By Habib Al-Badawi
In the hallowed halls of Columbia University, where discourse and dissent have long intertwined, a scene of profound upheaval unfolded on a fateful Tuesday night. A formidable phalanx of hundreds of riot-shield-bearing officers from the New York City Police Department, armed with zip ties, breached the sanctity of these storied grounds.
Their mission? To apprehend and detain over 280 intrepid protesters who had occupied Hamilton Hall, that bastion of academic and administrative eminence, a mere day prior. Concurrently, the long arm of the law extended its reach to the City College of New York, where student dissidents faced a similar fate, ensnared in the widening dragnet of this escalating conflict.
This forceful crackdown marked an escalation in the simmering tensions between authorities and the impassioned pro-Palestinian demonstrators whose voices had reverberated across college campuses throughout the United States. Indeed, this conflagration of protests had transcended domestic borders, reverberating globally in a resounding chorus of dissent that could no longer be ignored.
At the very heart of these impassioned protests lay an inexorable demand: an end to Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza, a conflict that had already claimed an unconscionable toll of over 34,000 lives since its inception on October 7th. The protesters’ clarion call echoed a resounding plea for their universities to sever ties with entities and institutions that maintained insidious links to Israel. Emblematic of this burgeoning movement, Columbia University stood as a vanguard, where students had erected a resolute encampment that presaged the global wave of protests to come.
The chronicle of events unfolded thus: On April 17th, students at Columbia University, galvanized by a profound sense of injustice, erected the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, a defiant rebuke to the university’s stance on Israel’s incursion into Gaza. Their demands were unequivocal: the divestment of the institution’s investments from companies engaged in commerce with Israel and the abrogation of academic ties with Israeli universities, a symbolic severing of the complicity that bound them to this conflict.
However, on April 24th, Columbia’s president, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, issued a resolute statement, asserting the university’s unwavering commitment to its investments in Israel. An ultimatum was delivered, reverberating through the encampment like a clarion call to battle: dismantle the encampment by 2 PM on that fateful Monday or face the consequences of defiance.
Mere hours before the deadline, the protest group, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, took to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), issuing a portentous statement that echoed the mounting resolve of their movement. They warned the university of their preparedness to “escalate their direct actions” should Columbia fail to engage in negotiations premised on “basic standards of conduct,” a gauntlet thrown down in the face of intransigence.
In the nascent hours of Tuesday morning, the protesters unveiled their riposte, occupying the hallowed halls of Hamilton Hall in a profound evocation of the Vietnam War protests of 1968 and the 1985 demonstrations demanding divestment from apartheid South Africa. In a poignant gesture, the students rechristened the building “Hind’s Hall” in solemn remembrance of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old casualty of the Gaza genocide, a martyr whose name would become a rallying cry for their cause.
Despite the encampments’ resilience in the face of arrests and the spectre of suspensions, the night’s denouement witnessed brutal police action to clear the occupied premises and apprehend the protesters. This scene would etch itself into the collective memory of a generation.
In the aftermath, Columbia University found itself grappling with the fallout from President Shafik’s congressional vow to clamp down on unsanctioned protests and her subsequent decision to enlist police intervention to dismantle the encampment. This resulted in over 100 student arrests earlier in April. The ivory tower had been breached, and the reverberations were felt throughout its hallowed halls.
On Tuesday, as protesters seized Hamilton Hall through the night, Columbia once again beseeched police to maintain a presence on campus until the commencement ceremonies on May 17th. In a poignant letter to a high-ranking NYPD official, Shafik lamented, “The events on campus last night have left us no choice,” a tacit admission that the scales had tipped, and the university’s authority had been challenged in ways it had never anticipated.
This plea followed nearly a fortnight of tumultuous protests that had engulfed the university. The maelstrom was replete with the construction and reconstruction of encampments, recriminations over the initial police summons, and accusations of an environment conducive to the celebration of Hamas and the intimidation of Jewish students. The campus had become a microcosm of broader conflict, a battleground where ideologies clashed, and allegiances were tested.
In a tacit acknowledgment of the intractable nature of the disputes, the university had begun offering hybrid classes, a pragmatic concession to the challenges of resolving the conflicts before the academic year’s conclusion. The halls of learning had become sites of contestation, and the pursuit of knowledge itself had been subsumed by the weight of this epic struggle.
While initially reluctant to invite the police’s return, deeming it “counterproductive” and liable to “further inflame” the situation, Columbia’s leadership ultimately capitulated, citing the need to “enforce our own rules and ensure that those who violate the norms of our community face consequences.” The veneer of civility had been shattered, and the university found itself grappling with forces it could no longer contain.
As the night’s shadows lengthened, the police remounted their vigil on Columbia’s grounds, systematically apprehending the Hamilton Hall occupiers in a sobering spectacle that reverberated through the nation’s consciousness. The images of students being led away in handcuffs, their voices raised in defiance, would become emblematic of a generation’s commitment to justice, no matter the cost.
In the aftermath, activist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace condemned the NYPD’s heavy-handed tactics, lambasting Columbia’s decision to “brutalize its students” rather than divest from the “brutality of war and occupation.” The group’s executive director, Stefanie Fox, excoriated the university for finding itself “on the wrong side of history once again,” drawing parallels to its suppression of the anti-war movement in 1968 and the anti-apartheid protests of 1985. The echoes of past struggles resonate through the present, a reminder that the arc of justice is long, but it bends towards those who refuse to remain silent.
As the dust settled, the embattled students remained undaunted, vowing to sustain their movement until the university acquiesced to their demands for divestment, transparency, and amnesty from disciplinary measures. Their resolve had been forged in the crucible of this conflict, and their voices would not be silenced.
The reverberations of this seismic event extended far beyond Columbia’s environs, with students from encampments nationwide expressing solidarity with their brethren through vigils and demonstrations of kinship. A new generation of activists had been born, bound together by a shared commitment to justice and a willingness to sacrifice for their cause.
As the sun rose on a new day, the NYPD sought to justify its actions, with senior officials asserting the presence of “external individuals” and the deployment of “professional” tools like bike locks to secure the premises—a narrative swiftly countered by astute observers who recognized the ubiquity of such implements on college campuses. The attempt to delegitimize the protesters’ methods betrayed a deep desperation, a fear of the momentum that had been unleashed.
Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, a harrowing scene unfolded at the University of California, Los Angeles, where a masked pro-Israel mob unleashed a torrent of violence upon an encampment, assaulting students with pepper spray, sticks, stones, and metal fencing. The Los Angeles Police Department’s intervention, though eventual, was criticized as unconscionably delayed, with witnesses attesting to their initial complacency in the face of the onslaught. The battle lines had been drawn, and the conflict had spilled over onto another front, a testament to the far-reaching impact of this movement.
As this nationwide conflagration of protests persists, with encampments established on over 20 campuses, including prestigious institutions like New York University, Yale, and Harvard, the spectre of police crackdowns and violence looms large. To date, over 1,200 students have been apprehended for their participation in these demonstrations opposing the Gaza war. Their voices momentarily stilled, but their resolve was unbroken.
Amidst this maelstrom, a glimmer of hope emerged at Brown University, where, on Tuesday evening, an accord was struck between the university’s leadership and protesting students. The agreement stipulated the dismantling of encampments, which had been in place since April 24th, contingent upon the university’s highest governing body, the Corporation, voting on divestment from companies affiliated with Israel during an October meeting. A fragile truce had been broken, a pause in the relentless march of this conflict, but one that offered the tantalizing promise of substantive change.
As this saga unfolds, the nation holds its collective breath, witnessing a generation of impassioned youth challenging the boundaries of discourse and demanding accountability from the ivory towers that shape the nation’s future. Whether their voices will be heeded or silenced remains an open question, one that will undoubtedly reverberate through the annals of history.
For in the hallowed halls of Hamilton and beyond, a battle has been joined, one that transcends mere physical spaces and speaks to the very essence of what it means to be a citizen in a society grappling with the tensions of power, privilege, and the pursuit of justice. The students who have taken up this mantle are not mere agitators but heirs to a long and storied tradition of dissent, a tradition that has shaped the course of nations and upended the calcified structures of oppression.
As they march forward, their chants echoing through the streets and their banners unfurled in defiance, they carry with them the weight of history and the hopes of generations yet unborn. For in their hands lies the power to reshape the discourse, to demand accountability from those who would turn a blind eye to suffering, and to forge a new path towards a more just and equitable world.
Whether the Battle for Hamilton Hall will be remembered as a mere footnote or a pivotal moment in the annals of social change remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: the voices that have risen in solidarity with the people of Gaza will not be silenced. They are the harbingers of a new era, a time when the boundaries of what is possible are redrawn by those who dare to dream of a better world.
As echoes of this conflict reverberate across campuses and nations, let it be known that Columbia University students lit a flame that can never be quenched. Their battle may have been waged on the grounds of Hamilton Hall, but their struggle transcends borders and ideologies, a clarion call for justice that will resound through the ages.
