Columbia will have ‘blood on its hands’ if police bring weapons to campus, say students: Live

An anonymous Columbia University student who spoke to the press on Tuesday called on school administrators to de-escalate the response to protests.

“To Columbia’s administrators and trustees: Please do not incite another Kent or Jackson State by bringing soldiers and police officers with weapons onto our campus,” the student said. “If you do so, student blood will be on your hands.”

Students are currently occupying Hamilton Hall, which they have renamed “Hind’s Hall” in honour of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli tanks in Gaza as paramedics tried to rescue her. These students are facing expulsion, a Columbia University spokesperson said Tuesday morning.

“The president believes that forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach,” John Kirby, National Security Council spokesman, said on Tuesday.

His comments come less than a week after the Biden administration signed a bill to send $26.4 billion to Israel to support its ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Over 100 Columbia students were arrested two weeks ago during peaceful protests at the campus.

“There are straight-out calls for the genocide of Jews,” said attorney Jay Edelson on NewsNation’s On Balance.

Read more from Michelle Del Rey:

Pro-Palestinian student protesters occupying Hamilton Hall on Columbia University’s New York City campus face expulsion, a university spokesperson said.

“Protesters have chosen to escalate to an untenable situation – vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, and blockading entrances – and we are following through with the consequences we outlined yesterday,” university spokesperson Ben Chang said.

“Students occupying the building face expulsion,” Mr Chang contniued.

“This is about responding to the actions of the protesters, not their cause,” Mr Chang said. “As we said yesterday, disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with teaching, learning, and preparing for final exams, and contributes to a hostile environment in violation of Title VI.”

As students across the country face riot police, arrests and mass suspensions for protesting against the war in Gaza, there is another smaller group putting their bodies and futures on the line right next to them: their professors.

Many are joining in solidarity with the cause, others because they are concerned about freedom of expression on campus, and some because they see a real-time example of the very classes they teach.

Faculty staff have also been on the receiving end of the same violence faced by their students. At Emory University, in Georgia, an economics professor was videoed being thrown to the ground by police after she verbally intervened in the arrest of a student.

Read more from Richard Hall: