2, 000 people claiming to get Columbia University alumni have signed a text pledging to “withhold all economical, program, and intellectual help” from the institution until it meets the demands of anti- Israel protesters. The end result is that$ 77 million in donations are in danger.
National Review reports that the letter, addressed to Columbia leader Minouche Shafik and the university’s trustees, expresses help for the protesters who oppose the school’s” continued collaboration with the Jewish government’s continued murderous violence against Palestinians”.
” The movements for Israeli independence, on campus and worldwide, is usually led by Jewish citizens of many governments”, the letter says. ” Weaponizing claims about hatred to silence student statement is based on faulty logic, harms Jewish students, and distracts from true hatred, including the attempts by a savage American right to tokenize, exploit, and appropriate Jewish pain and resilience”.
There is n’t a way to verify that the signers are actual Columbia alums. It allows people to sign anonymously.
The letter condemns the “administration’s brutal repression of student speech and assembly”, specifically president Shafik’s decision to call in the New York Police Department Strategic Response Group on protesters. On April 30, hundreds of anti-Israel protesters were detained at Columbia and City College of New York, some of whom reportedly barricaded themselves inside a campus admissions building.
Signatories of the letter are pledging to withhold donations until the university meets 13 demands, including: that it divests from companies that “fund or profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation of Palestine”, calls for a ceasefire in the Israel- Hamas war, removes Shafik as president, bans the NYPD from campus, and drops charges against student activists, reverses disciplinary measures against them, and finances the healthcare for students who were “brutalized” by the police.
The signatories have previously provided more than$ 67 million in financial contributions to Columbia, according to the website where the letter was shared, and that more than$ 77 million in donations are now in danger.
The letter also claims that the university “failed to hold accountable the former Israeli soldiers who staged a chemical attack on students in January 2024.” That seems to make reference to an incident involving anti-Israel protesters who claimed they were spraying “skunk,” a chemical created by the Israeli Defense Forces, on a demonstration earlier this year, with the student-run Columbia Spectator.
Although Columbia has received pushback from opponents who claim the school is allowing protesters to break the law, disrupt the educational environment, and harass Jewish students, according to National Review, this letter comes from supporters of the anti-Israel protesters.
13 federal judges wrote to Columbia leaders on Monday, advising them that they would no longer hire the school’s students as clerks because of their actions and the organization’s mismanagement of anti-Israel protests. They also wrote that Columbia has disqualified itself from training the next leaders of our nation.
Robert Kraft, a Columbia alumnus, the owner of the New England Patriots, announced in April that he would withhold donations from the university as a result of the anti-Israel protests.
Kraft said in a statement,” I am deeply saddened by the vicious hate that continues to spread on campus and throughout our country.” I am no longer confident that Columbia can safeguard its faculty and students, and I do not feel comfortable supporting the university until necessary steps are taken to correct the situation.
