Bracing for possible protests as students return this fall, Columbia University will begin restricting access to its Morningside campus on Monday to those with school IDs and their pre-authorized guests, officials said.
Pro-Palestinian protests, coupled with encampments and a building takeover, roiled the campus last spring and inspired a wave of civil unrest at universities nationwide. Hundreds were arrested, and more than 40 people were charged with breaking into and occupying the Hamilton Hall academic building. Most of those cases were dismissed.
Columbia implemented a color-coded system last month that restricts access to its campus based on the level of threat. The university’s campus access level will be adjusted to orange on Monday, one below the most restrictive, red. Currently, the campus’s access level is green — open to everyone, with university IDs required for building access — from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and orange after 10 p.m.
“This change is intended to keep our community safe given reports of potential disruptions at Columbia and on college campuses across the country as we approach the beginning of the new school year,” Columbia University’s Chief Operating Officer Cas Holloway said in a letter to the school. “We are particularly concerned about non-affiliates who may not have the best interests of the Columbia community in mind.”
The university also instituted a new guest registration process in June, which gives authorized guests a QR code that can be displayed alongside a government-issued ID to gain entry to campus.
In a possible indication that the tension between protesters and university officials has not abated, Holloway’s Brooklyn residence was vandalized around 3 a.m. last Thursday, police said. The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.
Photos of the vandalism provided by police show an inverted red triangle, which has become a symbol used by pro-Palestinian protesters, on the front of the residence. The glass of the lobby door was smashed, red paint was thrown around the vestibule, and crickets and mealworms were released from a box, according to the NYPD.
While no arrests have been made, police said there are five suspects.
Separately this past week, Columbia announced that three deans who appeared to exchange messages mocking student complaints about antisemitism on campus had resigned. That incident became known as Textgate.