May 8, 2024
College Faculty Members Are Teaching a Lesson in Solidarity
By Finn Cooley
As students coast to coast continue to call on their universities to divest from Israel, professors are standing up for their right to protest.
(Spencer Platt / Getty)
Professor Susan Bernofsky had just finished teaching a writing class and was starting her lunch break when she saw the New York Police Department take more than 100 Columbia University students away in zip ties. “To stand there and watch policemen grabbing students and picking them up and dragging them out of campus was traumatic.”
Students had formed a Gaza Solidarity Encampment two days earlier, setting up tents on the school’s East Butler lawn and calling on the school to divest from Israel, when President Minouche Shafik asked the NYPD to arrest them for trespassing on April 18. “UNSUSPEND MY STUDENTS, COLUMBIA,” wrote Bernofsky on X, formerly Twitter, the next morning.
She wasn’t alone—especially among faculty. On Monday, April 22, over 200 Columbia and Barnard University staff members staged a walkout, gathering on the steps of Columbia’s historic Low Library. “We did not consent to police being brought onto campus to arrest students, and the administration did it anyway,” said Bernofsky. “Faculty members at Columbia have a wide range of political opinions about a lot of things, but we’re pretty united that we do not want our students mass arrested.”
