April 26, 2024 - Protests at Columbia and other schools escalate

Columbia University has banned one of the students leading the university’s pro-Palestinian protests, a university spokesperson told CNN on Friday.  

Khymani James, a student spokesperson for Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, acknowledged in a post on X that he said, “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” saying it was from an Instagram Live video taken in January.

“I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize," James wrote.

The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to leaders at public and private universities Thursday, urging them to make space for student speech and protest.

The organization noted five "basic guardrails" to ensure free speech and academic freedom on campus. But some of that guidance also highlight the challenge for college administrators. The second guardrail reads:

The letter also points to previous legal cases and historic moments where law enforcement used "inappropriate and excessive force in responding to protests." And it warned protesters that "violence is never an acceptable protest tactic."

Human Rights Watch statement: The advocacy group also mentioned the rights of protesters in a letter published Friday by the group's UN Director Louis Charbonneau.

"As protests spread to campuses across the country, university administrations should be careful not to mislabel criticism of Israeli government policies or advocacy for Palestinian rights as inherently antisemitic or to misuse university authority to quash peaceful protest. Instead, universities should safeguard people’s rights to assembly and free expression," Charbonneau wrote.

Columbia University officials from the Office of Public Affairs plan to hold a press briefing with reporters on the “ongoing campus situation,” according to a notice sent out Friday afternoon.

The university did not provide any further details on who will be addressing reporters. In recent days, Columbia administrators have been engaging in negotiations with students partaking in the pro-Palestinian encampments on campus. 

CNN will be covering the briefing. For updates following along here.

Emory University faculty gathered on campus to express concerns about the violent arrests that took place on campus Thursday, with tenured professors calling for the university's president, Gregory Fenves, to step down over the decision to call in state and local police to clear out the protesters.

Around 200 members were present in person for the emergency meeting of the school's College of Arts and Sciences faculty leaders, and another 200 attended on Zoom. The attendees overwhelmingly passed a motion that would call for a no-confidence vote for Fenves, urging him to step down.

Philosophy Professor Dilek Huseyinzadegan spoke to the crowd and said that a police officer pointed a "machine gun" at her head and she was threatened with arrest while she was trying to listen to a student give out the phone number to call her mother. 

Huseyinzadegan added that she "does not feel safe enough to return to campus for the rest of the year," and may not return at all.

Noelle McAfee, the university's Philosophy Department Chair, also spoke at the event and received a nearly minute-long ovation. McAfee was among those detained during Thursday's protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She was not charged and was released on the scene with a citation, she said.

McAfee told CNN she was at the scene to act as an unofficial observer of law enforcement officers when she was detained. 

The motion will be sent to the entire Emory College of Arts and Sciences faculty next week, and they will all be able to vote electronically.

This post has been updated with additional information about the meeting.

The University of Texas at Austin has placed the Palestine Solidarity Committee on "interim suspension," citing the "alleged violation of institutional rules," according to Brian Davis, a spokesman for the university. 

The group, which organized Wednesday's event that was met with a large police presence, posted a statement on Instagram Friday, calling the suspension "an attack on free speech to distract from and enable israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people!"

CNN is seeking clarity on what the interim suspension entails for the group. The PSC was planning to hold a vigil this coming Monday, but it's unclear if that will continue. CNN has reached out to members of the group about the suspension. 

The university has stood by its decision to bring in law enforcement to prohibit the rally from moving forward on Wednesday, resulting in over 50 arrests and multiple clashes between police and students. The Office of the Dean of Students had also issued a letter to the PSC on Tuesday, warning that the event was not approved and the group would face disciplinary action, including suspension, if it proceeded. 

While the group used terminology like "occupy the lawn" in its promotional posts for Wednesday's event, PSC members have told CNN they never intended to set up encampments on the lawn or stay overnight, and they had a schedule for the event that included study breaks and teach-ins. 

On Thursday, the university's president, Jay Hartzell, released a statement saying the school tried to stop the event because "we had credible indications that the event’s organizers, whether national or local, were trying to follow the pattern we see elsewhere, using the apparatus of free speech and expression to severely disrupt a campus for a long period."

Hartzell also noted that 26 of the 55 arrests were individuals with no affiliation to the university. 

Hartzell said the university has seen 13 pro-Palestinian events take place in recent months without incident, including another one that took place Thursday afternoon on campus.  

Two open letters are circulating among Yale faculty reacting to the university administration's pro-Palestinian protests this week, according to the school's student-run newspaper. The story was first reported by The Yale Daily News.

One from the Faculty for Justice in Palestine organization criticized student arrests this week and said that faculty are prepared to stage walkouts and boycott Yale’s graduation ceremonies “if the administration continues to meet students’ demands for disclosure and divestment with silence and punishment."

The other letter denounced Yale's administration for failing "in your responsibility to protect the Jewish students, staff and faculty at Yale." The letter cites alleged examples of protesters intimidating and harassing Jewish students.

The two letters' differing messages underscore the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the protests roiling college campuses across the US, not only for the students but also for academics and other staff.

Virginia Tech officials on Friday issued a statement about an encampment on campus, saying they told protesters the event does not comply with university policy.

The statement continued, "The safety and welfare of all members of the Virginia Tech community is the university’s primary responsibility while we remain unequivocally committed to upholding freedom of speech and academic freedom. This is expressed and upheld through our Principles of Community."

Bipartisan legislation announced on Friday by New York lawmakers would empower the US Department of Education to appoint a third-party antisemitism monitor at colleges and universities that receive federal funding.

The bill, College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability (COLUMBIA) Act, is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.

If passed and signed into law, colleges chosen would pay for the monitorship and could lose federal funds if they don’t comply, according to the lawmakers. The monitor would also have to release a report every quarter on efforts by the college or university to combat antisemitism and would issue recommendations.

Torres said he and his office have spoken with Jewish students who feel “deeply unsafe, purely as a result of their religious and ethnic identity.”

Adam Lehman, president and CEO of Hillel International said Friday the pro-Palestinian encampments at university campuses nationwide are "not an issue of free speech."

"We're talking about students who god-forbid show their Jewish identity publicly having a kippah or other aspects of their identity literally ripped from their bodies. This is beyond unacceptable," Lehman said Friday at a joint press conference with Jewish student leaders and heads of other Jewish organizations held at Columbia University.

Lehman decried universities that aren't enforcing policies that he said are meant to protect students from harassment. University presidents, however, have received considerable backlash over suppressing free speech for their efforts to disband encampments on campuses including, in some cases, authorizing police to make arrests.

Hillel as an organization supports the right to free speech, Lehman said, adding that "our students are desperate for dialogue."

"But when the debate that's taking place results in the intimidation and harassment and silence of one part of that community, there is not free speech for everyone," he said.

Brian Cohen, executive director at Columbia and Barnard's Hillel, echoed Lehman's remarks at Friday's press conference.