Columbia University says it is “expediting” its investigation into a group who disrupted a class on Israeli history on January 21.
Barry Winiker/The Image Bank RF/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
WSILTV.COM | Published January 24, 2025
Columbia University says it has suspended one student after “expediting” its investigation into a group who disrupted a class on Israeli history.
Demonstrators handed out flyers with “violent imagery” to students attending a History of Modern Israel class on Tuesday, the university said in a statement.
Columbia said it identified and suspended one student involved, pending a full review, and that its investigation remains active. University officials have not released the student’s identity.
It was the first day of Professor Avi Shilon’s class, and students had only just been introduced to the course when protesters – whose faces were covered and appeared to be wearing keffiyehs, a traditional Middle Eastern scarf often identified as a symbol of Palestinian identity – entered and distributed anti-Israel leaflets, student Elisha Baker told CNN.
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SOURCE: www.wsiltv.com
RELATED: Columbia University expediting probe into disruption of Israeli professor’s class
Screenshot taken from X account of Elisha Baker
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL | Published January 24, 2025
Columbia University says it is expediting an investigation into protesters who disrupted an Israeli professor’s class yesterday, the first day of classes for the spring semester.
Several protesters barged into professor Avi Shilon’s class on the history of modern Israel, shouting that the lecture represented “genocide” and handing out fliers showing a boot poised above a Star of David.
The university says in a statement that it is working to identify and discipline the student protesters, whose faces were covered with keffiyehs.
Columbia is also stepping up security by requiring those entering campus buildings to swipe their university IDs and directing campus security to “classes at increased risk for disruption.” Administrators are providing support to the affected students and the university is partnering with the NYPD to protect the campus, the statement says.
“Columbia must be a community where we hold people responsible and accountable,” the statement says. “Actions taken to disrupt our classrooms and our academic mission and to intimidate or harass our students are not acceptable and are an affront to every member of our university community.”
The university’s statement appears more forceful than previous responses to anti-Israel conduct on campus. The statement was also posted to the university’s main account on X, while previous condemnations were usually posted to a more obscure university web page.
The Trump administration and Congressional Republicans have vowed to take a harder line against anti-Israel disruptions on campus.
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SOURCE: www.timesofisrael.com
