#shafik

[martyr-mayhem]

An open letter from Mahmoud Khalil on March 18, 2025.

Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.💔

Link to letter here 👇🏻

Contact your representatives and free Mahmoud Khalil 👇🏻

[soon-palestine]

The conflict over Columbia U's Gaza Solidarity Encampment pits an Egyptian-born school president against a student movement largely led by Arabs and Muslims protesting Israel's genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip. Goaded by Republican members of Congress and the Israel lobby, Columbia President Manouche Shafik has sicced the NYPD on the protesters, triggering mass arrests and suspensions of students for supposedly "trespassing" on their own campus.

Like so many contemporary Ivy League presidents, Shafik is not a scholar or academic. She currently serves on the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, providing a patina of diversity to a supranational global governing entity guided by a single uber-billionaire. Prior to that, Shafik acted as deputy governor of the Bank of England, the UK bank that confiscated Venezuela's gold reserves under orders from the US government in 2019. She has also served in top roles at the IMF and World Bank, where global south debt becomes a point of leverage for Washington and London. Her own journey to the US began as a young child when Egypt's populist President Gamal Abdel-Nasser seized land from her wealthy father.

Shafik owes her entire career to the trans-Atlantic oligarchy, and has no space in which to defy it. She was not appointed as president of Columbia to instill values like critical thinking or academic freedom. She's there to raise hundreds of millions from her wealthy benefactors. Her leadership not only exemplifies the elite corruption of US universities, it exposes the sham of neoliberal diversity politics.

[shortmeteor]

The banality of the face of evil is always strange, isn't it?

[phoenixyfriend]

Suggested Listening: Columbia Protests (as of 4/25/24)

Alright, folks, I've seen a couple different approaches to this situation, and I think there's something to be learned from each of the below. I know some of them have a contested reputation, but all media sources have a bias and I will be including some context on those biases.

The podcasts I'm sharing are:

The Daily (New York Times)

The Take (Al Jazeera)

Democracy Now! (independent radio broadcast)

Global News Podcast (BBC Radio)

It's come up a few times on NPR as well, but not in enough detail for me to include. I will be linking Spotify, but these are all available elsewhere, though official transcripts can take several days.

The Daily - April 25th, 2024: This podcast is a production of The New York Times. The paper is left-leaning, but has a noted bias towards Israel, and has run into trouble on trans issues in the recent past. The podcast is further left, though still more cautiously moderate than something like Democracy Now; the podcast has previously been responsible for fact checks against the more biased NYT opinion pieces.*

Why you should listen to it: This episode provides the most comprehensive timeline to what has happened, in what order, and why certain actions have been taken. It is notably more sympathetic to Columbia University President Shafik than other coverage, though that may just be the natural result of explaining the current political pressures. It is still more sympathetic to the protesters than to her, but I do think this is helpful for establishing a timeline of events. It is not the only one, and I will share another below.

* That infamous article about the alleged systemic sexual violence that Hamas committed on Oct. 7th was put through a fact checker by the podcast team when it came time to do an episode about it, and the inability to substantiate it led to not only the episode being cancelled, but the article itself being (quietly) edited to note that it was not substantiated. The NYT did not handle it well, but I want to make it clear that the podcast team is independent in many respects, and while I've taken issue with some of their episodes, they often have more comprehensive coverage of certain matters.

The Take - April 25th, 2024: This is a podcast from the English-speaking branch of Al Jazeera, a Qatari news organization that, while independent, does receive a certain amount of funding from the Qatari government. By that measure, I do hesitate to place it on a left-right scale due to existing outside the Western political spectrum. As a Middle Eastern, Arab news org, Al Jazeera provides a perspective much closer to the action than others, and one that is generally much more sympathetic to Muslim and Arab voices. It is also, like the others on this list, an award-winning journal. At this time, Al Jazeera is considered one of the most reliable news sources for information on what is happening in Gaza, through their Palestinian correspondents; they have also been banned in Israel as antisemitic propaganda.

I need to make it very clear that I am not in any way denigrating it for having Qatari government funding; the BBC shares many of those factors, just British.

Why you should listen to it: Al Jazeera got a reporter into the student protest encampment in Columbia, and got more direct interviews with some of the students on the ground. This is part two of their coverage of the protests; Part One (April 24th, 2024)provides another perspective of the timeline, which focuses on different factors, generally closer to the events in Columbia than the national factors.

Democracy Now! - April 23rd, 2024: This is a far left/progressive radio broadcast (repackaged for podcast streaming) that has been running since 1996. They often have interviews with people that I haven't necessarily seen other podcasts bring in, and while I would not consider them extreme, I do sometimes find that certain details get left out in pursuit of a more black-and-white narrative.

Why you should listen to it: Cohost Juan González has been in the field of progressive journalism for a very long time, but it's more relevant than ever for this episode: González was one of the original organizers for the 1968 Columbia protests that resulted in one of the largest mass arrests in NYPD history. The 1968 protests were massive, and deeply impactful on a national scale. González's perspective on how this current protest compares to the one he helped organize nearly sixty years ago is a fascinating way to think about the current events.

Global News Podcast - April 25th, 2024: BBC is a very centrist source for journalism, funded primarily by the UK government and advertising. As such, their coverage tends to lean in favor of the current party, though they do not 'toe the party line' as such. They do regularly platform right-wing activists, but they also have correspondents in the Middle East with a more progressive perspective. I would compare them to CNN in the US; ineffective in terms of opinion, and comparatively milquetoast on that front, but capable of getting access to high-level events that smaller networks aren't.

Why you should listen to it: ...honestly, this is just a 'round it out' kind of suggestion, to get an idea of what the international community is thinking of the events at Columbia. I don't think they necessarily contribute much in terms of factual discovery, but it helps with getting the lay of the land.

[eretzyisrael]

by Seth Mandel

Shafik never took anything resembling serious action against the students, and she left a Morningside Heights-sized mess for Armstrong to clean up. Trump’s victory in the presidential election changed the debate, but Jew-baiters still gathered in numbers and assaulted people, broke various property laws, and generally continued trampling on the idea that anyone in the Columbia or Barnard administrations was in charge. Armstrong, sensing that the federal government’s patience had run out, began doling out actual punishments for some of the more psychotic behavior of the Hamasniks, which at one point required the school to post security at Israel-related classes.

The punishments inspired more Hamasnik temper tantrums. Armstrong’s threats of disciplinary action were ignored. It was as if the Romanovs were standing at the windows of their Yekaterinburg prison house shouting orders at passersby.

And so the idea that faculty are “apoplectic” at Armstrong for “letting it get to this point,” is rich with irony. The only way to have prevented this loss of funding was to have instituted order on campus and shut down the junior PFLP camps. But when college administrators at Columbia and elsewhere called in law enforcement to do just that, faculty rebelled and essentially joined the opposition.

And this is an important point: The faculty at Columbia put the university in a situation in which there was no way for it to retain its funding unless the federal government decided to look the other way. The faculty are a not-insignificant reason Columbia is in this position in the first place. They arguably made it inevitable.

And not just at Columbia, either. Yesterday the Trump administration notified 60 other schools that they risked the same fate. The New York Times reports that it is quite a diverse group: “The list of five dozen schools included colleges from both Republican- and Democratic-voting states, elite Ivy League schools such as Brown and Yale, state schools including Arizona State University and the University of Tennessee, and smaller institutions, like Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., which has about 2,000 students.”

The secretary of education is Linda McMahon, and she has moved fast. As the Times notes, four days after her confirmation hearing she had the department announce its prioritization of campus anti-Semitism. McMahon, like the rest of the Trump team, hit the ground running.

Indeed, the speed with which the new administration has taken action on numerous fronts has frequently caught the White House’s targets and the Democratic opposition completely off-guard.

And the higher-education landscape was already changing by the time Trump took office. As of today, 148 schools representing 2.6 million students have adopted policies of “institutional neutrality,” according to the Heterodox Academy. Rather than putting out institutional statements on every passing piece of news, schools officials have balked at such activism ever since the American intifada began. Officials were caught between not wanting to align their schools with Hamas and their fear of student anger at any acknowledgement of Israel’s right to exist.

Fear, cowardice, whatever you want to call it, the universities have succumbed to it rather than stand up for their Jewish students. All those 148 schools adopted neutrality before Trump brought the hammer down on Columbia. Institutional neutrality, therefore, is only going to grow.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Mariane Angela

Columbia University confirmed Thursday three university deans resigned following the leak of antisemitic text messages, The New York Times reported.

Three deans from Columbia University are reportedly resigning following a controversy involving disparaging text messages exchanged during a forum on Jewish issues, as confirmed by the university, according to The New York Times. The incident, which has sparked backlash within the academic community and beyond, involved texts university president Nemat Shafik described as evoking “ancient antisemitic tropes.”

The resignations come after the deans, responsible for undergraduate student affairs, were placed on indefinite leave in June as investigations into the matter proceeded, the outlet reported. The texts included remarks that suggested a Jewish speaker was exaggerating antisemitism concerns for fundraising purposes and other inappropriate comments made in response to the speakers at the event. (RELATED: University Faculty Are Getting The Boot Thanks In Part To Pro-Palestinian Protesters)

The revelations have intensified ongoing discussions about antisemitism and the handling of racial and ethnic issues on campus, particularly in the wake of heightened anti-Israel activism expected in the fall. The university has been actively trying to address these issues, including the vandalism at an administrator’s residence and proposed changes to campus security protocols.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 23: Members of the NYPD walk alongside pro-Palestinian demonstrators near Columbia University on May 23, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)

In anticipation of the upcoming academic year, Shafik revealed plans July to implement a new mediation process addressing protester-related issues, alongside community dialogues and a revision of protest regulations at the university.

Additionally, discussions are underway about potentially expanding the arrest powers of campus police, aligning them with practices at other universities. Although this idea was initially reported by The Wall Street Journal, a formal proposal has yet to be submitted to the University Senate, which typically reviews such changes before implementation.

[drsonnet]

(2024)

APRIL 1968..#ColumbiaUniversity In 1968, students occupied buildings and hundreds were arrested. Credit...Larry C. Morris/ TheNewYorkTimes

A protest 56 years ago became an important part of Columbia’s culture.

During the Vietnam War, students seized campus buildings for a week until university officials and the police cracked down.

By Vimal Patel April 18, 2024

Columbia University is no stranger to major student protests, and the uproar that unfolded at the institution on Thursday had echoes of a much bigger revolt in 1968 — another time of upheaval over a war many students deeply believed was immoral.

That year, in April, in the throes of the Vietnam War, Columbia and Barnard students seized five campus buildings, took a dean hostage and shut down the university.

By April 30, a week after the protest started, university officials cracked down.

At about 2 a.m., police began clearing students from Hamilton Hall “after entering the building through underground tunnels,” according to the student newspaper, The Columbia Daily Spectator. Minutes later, police entered Low Library, again through tunnels, removing occupying students by force.

By 4 a.m., they had cleared all buildings, resulting in more than 700 arrests — one of the largest mass detentions in New York City history — and 148 reports of injuries, the student newspaper reported. Officers trampled protesters, hit them with nightsticks, punched and kicked them and dragged them down stairs, according to a New York Times report.

Most of the injuries were cuts and bruises, relatively minor as compared to some of the brutal arrests of protesters at the height of antiwar and civil rights demonstrations at the time. The university also sustained some property damage, including smashed furniture, toppled shelves and broken windows.

In the end, the protesters won their goals of stopping the construction of a gym on public land in Morningside Park, cutting ties with a Pentagon institute doing research for the Vietnam War and gaining amnesty for demonstrators.

The protests would also lead to the early resignations of Columbia’s president, Grayson L. Kirk, and its provost, David B. Truman.

The fallout from the violence hurt the university’s reputation and led to reforms favoring student activism. Today the university touts its tradition of protest as part of its brand.

On Thursday, another Columbia president, Nemat Shafik, took what she called an “extraordinary step” and authorized the New York Police Department to clear out a student encampment on campus.

[moviemosaics]

The Encampments

directed by Michael T. Workman and Kei Pritsker, 2025

[justinspoliticalcorner]

MADINA TOURÉ and IRIE SENTNER at Politico:

NEW YORK — Speaker Mike Johnson said he will call Joe Biden and demand the president send the National Guard to Columbia University — an escalation after protesters constantly shouted him and other Republicans down during a visit to the campus Wednesday.

Johnson, flanked by GOP lawmakers from New York and elsewhere, repeated his calls for the university’s embattled president to step down. But protesters shouted “who are you people?” “Mike, you suck!” and chanted “free Palestine,” making it almost impossible for the gaggle of reporters and others to hear the speaker. “This is dangerous. This is not the First Amendment, this is not free expression,” Johnson said. He later added: “If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard.” Johnson directly faced the Gaza Solidarity Encampment that has thrown the Ivy League campus into turmoil over the past week — demonstrations that have drawn bipartisan anger over incidents of antisemitism. Johnson earlier in the day called Columbia President Minouche Shafik a “weak and inept leader” who can’t guarantee the safety of Jewish students during a radio interview.

While he’s the most senior elected official so far to push for Shafik’s resignation, numerous Republican lawmakers — including New York’s GOP delegation — and at least one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), are also pushing for her ouster. “My message to the students inside the encampment is go back to class and stop the nonsense,” Johnson said. “Stop wasting your parents’ money.” Johnson’s comments Wednesday capped off a week of chaos at the school that started when Shafik and other university leadership testified before House lawmakers, followed by her calling in police to arrest around 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on campus. The protests and arrests spawned similar demonstrations at NYU, Yale, MIT and beyond and have become the latest domestic flashpoint in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

“Columbia University is in a free fall,” House Education Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said Wednesday, accusing Shafik of presenting false testimony during the hearing. “I have a message for President Shafik and a message for you all too: The inmates are running the asylum,” she added.

[...] Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) — who has accused Columbia of bowing to “right wing pressure” with its arrests of students — dubbed Johnson’s visit as another tactic in a conservative attack on educational institutions and an effort to silence “anti-war and pro-Palestinian sentiment.”

Yesterday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was hellbent on making Kent State look like a picnic by demanding President Biden call in the National Guard to quell pro-Palestinian protests on campuses nationwide. Speaker Johnson got deservedly shut down by protesters.

See Also:

HuffPost: Speaker Johnson To Columbia Protestors: 'Go Back To Class And Stop The Nonsense'

[fanboy-feminist]

President Shafik resigned lol

[readingsquotes]

A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group. Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows. During the call, some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters, according to chat messages summarizing the conversation. ...The messages describing the call with Adams were among thousands logged in a WhatsApp chat among some of the nation’s most prominent business leaders and financiers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and brother of Jared Kushner, former president Donald Trump’s son-in-law. .. The chat group formed shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, and its activism has stretched beyond New York, touching the highest levels of the Israeli government, the U.S. business world and elite universities. Titled “Israel Current Events,” the chat eventually expanded to about 100 members, the chat log shows. More than a dozen members of the group appear on Forbes’s annual list of billionaires; others work in real estate, finance and communications. Overall, the messages offer a window into how some prominent individuals have wielded their money and power in an effort to shape American views of the Gaza war, as well as the actions of academic, business and political leaders — including New York’s mayor. ..Months before the protests at Columbia this spring, some chat members attended private briefings with former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett; Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet; and Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, according to chat records....From the start of the chat, members sought guidance and information from officials in the Israeli government. .. In the chat, discussion turned to the fact that Columbia had to grant Adams permission before he could send city police to the campus. One member asked if the group could do anything to pressure Columbia trustees to cooperate with the mayor. In reply, former congressman Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), CEO of the American Jewish Committee, shared a PDF of a letter his organization had sent that day to Columbia President Minouche Shafik calling on her to “shut these protests down.”

Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show

A WhatsApp chat started by some wealthy Americans after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack reveals their focus on Mayor Eric Adams and their work to shape U.S. opinion of the Gaza war.

By Hannah Natanson and 

Emmanuel Felton

May 16, 2024 at 3:15 p.m. EDT

[aeslinnreads]

"We need a social contract that delivers a better architecture of both security and opportunity for everyone, a social contract that is less about ‘me’ and more about ‘we’, recognises our interdependence and uses it for mutual benefit. We need a social contract that is about pooling and sharing more risks with each other to reduce the worries we all face while optimising the use of talent across our societies and enabling individuals to contribute as much as they can. It also means caring about the well-being not just of our own grandchildren, but of others’ too, since they will all occupy the same world in future."

What We Owe Each Other (Minouche Shafik)

[capsandbottles97]

CU’s president asked the university senate’s executive committee, about bringing in the NYPD, they voted no; she did it anyway. Those that participated in the demonstration, weren’t suspended because of their participation, but because they were arrested.

Reel from Democracy Now -

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[lasaraconor]

Shafik Radwan - Wish You Were Here, 2019

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J. Pierre

Columbia University punished very few of the students who were involved in occupying an administrative building and staging a riot which prompted the university, fearing an outbreak of racial violence, to revoke a Jewish professor’s access to campus, according to a new report.

In April, an anti-Zionist group occupied Hamilton Hall, forcing then-university president Minouche Shafik to call on the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for help, a decision she hesitated to make and which led to over 108 arrests. According to documents shared on Monday by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, 18 of the 22 students slapped with disciplinary charges for their role in the incident remain in “good standing” despite the university’s earlier pledge to expel them. Another 31 of 35 who were suspended for illegally occupying the campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” remain in good standing too.

“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” education committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said in a blistering statement. “More than three months after the criminal takeover of Hamilton Hall, the vast majority of the student perpetrators remain in good standing. By allowing its own disciplinary process to be thwarted by radical students and faculty, Columbia has waved the white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in these unlawful actions.”

Columbia has sent mixed messages about its intention to discipline pro-Hamas demonstrators who wreaked havoc on campus this past spring semester.

Last month, Shafik pledged that the university would launch an ambitious educational effort to combat antisemitism on campus, but she presided over a decision not to fire four administrators who participated, according to her own words, in a text message exchange which “touched disturbingly on ancient antisemitic tropes.” In June, it agreed, in settling a civil lawsuit out of court, to hire “Safe Passage Liaisons” who will protect Jewish students from racist abuse. At the same time, however, Columbia is currently investigating a professor who criticized the university’s harboring of students who proclaimed support for Hamas and called for a genocide of Jews in Israel.

“Breaking into campus buildings or creating antisemitic hostile environments like the encampment should never be given a single degree of latitude — the university’s willingness to do just that is reprehensible,” Foxx added in Monday’s statement.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Marc B. Shapiro

Shafik must have breathed a sigh of relief when she saw what became of her colleagues after their disastrous testimony. She likely reflected on how she easily could have been in the same sinking boat. One would think she would have used this as an opportunity to learn an important lesson and set Columbia on the right path.

It seems that one would be wrong, given that, this semester, Columbia’s Middle East Institute chose to employ Mohamed Abdou as a visiting professor.

Abdou has openly stated that he supports Hamas, the genocidal terror organization that has engaged in mass murder and plans to continue doing so. For good measure, he has also stated that he supports Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Yet this was not a bar to his appointment at Columbia.

This is striking, because we live at a time when it is inconceivable that anyone who is known to be transphobic or racist would ever be offered an appointment at Columbia. Yet it appears that the university does not consider it overly problematic to support the murder of Jews.

Unfortunately, this isn’t surprising. As we have seen so often over the past few months, when it comes to hatred of minority groups, progressives’ one acceptable exception is the Jews.

Abdou’s appointment would be noteworthy at any time, but coming so soon after the college presidents’ horrendous testimony and as antisemitism, often disguised as anti-Zionism, continues to explode on college campuses, it is mind-boggling in its tone-deafness.