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Police and private security throng every entrance but one. Steel barriers line the streets. Students pack up belongings in their cars and leave for home - classes are cancelled, and exam plans are up in the air.

Everywhere there is gloom, and uncertainty about what happens next at Columbia University.

Students told the BBC that the university's decision to call in police to clear a Gaza protest late on Tuesday, leading to a raid on the occupied Hamilton Hall and hundreds of arrests, has left the college community shattered.

The university president, Nemat Shafik, said that it was with great regret that she ordered the police raid against students and others she said had infiltrated the protest. It would "take time to heal", she added in a message in the operation's aftermath.

For students of this prestigious school in Manhattan, New York, how long is unclear.

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[-] bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 216 points 1 month ago

Only authoritarian governments crush student protests

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[-] harmonicPerc@sh.itjust.works 207 points 1 month ago

How to radicalize a lot of smart people in a very short period of time

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[-] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 190 points 1 month ago

It would "take time to heal", she added

That's some big "I'm sorry you made me do this to you" abuser energy there

[-] xantoxis@lemmy.world 45 points 1 month ago

It is with great regret that she [did something nobody was forcing her to do].

[-] thesporkeffect@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I can make some educated guesses on who forced her to do it.

Edit: upon learning more about her, no, it seems like she's just like that

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Most of what she said are pretty typical non-exuses in British politics and upper class circles, which is were she made her whole career up to this.

[-] eating3645@lemmy.world 108 points 1 month ago

The President needs to resign.

[-] solrize@lemmy.world 60 points 1 month ago

I had never heard of her before. Wow:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minouche_Shafik

Nemat Talaat Shafik, Baroness Shafik, (Arabic: نعمت طلعت شفيق) DBE, HonFBA (born 13 August 1962), commonly known as Minouche Shafik (Arabic: مينوش شفيق), is a British-American academic and economist.[2] She has been serving as the 20th president of Columbia University since July 2023. She previously served as president and vice chancellor of the London School of Economics from 2017 to 2023.

From 2014 to 2017, Shafik served as deputy governor of the Bank of England and also previously as permanent secretary of the United Kingdom Department for International Development from 2008 to 2011.[3] She has also served as a vice president at the World Bank[4] and as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.[5] She was created a life peeress by Elizabeth II in 2020.

[-] mortimerkahn@sh.itjust.works 76 points 1 month ago

She's taking a "World Bank" approach to this situation, that's for sure. This quote by her is hilarious:

"The point of university is to be intellectually challenged and confronted with difference." She argued that universities needed to 'teach people to have difficult conversations', adding: “It’s through that process of listening that you learn, you build consensus, and you move forward as a community."

[-] BeanGoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 38 points 1 month ago

Cool. How about you listen to your fucking students then.

[-] tearsintherain@leminal.space 25 points 1 month ago

Columbia University’s Shafik, the Neoliberal https://www.salon.com/2024/04/28/columbia-crisis-another-massive-failure-of-liberalism/

“If you wanted to choose one individual as the face of “neoliberalism” for an encyclopedia entry, you could do a lot worse. Shafik holds an economics PhD from Oxford and a résumé of high-ranking positions at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England, three institutions that have been instrumental in driving developing nations into unsustainable debt in pursuit of a disastrously failed model of progress. She came to Columbia after six years of pushing fiscal austerity as director of the London School of Economics, where just last spring she helped defeat a student/faculty strike, reportedly by slashing salary payments and lowering graduation requirements to hustle student protesters out the door.”

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 57 points 1 month ago

Imagine if the Columbia administration decided they could swim in regular water instead of a moneybin like Scrooge McDuck and divested the university from Israel. Maybe all of this could have been avoided.

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[-] MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 49 points 1 month ago

Other than "wrong thought" what was it that the protesters were doing that required such a heavy handed response?

By contrast, in a country with actual freedom Student protesters at McGill encampment determined to stay after judge rejects injunction

[-] Mossheart@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 month ago

Not free for long if we get our own Trump Jr (aka Bitcoin Milhouse, aka Pierre Pollievre) elected. This would likely be ' too woke' for them.

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[-] Uranium3006@kbin.social 39 points 1 month ago

Keep fighting! We're starting to win

[-] sndmn@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 month ago

First they ignore you..

Then they laugh at you..

Then they fight you.. (I think we're in this vicinity now)

Then you win.

[-] DeJaVu@kbin.social 29 points 1 month ago

Ahhhh, the good old land of the free...

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[-] giantfloppycock@lemm.ee 25 points 1 month ago

and others she say had infiltrated the protest

What’s this about?

[-] zbyte64@awful.systems 52 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's about the narrative that there are outside agitators rallying the protest, but virtually all of the arrests are of students 🧐

[-] KreekyBonez@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

we have always been at war with Eurasia!

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this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
508 points (96.4% liked)

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