Columbia issues ultimatum to clear pro-Palestine protest or risk suspension

Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University have been given an ultimatum to abandon their encampment or risk suspension, after the breakdown of talks aimed at having it removed voluntarily.

The ultimatum, setting a Monday deadline of 2pm, came after the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, announced that efforts to reach a compromise with protest organisers had failed. She insisted that the institution would not bow to demands to divest from Israel.

“It is important for you to know that the university has already identified many students in the encampment,” a letter written on university notepaper and headed ‘Notice to Encampment read. “If you do not leave by 2pm, you will be suspended pending further investigation.”

It added: “If you voluntarily leave by 2pm, identify yourself to university officials, and sign the provided form where you commit to abide by all university policies through June 30, 2025, or the date of the conferral of your degree, whichever is earlier, you will be eligible to complete the semester in good standing.”

Columbia’s New York campus has become the centre of a spate of college protests across the US against Israel’s six-month war in Gaza, that has led to the death of more than 34,000 Palestinians, the displacement of hundreds of thousands more and brought the coastal territory to the brink of famine.

The demonstrations have triggered allegations of antisemitism amid reports by Jewish students that they have been subjected to threats and slurs.

Protest activists, in response, have asserted that the charges of antisemitism have been ramped up in an effort to silence criticism of Israel.

In her emailed statement to staff and students, Shafik – who this month underwent a fraught cross-examination from a congressional committee on alleged antisemitism at the university campus – said the tented protest community in the centre of the campus had “created an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty”.

“I know that many of our Jewish students, and other students as well, have found the atmosphere intolerable in recent weeks. Many have left campus, and that is a tragedy,” she wrote, putting much of the blame on “external actors”.

She said the breakdown of discussions took place in the face of the university’s search for a “collaborative resolution” leading to the encampment’s removal.

Although the university had rejected calls to divest from Israel, it had offered to make investments in health and education in Gaza, she said.

More than 100 demonstrators were arrested on Columbia’s campus on 18 April after police were deployed, prompting criticism of Shafik from many members of her own student body and some faculty members, who saw it as a crackdown on free speech.

About 900 protesters, including academic faculty members, have been detained in campuses across the country as protests have sprung up nationwide.

About 275 arrests were recorded on Saturday alone at various campuses including Indiana University at Bloomington, Arizona State University and Washington University in St Louis.

Washington University said in a statement that more than 100 people, including 23 students and four university employees, had been arrested on suspicion of trespassing, amid reports of police trying to remove masked protesters, while others linked arms to evade arrest.

In Virginia, an unknown number of arrests took place at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg over the weekend after protesters began occupying the lawn outside the graduate life centre.

About 100 demonstrators were arrested at Boston’s Northwestern University on Saturday. Elsewhere in Massachusetts, authorities at Tufts University in Boston said they would be contacting protest leaders to agree the removal of a campus encampment in the coming days, while Emerson College, also in Boston, said it would not be initiating disciplinary proceedings against 100 students arrested in protests last week and would be discouraging prosecutors from pressing charges.

On Monday protesters near George Washington University in Washington DC were reported to have breached and dismantled barriers erected last week to prevent the occupation of the university yard.