Columbia University is set to resume classes on Tuesday, and students and faculty are preparing for pro-Palestinian protests to start up again.
Student organizers have vowed to continue protests, potentially including encampments, until Columbia severs ties with companies linked to Israel.
Columbia University became the epicenter of pro-Palestinian protests last spring igniting similar demonstrations across the country.
University leaders say they have taken steps to ease tensions, including listening sessions, a report on campus antisemitism, and new protest guidelines aimed at limiting disruptions.
Stefan Jeremiah/AP
“As long as Columbia continues to invest and to benefit from Israeli apartheid, the students will continue to resist,” said Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student representing campus protesters.
“Not only protests and encampments, the limit is the sky.”
The new academic year brings a new president after President Minouche Shafik resigned less than a month ago after she brought police onto campus twice last spring to dismantle protest encampments.
When a small group of students occupied a university building, hundreds of police officers surged onto campus, making arrests and plunging the university into lockdown.
On Tuesday, dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside one of the school’s entrances, some beating drums, as students and staff navigated security checkpoints.
Heightened security measures have been introduced including private security guards and restricted access have left some students and faculty uneasy.
“We’re trying to cultivate a welcoming environment. It doesn’t help when you look outside and it’s a bunch of security guards and barricades,” said Layla Hussein, a junior who led orientation programming.
Interim President Katrina Armstrong has attempted to bridge the divide, meeting with students on both sides of the issue and promising to balance free expression with maintaining a safe learning environment.
However, many on campus fear the disruptions from last spring could soon return.
“We are hoping for the best, but we are all wagering how long before we go into total lockdown again,” said Rebecca Korbin, a history professor who served on Columbia’s antisemitism task force.
“There haven’t been any monumental changes, so I don’t know why the experience in the fall would look much different than what it did in the spring.”
Columbia’s task force released a report last week accusing the university of allowing “pervasive” antisemitism to take root on campus following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
The report urged the administration to overhaul its disciplinary process and introduce additional sensitivity training for students and staff.
Meanwhile, the revised protest regulations require organizers to notify the university of scheduled demonstrations, prohibiting any that “substantially inhibit the primary purposes of a given university space.”
The university has also updated training for incoming students on antisemitism and Islamophobia, but the changes have done little to quell the anxiety among faculty and students alike.
Eduardo Vergara, a graduate student who teaches literature, expressed uncertainty about the coming semester. “It feels like everything is calm now,” he said. “I don’t think that’s going to last long.”
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press