“We were engaging in good faith negotiations until the administration cut them off under threat of suspensions,” student organizer and negotiator Xueda Polat said at a 2:30 p.m. encampment press conference. “Where we asked for amnesty, they gave us more discipline. Ironically, the notices [of suspension] assure students that their rights to demonstrate will be protected by the university if they sign these papers. We refuse to operate on the basis of speculation. We want assurances.”
Ms. Polat was joined by two other students, Mahmoud Khalil and Jared Kennel, who said they would not be moved unless by force.
Mr. Kennel, 26, who previously told The Epoch Times that he is Jewish, is a Columbia University graduate student.
“The university refused to seriously consider our demands for divestment, financial transparency, and amnesty for students and faculty disciplines in the movement for Palestinian liberation,” Mr. Kennel said at the press conference. “Columbia pulled out of negotiations over the weekend by threatening students with a mass campus lockdown and the eviction of every undergraduate from their dorms.”
In a statement online, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said she would arrange for the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing to review an expedited timeline of new student proposals and publish a process in which students could view a list of Columbia’s direct investment holdings.
Ms. Shafik also offered to support Gaza’s early childhood development and its displaced scholars.
But student negotiators rejected the concessions and instead labeled them bribes.
“Instead of closing down the Tel Aviv dual degree program, instead of shutting down the Tel Aviv Global Center, which has not yet broken ground, they said they would review access to these institutions and to these programs overlooking conveniently the fact that these programs can never be in line with the university’s own stated policies of non-discrimination and equal opportunity,” Ms. Polat added.
“This is a smokescreen. Bureaucracy is a prison, and the students refuse to trade in the blood of Palestinians. The university has conducted itself with obscenity and arrogance, refusing to be flexible on some of our most basic points.”
“It’s frankly scandalous how our students are being treated, how our fellow workers are being treated, and we’re here to show that we won’t stand for it,” Mr. Miner said. “We have thousands of protestors both within and outside the university showing Columbia that the way they are handling the situation is completely unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, Jewish students have lodged a class-action lawsuit alleging that Columbia breached its duty of care by failing to uphold a secure learning environment against its own policies. The lawsuit also seeks expedited legal action mandating Columbia to furnish security for the students.
Protestors broke a window and gained entry of Hamilton Hall at 2 a.m. on Tuesday and began occupying the building.
