What Columbia Should Have Done Instead of Brutalizing Its Student Protesters

On Tuesday night, Columbia University president Nemat Shafik made the stunning decision to call upon the notorious Strategic Response Group of the New York Police Department to descend upon the campus. After New York Mayor Eric Adams announced that the protests had been “co-opted” and threatened Columbia students himself that they should leave “before the situation escalates,” more than 100 cops swept the campus and arrested the university’s nonviolent student protesters for the second time in two weeks. Student journalists—the only journalists allowed on campus due to the university’s crackdown—reported that the cops were forcibly dragging students from Hamilton Hall, the building they had briefly occupied, entering the building with guns drawn and using tear gas during the raid, which resulted in at least one student becoming unconscious. Shafik also requested that the NYPD remain permanently on campus until at least May 17, two days after this academic year’s commencement ceremony.