June 5, 2024
As Columbia Alumni Returned to Campus, So Did the Encampment
By Finn Cooley
Columbia students continue to mobilize through the summer in support of Palestine—organizing in tandem with alumni and applying financial pressure on the university.
Almost a month after the NYPD raided Columbia’s Hamilton Hall—throwing stun grenades, breaking bones, and arresting 109 people—Columbia student organizer Zaid had a message for the world: “We’re back, bitches.”
On May 31, students affiliated with Jafra, an autonomous coalition of Palestinian students supported by Columbia University Apartheid Divest, established the university’s third Butler Lawn encampment since April 17. The administration sent an e-mail on June 1 asserting that the re-occupation “violates University rules.”
While student activists assiduously rebuilt their Butler Lawn encampment, another group was concurrently returning to campus: the alumni.
Alumni of all ages each paid around $150 to $400 to attend the first reunion weekend since the anti-war protests polarized the campus. Between festivities, many lingered outside the newly erected encampment, which organizers dubbed “Revolt4Rafah Installation 1” in response to Israel’s massacre of displaced Gazans in western Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan refugee camp on May 26.
