Isabella Ramirez, welcome to the programme and you know,
I can't tell you how much we've read about what
an excellent job you are doing and your,
you know, student student newspaper,
your, your on campus journalist.
What can you tell us is the latest right now,
as we sit here talking,
today is going to be a very significant day in
terms of our developments.
This morning, our President, Minutiafiq sent out an e-mail effectively
saying that negotiations failed to reach an agreement.
And it for the first time outlined very explicitly that
Columbia will not divest from Israel,
which is the central demand of the protesters.
As well as in that e-mail,
it laid out what the university actually brought to the
table to those negotiators,
to those student negotiators, and included a series of very
interesting things,
including offering list of of financial transparency of direct holdings
of the university that is would be accessible to students
and updating that list.
It also offered to potentially
invest in health and education in Gaza as well as
create an expedited process for divestment proposals.
And those were all the things that essentially those students
would have rejected
because it did not fulfill what their central demands would
be.
And one of the interesting things as well is that
that e-mail did not include anything about amnesty for the
students,
which has also been a very big thing for the
arrested and suspended students.
And so now the university has been handling
out notices to those students at the encampment at this
moment
warning of disciplinary action. And they have until 2:00 PM
today
to potentially clear out, if not to face again disciplinary
action.
And at the same time that this is happening,
we're hearing word from the encampment.
They made an announcement essentially saying that they have voted
to stay.
So the students currently have voted to stay past 2:00
PM and face those suspensions.
And just to add one more thing,
the suspensions are actually even more severe than previous the
previous suspended students who were suspended simultaneous to
the first wave of arrests that happened,
you know, on April 18th.
Those students were allowed to stay on on on campus,
at least in the residential spaces.
This interim suspension says they would have no access to
any campus buildings,
including residences, dorms, dining, etcetera,
IDs completely deactivated, which would effectively evict a lot of
those students or at least leave them without access to
the residence halls and other important buildings.
So the consequences are now much more severe.
So it seems, honestly, Isabella,
that it's a real standoff,
that there seems to be,
you know, little peace building or bridge building between either
side and both sides,
administration and students are really holding
the toughest positions right now.
I don't know whether you see any way forward,
but what I want to ask you is,
you know, you're watching this,
you're talking to people on campus.
You also see the ruckus that's
being created outside the campus.
Can you tell us what is the real picture?
What is it dangerous, violent on campus?
Is that off campus? What are you seeing as journalists
from inside?
So at the very beginning stages there were,
there was a lot of activity in terms of protest
activity both outside of our campus,
on campus to be frank that off campus protest activity
has held quite a bit.
It has calmed down. That is where a lot of
people were sort of citing
a lot more tension in terms of when it came
to
you know certain chance or certain incidents that were arising
from those outside protests.
But predominantly for right now
the encampment has sort of remained the same and there
have been very few updates sort of on the day-to-day.
That's why today is actually quite a big day.
But, you know, I was just at the encampment pretty
recently distributing our newspaper.
And really when you walk on and you see it,
it's it's students sort of laying on the lawn,
you know, chatting, reading books,
getting water, getting food. It's a really interesting environment
because we are are are certain that there are a
lot of students who have reported feeling uncomfortable,
have reported feeling unsafe by the presence of the encampment.
But also when you walk onto it,
there isn't like active protests necessarily occurring on the encampment
itself.
It's mostly just the state of occupying that space and
kind of being on that space
and they're being kind of a series of other activities
often but
very little in terms of
tangible protest. There are is going to be probably more
escalation we can anticipate as a result of the
university's crackdown and that's sort of why we saw in
the 1st place some of those outside protests come in
and also some of the students themselves
start to galvanized in terms of upping their protest activity
was because or was in response to the arrests and
also university crackdown.
But for these past few days where everything has been
at sort of a,
the negotiations have stalled. It has been pretty,
you know, regular in terms of just the students laying
on the on the lawns and
you know kind of doing their day-to-day activity and programming,
sometimes even tuning in to class from the lawn.
Isabella, did you see or were you able to hear
the kind of,
you know, student on student verbal harassment that has been
cited as very damaging and uncomfortable and frightening
by some of the Jewish students?
Yeah. We have compiled pretty extensive reports regarding this,
most particularly when in the aftermath of one of our
campus campus rabbis telling Jewish students,
hundreds of Jewish students to not to leave campus,
to not stay because of the environment.
We in that report were able to compile a series
of incidents that had happened.
I believe on the Saturday following the arrests much were
related to off campus protests somewhere on campus
that involved certain rhetoric, some of which was evocative of
the Holocaust,
telling students to go back to Poland,
go back to Europe. And there were also other
particularly violent
signage that was used to refer to actually Hamas
and that was 1 singular protest that was a protester
that was holding that sign and referring to the pro
Israel protesters behind them.
And so we have seen those incidents and
for sure it has come up quite a lot in
the dialogue when it comes to
Shafiq's communication to the community.
And all communication we've been receiving from the administration has
been very strongly condemning the particular incidents,
incidents that have arisen from this.
Now, is that to say that that represents the entirety
of the protesters at the encampment or all of the
sort of different moving pieces?
I think that is, of course,
probably too wide sweeping. But there have certainly been these
incidents that should draw concern for our community in half.
So let's go back. There's so much politics as well.
You just mentioned the president,
Minu Shafiq, who's new, let's face it,
she started at the beginning of this academic year
and has been hauled like the others in front of
the special committee in Congress.
I want to play a little bit of what happened
on April 17th,
as you guys were. Well not you,
but the campus protesters were built in the encampment.
This is an exchange between Shafiq and the GOP Representative
Lisa McClain.
Our mobs shouting from the river to the sea Palestine
will be free or Long live the infantata are those
anti-Semitic comments. When I hear those terms I find them
very upsetting and I have heard that's a great answer
to a question I didn't ask.
Is that fall under definition of
anti-Semitic behavior? Yes or no?
Why is that so tough?
Because it's a it's a it's a difficult issue.
Maybe I should ask your task force,
does that qualify as anti-Semitic behavior,
Those statements, yes or no?
Yes. OK. Do you agree with your task force?
Yeah, we we agree. The question is what?
So the quest. So yes,
you do.
So I I'm just fascinated to know what you think
and how you're writing about the very targeted political situation
that's layered upon
all of this. Because after that,
Shafiq did, as we, as we've been talking,
call in the NYPD to break up the protest.
Now it's interesting that the chief of the NYPD patrol
on the US said the students who were arrested were
peaceful,
offered no resistance whatsoever, and was saying what they wanted
to say in a peaceful manner.
And your newspaper wrote in an editorial.
History has made clear who stood on the wrong side
then,
and it's clear that this is the side you are
aligning yourself with now.
This will be your legacy.
Are you? Were you addressing the president and the administration?
Yeah. So actually our editorial board,
I do not serve on,
but it represents a sector of our opinion team who
is
very talented and has been working very hard on,
you know, kind of reflecting discourse in a different way
because I oversee both the opinion and The Newsroom.
But that was that piece in particular was addressing Shafiq
herself.
It was attempting to say,
Shafiq, take a look at what your legacy looks like
right now to the public,
to your students, to the administration.
And I think a lot of it is inspired as
well by what we know from previous approaches at Columbia
1968, Vietnam, anti war, South African apartheid.
These are all huge moments in Columbia's history in which
those presidents also have been looked upon for the decisions
that they made at that time.
And now when we reflect on it now,
there is of course a lot of disdain and criticism
for those decision.
So I believe what the editorial board was really trying
to get out here is,
you know, really warning President Shafiq as to what your
legacy will entail.
If it means, you know
the forceful removal of students from campus and also this
crackdown on student protests.
And now of course there are many differing opinions here
but that was the opinion reflected by our our editorial
board in terms of what the majority voted for.
And as we continue to chat,
you know we've seen on other universities,
including Emory, it caused a huge ruckus.
What happened on Emory when a teacher,
a professor was essentially manhandled
other teachers tried to help faculty members student you know
the the I think it was the police and the
state guard or whatever they call them.
It was a very rough situation over the weekend
in in in Atlanta. But I guess what I want
to ask you,
because Colombia is known around the world for,
you know, its history of student protests,
but but most importantly, it's very
enviable and distinguished Middle East program.
You have a very important Middle East studies on Arab
and Palestinian studies.
You have very, very important Jewish studies program.
What do you think happened?
Why can't people talk to each other?
I think part of it is that there is encircling
all of this encircling the protest activity is there's a
big conversation about academic freedom at Columbia and and sort
of what are the limits of that.
But as well as has the university done enough to
protect those
the academic freedom of the professors on our campus and
and we saw that as well in the congressional hearing.
Congress went very, very hard on Columbia for
naming multiple faculty members by name most of whom came
from the ME sauce department
regarding statements that they had made scholarship and other things
that they have taught in their classrooms as of course
labeling them anti-Semitic and unsafe.
And so there has been this really big question as
to whether the university has done enough to kind of
protect academic freedom in the 1st place to allow that
discourse to even happen. And so I think you know
in terms of agree like our tradition here at Columbia
of both our Middle Eastern studies department but also our
immense connections to. We have the Jewish Theological Seminary.
We have a controversial, but we have a relationship through
a program with Tel Aviv University.
We have these very deep seated ties to
this issue, in particular Edward Saeed,
many scholars who who are considered foundational in Israeli and
Palestinian
issues. And so a big question here has though been
what is academic freedom?
What is the university's role in protecting it?
And has Columbia in this time frame under political pressures,
under student pressures, has it done enough to protect that
and allow that discourse to occur on its campus?
And briefly, we got, we got just a little bit
left.
You know, a lot of the faculty and some of
the students have criticized the way we,
the press have covered these
these these protests. Some call it a peace movement.
It's not even, you know,
you know, it's not meant to be violent.
It's meant to be nonviolent.
And obviously social media is blowing it out of proportion.
You're watching it from the inside.
Do you have a comment on the way the national
press has been covering it?
Well, I definitely think that as a student newspaper,
we see everything in a way that I believe would
be incredibly challenging as national media to capture.
And it's something that we've prided ourselves in.
But part of that is because we can be there.
First of all, All Day Columbia has limited press access
pretty significantly.
We're there all day. We live on campus,
we sleep on campus, we eat on campus.
That is our community and our livelihoods and our peers.
And so I think we come into everything with that
angle.
And like I said, I personally,
I have been on the encampment,
many of my reporters who have a spanning
series of of different identities,
some Jewish, some, some knots,
who have also stepped into the encampment,
who have also been sort of on the front lines
in terms of that reporting,
been inside protests outside of our gates.
And of course we practice a lot of measures to
stay safe as as reporters.
But I I do think we have a very different
angle here.
I do think. And it's when,
when. Yeah, Yeah, sorry, I,
I, I get it. And it's really impressive and you're
doing a heck of a job.
And we will keep checking in with you.
And of course, as you mentioned,
a lot of Jewish students also taking part in in
these protests.
Isabella Ramirez, editor in chief of the daily Spec Data,
thank you so much.