Faculty members at Columbia University say they disagree with a pro-Palestinian student group’s recent endorsement of violence, but some support the group’s right to express that sentiment.
On October 8, Columbia University Apartheid Divest — or CUAD — revoked an apology it made in the spring on behalf of a student activist who posted a video of himself saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” The group, an unrecognized coalition of student organizations, said in last week’s statement that the apology was written by several organizers, not the student, and did not represent the group’s values.
The Tuesday statement went on to spell out the group’s political stances, such as supporting “liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.” It emphasized, apparently referring to Israel, that “in the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”
Israel has killed more than 41,000 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — since October 7, 2023, according to the territory’s health ministry. The Hamas attacks that day left 1,200 people dead and 240 taken hostage.
CUAD did not respond to a request for comment from The Chronicle. The group was at the center of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian student encampment, which set off a national movement at the end of the spring semester. Its statement represents a shift in the tenor and focus of pro-Palestinian activism this fall, as colleges have dashed divestment hopes and the war expands beyond Gaza.
How that rhetoric is landing among faculty members — those who have stood by protesters as they’ve been criticized by donors, lawmakers, and campus officials, as well as those who have long held that students’ rhetoric goes too far — matters at a time of increased scrutiny of antisemitism and protest culture on campuses.
‘Calls for violence’ or the right to resistance?
Since the October 7 attack, faculty members across the country have been some of the greatest allies for student protesters battling administrators. They have also themselves lost jobs, had their personal information posted online, and been arrested at protests.
At Columbia, professors have joined students in protest and castigated the administration’s treatment of activists, who were arrested in droves at the April encampment.
Last October, more than 170 Columbia and Barnard College professors signed a statement in support of students who had been vocal against the war in Gaza after some were targeted by a “doxxing truck” publicizing their names and faces. In April, more than 100 Columbia and Barnard professors staged a walkout to condemn the suspensions and arrests of students at the encampment.
Bruce Robbins, a professor in Columbia’s department of English and comparative literature, says he does not believe there would have been such a large turnout had the issue been “the rights and wrongs of Israeli violence in Gaza.”
“The issue was our students [were] being mistreated,” said Robbins, who also signed the anti-doxxing statement.
Robbins said faculty members’ support for the Palestinian cause and opposition to the suffering of Gazans under Israeli bombardment is “much stronger” than support for CUAD or its October 8 statement.
Katherine Franke, a Columbia law professor and one of the signatories of the October 2023 statement, told The Chronicle in an email that she does not back calls for violent protest at Columbia or in Israel and Palestine.
“That said, I will continue to support our students’ right to peaceful protest,” Franke said. “I believe strongly that dialogue and diplomacy, accompanied by adherence to the rule of law, is the best course to resolving the 77-year conflict in Israel/Palestine, and I am similarly committed to dialogue on our campus.”
Mae Ngai, a professor of Asian American studies and history who also signed the anti-doxxing statement, said she didn’t believe the Tuesday CUAD statement represents the feelings of all the students in the pro-Palestinian movement.
“That’s normal that you will have a diversity of opinion among the students, just as there’s a diversity of opinion among the faculty,” Ngai said. “I think where we all have a common interest is in creating an atmosphere and a policy on our campus that allows for freedom of speech and protest.”
Robbins and Ngai both noted that international law affirms the right to resistance, but not the targeting of civilians.
“Supporting armed resistance by people who are occupied by a foreign power is legitimate under international law, number one,” Ngai said. “Number two, I do not support Hamas. Number three, I do support the students’ right to free speech and nonviolent protest.”
Not all professors have been as understanding of where the students are coming from. A Columbia faculty member, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the conversation, said that while students have the right to grieve the death of Palestinians, CUAD’s endorsement of violence is “abhorrent.”
“Besides violating our non-discrimination and anti-discriminatory harassment policy, it’s also just not the way that we speak about each other as people from all backgrounds and all walks of life,” said the faculty member. “We have a basic commitment to treating each other with respect no matter what we think or how we feel about geopolitics or various issues.”
Commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, pro-Palestinian student protesters across the country deemed October 7-11 a “week of rage.” On October 7, Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter gathered on the university’s main yard to honor Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza.
“We will continue to mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living,” the group wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “RESISTANCE UNTIL VICTORY AND RETURN.”
In a statement to The Chronicle, a Columbia spokesman said statements avowing violence go against the principles upon which the university was founded.
“Calls for violence have no place at Columbia or any university,” the spokesman said.
