s release. At the rally, Grant Miner, the president of United Auto Workers Local 2710, gave a speech; this comes after Miner was expelled and fired from Columbia on the day before the union was slated to begin the bargaining process for their next contract.
As the Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) have an ongoing contract with Columbia University, it is hard to say whether a strike in the near future is feasible. While workers on strike are typically protected by Section 7 of the National Labour Relations Act, a strike that breaks a no-strike clause is excluded from these protections. This means that the student workers would have no legal recourse against a retaliation by the Columbia administration, which, given the university’s track record, it would certainly leverage and pursue. Currently, the organisation is fighting for a “transparent bargaining process”, as stated by the SWC in an Instagram post, that accommodates hybrid attendance.
Columbia has previously cancelled bargaining meetings with the SWC without stating a reason. While this may be taken as discouraging, it is an indicator that Columbia sees the student workers and the withholding of their labour as a legitimate threat to university operations. It is possible that Columbia feels the need to quell the collective bargaining effort before it has truly begun because the administration sees any good-faith engagement with the student body as a concession that the students will inevitably take as a precedent to demand more of the university. It is also worth mentioning that, while Columbia University’s refusal to cooperate with the students may seem to an international audience as a factor that would make a strike more likely, the stakes are so high for students in the US that it is far more difficult to amass numbers for an unlawful action, as opposed to one conducted through official, vetted channels.
It is also worth noting that, despite the talking points deployed by ‘Israel’ and its supporters, much of the pro-Palestine activism at Columbia has come from Jewish students. For instance, in chaining themselves to the gate, the four aforementioned students have fought to defend the right to education, but also the right to bodily autonomy on a campus where this autonomy is regularly trampled by the administration. Chained and on the ground, the students embody a reclamation of the imprisoned body — an undeniable and impactful display of the carceral nature of Columbia University, both as it exists now, and as it was in 1968, when the police made 712 arrests on Columbia’s campus, with 148 injuries reported.
The fight for Palestine at Columbia goes beyond just demanding divestment. With every rally, teach-in, and other action there resurges a powerful assertion that the student body belongs in these spaces — that in a truly democratic university, the students should be able to walk, stand or sit without being arrested or otherwise removed. Similarly, with every protest, the keffiyeh-clad students defend the right to both privacy and physical health, seeing as Barnard has cancelled negotiations with masked students, and Columbia has implemented a mask ban.
If the ICE abductions and hundreds of visa revocations have made anything clear, it is that the attack on students is just as much an attack on the body as an attack on speech. Yet, through consistent action and organising, the students of Columbia and Barnard are valiantly upholding the autonomy of the student body as they fight for divestment from ‘Israel’ and the release of their peers.