Almost 300 college students have been seated at Columbia College on Wednesday afternoon for a two-hour lecture on girls’s involvement in peace processes delivered by Hillary Clinton and Keren Yarhi-Milo, the dean of Columbia’s College of Worldwide and Public Affairs.
Not even midway via the category, about 30 college students stood up and gathered their computer systems and backpacks, as a part of a deliberate scholar walkout. They joined a number of dozen different protesters congregating close to the foyer of the constructing.
The demonstrators, who sat quietly in a standard space within the Worldwide Affairs Constructing — lots of them in face masks — have been protesting what they perceived as the college’s position in publicly shaming college students whose images appeared final week on the video display screen panels on a truck seen close to campus. The screens confirmed the faces of scholars beneath the phrases “Columbia’s Main Antisemites.” The scholars mentioned the images have been taken from a “non-public and safe” on-line platform for college kids on the College of Worldwide and Public Affairs.
They demanded “speedy authorized help for affected college students” and “a dedication to scholar security, properly being and privateness.”
The scholars whose pictures appeared on the video panels have been members of teams that had signed an announcement in regards to the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas on Israel that mentioned, partly, “The burden of duty for the battle and casualties undeniably lies with the Israeli extremist authorities.”
As Dr. Yarhi-Milo and Mrs. Clinton’s class was ending round 4 p.m., the demonstrators shushed themselves into silence, anticipating that the dean and the previous secretary of state would quickly stroll previous the gathered college students. That point by no means got here. Phrase unfold that Dr. Yarhi-Milo and Mrs. Clinton had left the constructing via a facet door.
A spokeswoman for Columbia mentioned the college had no remark. The protest got here the day after the college introduced a new task force on doxxing and student safety.
