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submitted 6 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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 218 points 6 months ago

Only authoritarian governments crush student protests

[-] Drusas@kbin.run 27 points 6 months ago

This is a private university crushing student protests.

[-] bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 152 points 6 months ago

With police, an apparatus of the state.

You have to work harder to come to that conclusion than just going “hey isn’t the police employed by the government?”

[-] Stovetop@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago

But the state itself is controlled by corporate interests.

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[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 91 points 6 months ago

I didn't know that the university had control over the NY police force.

[-] Drusas@kbin.run 17 points 6 months ago

They don't. That's why they request police resources.

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 73 points 6 months ago

So you know and understand that the police force is controlled by the government, but still fail to connect the dots between that fact and them crushing the protests?

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 21 points 6 months ago

And why would the police comply with such a ridiculous request when they have more important things to do?

[-] Juice@midwest.social 16 points 6 months ago

Under capitalism the main police function is to break strikes and to repress other forms of protest against the policies of the ruling class. Any civic usefulness other forms of police activity may have, like controlling traffic and summoning ambulances, is strictly incidental to the primary repressive function. Personal inclinations of individual cops do not alter this basic role of the police. All must comply with ruling-class dictates. As a result, police repression becomes one of the most naked forms through which capitalism subordinates human rights to the demands of private property. If the cops sometimes falter in their antisocial tasks, it is simply because they -- like the guns they use -- are subject to rust when not engaged in the deadly function for which they are primarily trained.
No police organization is exactly the same day in and day out. Two essential factors determine its character at a given moment: the social climate in which the cops have been operating and the turnover of personnel within the force. An unseasoned cop may tend to be somewhat considerate of others in the performance of duty, especially while class relations are relatively peaceful. Even in such calm times, however, the necessary accommodation must be made to capitalist demands, including readiness to shoot anyone who tampers with private property. Otherwise the aspiring cop, if he is not kicked out of the force, will have little chance of rising beyond a beat in the sticks. By gradually weeding out misfits along these general lines, a police department can keep itself abreast of requirements during a more or less stable period in class relations.

-- Farrell Dobbs, Teamster Rebellion

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[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

They tear gassed students at my old public university. The way they're being treated is ridiculous and completely out of line with previous protests.

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[-] harmonicPerc@sh.itjust.works 209 points 6 months ago

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

[-] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 189 points 6 months 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 43 points 6 months ago

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

[-] thesporkeffect@lemmy.world 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months 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 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months 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 118 points 6 months ago

The President needs to resign.

[-] solrize@lemmy.world 57 points 6 months 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 74 points 6 months 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 39 points 6 months ago

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

[-] tearsintherain@leminal.space 25 points 6 months 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 61 points 6 months 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.

[-] MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 51 points 6 months 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

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[-] Uranium3006@kbin.social 45 points 6 months ago

Keep fighting! We're starting to win

[-] sndmn@lemmy.ca 31 points 6 months 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 33 points 6 months ago

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

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[-] giantfloppycock@lemm.ee 25 points 6 months ago

and others she say had infiltrated the protest

What’s this about?

[-] zbyte64@awful.systems 54 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months 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 6 months ago

we have always been at war with Eurasia!

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[-] TheHottub@lemmy.world 21 points 6 months ago

Then don't give them your money or time and transfer to another school?

[-] thesporkeffect@lemmy.world 34 points 6 months ago

Try not giving boomer ass platitudes that you have clearly put about 20 seconds of thought into.

Do you tell struggling minorities in southern states to 'just move to a blue state'? I'm sure no one has forgotten this is an option, and I expect that future enrollment to the school is going to be way less, but this is an immediate problem and transferring is a semester-scale solution. Some of the students may be ready to graduate as well.

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[-] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

I was with them (because one SHOULD be able to exercise their constitutional rights) until they started breaking shit.

We have a right to peacefully assemble, not act like idiots.

Now, I still wish this was handled differently. They really should have tried to just go after the idiots and not everyone.

[-] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 37 points 6 months ago

No one listens to peaceful protesters

[-] Zink@programming.dev 26 points 6 months ago

But won’t somebody think of the property!

/s

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[-] SharkAttak@kbin.social 15 points 6 months ago
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this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
510 points (100.0% liked)

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