Police and private security throng every entrance but one. Steel barriers line the streets. Students pack up belongings in their cars and leave for home - classes are cancelled, and exam plans are up in the air.
Everywhere there is gloom, and uncertainty about what happens next at Columbia University.
Students told the BBC that the university’s decision to call in police to clear a Gaza protest late on Tuesday, leading to a raid on the occupied Hamilton Hall and hundreds of arrests, has left the college community shattered.
The university president, Nemat Shafik, said that it was with great regret that she ordered the police raid against students and others she said had infiltrated the protest. It would “take time to heal”, she added in a message in the operation’s aftermath.
For students of this prestigious school in Manhattan, New York, how long is unclear.
Only authoritarian governments crush student protests
Name a government that doesnt do their damndest to crush student protests.
This is a private university crushing student protests.
With police, an apparatus of the state.
You have to work harder to come to that conclusion than just going “hey isn’t the police employed by the government?”
But the state itself is controlled by corporate interests.
I didn’t know that the university had control over the NY police force.
They don’t. That’s why they request police resources.
So you know and understand that the police force is controlled by the government, but still fail to connect the dots between that fact and them crushing the protests?
And why would the police comply with such a ridiculous request when they have more important things to do?
City police, run by the government, arrested people. They could have ignored the request.
Like they do with school shootings.
Now, now, this isn’t Texas.
That would include pissing their pants, which costs extra. Unarmed students are free though.
The President needs to resign.
I had never heard of her before. Wow:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minouche_Shafik
Nemat Talaat Shafik, Baroness Shafik, (Arabic: نعمت طلعت شفيق) DBE, HonFBA (born 13 August 1962), commonly known as Minouche Shafik (Arabic: مينوش شفيق), is a British-American academic and economist.[2] She has been serving as the 20th president of Columbia University since July 2023. She previously served as president and vice chancellor of the London School of Economics from 2017 to 2023.
From 2014 to 2017, Shafik served as deputy governor of the Bank of England and also previously as permanent secretary of the United Kingdom Department for International Development from 2008 to 2011.[3] She has also served as a vice president at the World Bank[4] and as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.[5] She was created a life peeress by Elizabeth II in 2020.
She’s taking a “World Bank” approach to this situation, that’s for sure. This quote by her is hilarious:
“The point of university is to be intellectually challenged and confronted with difference.” She argued that universities needed to ‘teach people to have difficult conversations’, adding: “It’s through that process of listening that you learn, you build consensus, and you move forward as a community."
Cool. How about you listen to your fucking students then.
Quotes by yourself that by yourself you will live down.
Columbia University’s Shafik, the Neoliberal https://www.salon.com/2024/04/28/columbia-crisis-another-massive-failure-of-liberalism/
“If you wanted to choose one individual as the face of “neoliberalism” for an encyclopedia entry, you could do a lot worse. Shafik holds an economics PhD from Oxford and a résumé of high-ranking positions at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England, three institutions that have been instrumental in driving developing nations into unsustainable debt in pursuit of a disastrously failed model of progress. She came to Columbia after six years of pushing fiscal austerity as director of the London School of Economics, where just last spring she helped defeat a student/faculty strike, reportedly by slashing salary payments and lowering graduation requirements to hustle student protesters out the door.”
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How to radicalize a lot of smart people in a very short period of time
It would “take time to heal”, she added
That’s some big “I’m sorry you made me do this to you” abuser energy there
It is with great regret that she [did something nobody was forcing her to do].
I can make some educated guesses on who forced her to do it.
Edit: upon learning more about her, no, it seems like she’s just like that
Ahhhh, the good old land of the free…
Keep fighting! We’re starting to win
Those “peaceful protestors” were smashing windows and camping in tents on the lawn of the Universities. And that’s not even the worst part, where they are actively supporting Hamas. Sounds like they’re just angry about facing consequences, to me.
Found the nazi
Found the person who can’t make an independent coherent argument for their case, so they resort to overused name-calling.
The guy who lied about smashing windows is mad about name-calling lol… Name calling is the kindest thing you could ask for, national zionist
I mean they did literally break windows so they could get into Hamilton Hall
So the solution was cops who broke a ton of windows and doors then beat a bunch of college students all with your tax money?
Is that what I said? If I reiterate my exact words would that be enough for you or are you gonna read into that too?
You were implying it and are now acting dumb and innocent.
OH LOOK A
ONETWO DAY OLD ACCOUNTThat has a dog whistle norse name.
You’ve just admitted that you’re a racist. Nice.
Then don’t give them your money or time and transfer to another school?
Try not giving boomer ass platitudes that you have clearly put about 20 seconds of thought into.
Do you tell struggling minorities in southern states to ‘just move to a blue state’? I’m sure no one has forgotten this is an option, and I expect that future enrollment to the school is going to be way less, but this is an immediate problem and transferring is a semester-scale solution. Some of the students may be ready to graduate as well.
Actually, a national student strike would be incredibly effective. Just like it was after Kent State.
You cannot fund weapons development on donations alone.
I totally agree! That will probably take some time to get up to speed but I would support that in any way I could
Other than “wrong thought” what was it that the protesters were doing that required such a heavy handed response?
By contrast, in a country with actual freedom Student protesters at McGill encampment determined to stay after judge rejects injunction
Not free for long if we get our own Trump Jr (aka Bitcoin Milhouse, aka Pierre Pollievre) elected. This would likely be ’ too woke’ for them.
Anti-trans Pierre Pollievre? The same Pierre Pollievre who opposed a tax change only affecting the richest 0.13% of Canadians each year?
Not a big fan oir conservative but pretty sure comparing Pollievre with Trump is laughable at best. You’re thinking of something like the PPC.
The verbiage on these posts have me laughing.