Editors at National Review Online ponder current problems at a prominent Ivy League school.
After weeks of letting a pro-Hamas mob rule its campus, Columbia University finally called on the New York Police Department to retake a university building and clear out the surrounding encampments of protesters.
Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York — who, admittedly, has some experience evacuating buildings — said he was “outraged by the level of police presence called upon nonviolent student protesters.”
In reality, a show of overwhelming force by the NYPD — which included hundreds of specially trained officers in riot gear — was the only way to minimize the risk of violence by showing the entitled hooligans, who were illegally occupying a university building, that grown-ups were finally back in charge.
The NYPD said that they had arrested 119 people at Columbia without reported injuries and charged them with offenses including burglary, trespass, and criminal mischief. However, it remains to be seen whether Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will actually prosecute them.
What is abundantly clear is that things never would have gotten to this point were it not for Columbia’s feeble administrators, starting with Minouche Shafik, the university president. Instead of intervening deliberately the moment that protesters began breaking rules, she coddled the protesters and gave them every reason to believe that they would never face any consequences for their actions.
After initially calling in the NYPD to remove the encampment on April 18, the university allowed students to reestablish it immediately after. Deadline after deadline for the protesters to leave the encampment — a clear violation of multiple university rules — passed with no action, as the university attempted to “negotiate” with the protesters. Faculty members were allowed to join with students and shield them from consequences.
Rampant antisemitism and harassment of Jewish students were on display throughout the protests. Demonstrators called for “intifada” — a reference to the waves of terrorist attacks that killed over 1,000 Israelis well before the October 7 massacres — and shouted at a Jewish student, “The 7th of October is going to be every day for you.”