Faculty and graduate students in Columbia and Barnard’s Political Science departments wrote a letter condemning President Shafik and supporting student protesters.

On Wednesday, members of the Columbia and Barnard Political Science Departments published an open letter to the Columbia community, detailing campus events and issuing a list of demands for Columbia and Barnard. The letter detailed President Minouche Shafik’s authorization of the NYPD to arrest students “engaged in a peaceful demonstration of their political views” on April 18. The letter has over 60 signatories at the time of publication.

The letter noted that rather than “contributing to a feeling of safety on campus, the Administration’s actions have escalated the situation,” stating that “[they] are now hearing concerning reports about the possibility of further police action on campus.” The statement remarked that “the dangerous nature of the Administration’s recent actions” have contributed to what has been described by President Shafik as a “‘tense and at times hostile environment’” on Columbia’s campus.

The letter continued that regardless of whether “the Administration’s invitation of the NYPD to campus was within its formal authority,” it was in violation of “our community’s values, a long tradition of student mobilization and activism, and a norm of police non-involvement.” The statement referenced the protests at Columbia in 1968, remarking that then, “demonstrations lasted nearly a week before the Administration called on the NYPD to make arrests,” and noting that Columbia has since “settled on an informal norm of police non-involvement in student demonstrations.” The letter noted that while “four instances of less severe NYPD interventions,” have occurred since the protest in 1968, the events of April 18 were “the most severe use of police force and suppression of student voice on campus since 1968.”

The statement condemned the University’s response, stating it “abandoned our community’s commitment to toleration, respect, and non-violence by authorizing the intervention of the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group,” particularly criticizing the unit’s characterization as so-called ‘escalators-in-chief’” that employ “‘militarized tactics,’” citing reports by the New York Civil Liberties Union. The letter continued that “by escalating what was otherwise a non-violent disruption, the Administration’s actions actively imperiled our community’s safety.” The letter noted that “the Administration took no responsibility for its part in increasing” what President Shafik referred to as “‘the decibel of our disagreements,’” emphasizing that “the Administration’s actions have set a dangerous precedent.” The statement continued, “When the University turns to the police to regulate university life, academic speech, and expression, all demonstrations of student voice on campus (regardless of political affiliation) become endangered.”

The letter continued by iterating portions of Columbia’s and Barnard’s mission statements: noting that Columbia strives “to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world,” and Barnard to “participate together in intellectual risk-taking and discovery,” as well to instruct students to take advantage of “new ideas.” The letter noted that an essential facet of “advancing human knowledge and new ideas is the capacity to exchange one’s ideas peacefully and freely.” The letter emphasized an unwavering commitment to pursuits of “the freedoms to speak in public, to associate, and to assemble are important not only to one’s development as a scholar, but to one’s development as a democratic citizen” as “political scientists and students of democracy.”

The letter continued that “in refusing to regard its students as students and instead regarding them as trespassers to the very space where those students live, learn, eat, and sleep,” the Administration forsakes the values to which the community claims to subscribe to. Issuing a reminder that Columbia is supposed to be an environment of “learning, nurturing, and care,” the letter noted that as teachers, they acknowledge that “learning can often be uncomfortable—it takes disagreement, contestation, and, sometimes, disruption.” 

The statement remarked that “disruption and discomfort have at times been indispensable to securing civil rights and expanding free speech protections,” noting that learning also mandates “toleration, respect, and never hatred or violence.” The statement conveyed alarm in response to “reports of hateful speech, including anti-Palestinianism and anti-Semitism,” at Columbia, remarking that they represent “unambiguous” agreement “that bigotry on the basis of ethnicity, religion, nationality, or race should never be tolerated at Columbia or Barnard.” As such, the signatories “denounce[d] all hateful speech made by or against students of the University and all calls for violence, including the use of force by the Administration against its own students.”

The letter remarks that the signatories “represent a vast range of views regarding the conflict in Israel and Palestine,” that “do not here take or endorse any particular political position regarding Israel and Palestine, which is an issue on which many of us have deep disagreements.” However, the letter is intended to convey their universal agreement “about… the right of students to express their individual political positions and to peacefully protest. As teachers, the signatories stated that it is their “duty as educators in not only tolerating protests (with which we may well personally disagree), but in advocating for, protecting, and defending students’ right to hold, share, and demonstrate their political commitments.” The letter then denounced the Administration’s disbanding of protests and suppression of Columbia and Barnard students’ freedom of assembly.

The letter’s conclusion, reiterated the role of political scientists in teaching and studying “the principles and practice of democracy; the politics of authoritarianism; theorists of free speech, from John Locke and John Stuart Mill to Hannah Arendt and Martin Luther King; and the importance of political participation, dissent, and the freedom to assemble.” The undersigned emphasized their “unique responsibility to defend [their] students’ right to the free exchange of ideas,” concluding by “join[ing] in publicly denouncing the actions of President Shafik and all involved University administrators, and urg[ing] in the strongest terms that the university refrain from turning to police intervention on campus again.”

The letter then made three demands of and two commitments to Columbia University and Barnard College: The first demand called for the University to “reverse all suspensions and disciplinary actions taken against any student regarding involvement in the April 18 demonstrations that did not involve violence or hate speech and expunge their disciplinary records.” The second demand called for the University to “commit to not imposing any further disciplinary action against any student regarding any involvement in the April 18 demonstrations that did not involve violence or hate speech, and in all subsequent student demonstrations that do not involve violence or hate speech.” The third call asked Columbia to “commit not to permit NYPD presence on campus without seeking the approval of the Executive Committee of the University Senate.” 

“Insofar as [they] are able,” the undersigned committed firstly “to not imposing further sanctions against any student regarding any involvement in the April 18 demonstrations that do not involve violence or hate speech,” and secondly “to not comply with any request from University administration for information regarding those students.”

SIPA building via Bwog Archives