Really? Columbia?

No matter how they spin it, protesting against injustice and inhumanity isn't a violation of the university's values. It's a fulfillment of them.

Today, I and other members of the Columbia University community received a letter and accompanying video from Claire Shipman, Acting President of the University. In it, she was addressing the protests that occurred on the school campus yesterday. But right from the beginning, it was clear what her, and the university’s, take on this was.

First, she distanced the protestors themselves from the school community they’re part of. She simply called them “a group of protestors,” despite ample evidence that virtually all of them were Columbia students. She also claimed that they “posed a serious risk to our students and campus safety” as if they weren’t students and that by protesting, their safety on campus was no longer a concern.

Later, admitting that they were in fact students, she said, “Our administration spent substantial time working to diffuse the situation in multiple ways, through Public Safety and Delegate visits to the students, scenes I witnessed firsthand. The students were told they simply needed to identify themselves and then leave, but most refused.” What part of “protest” does she not understand? Of course, they weren’t going to leave, any more than sit-in protestors were going to leave the diner stools they occupied in the South in the ‘60s.

In March of this year, Columbia University enacted new rules that make lawful protest almost impossible. They now require that students participating in such protests not wear face coverings, which means they can be photographed and identified later, and that they present identification as demanded, which allows for the same thing.

So, when these Columbia students were confronted by both university police and the NYPD, they, of course, didn’t comply. When they refused to: A) leave the room they were occupying (which was the entire point of the protest), B) remove their face coverings, and C) surrender their ID, with officials stating that their information “will be recorded”, they were first detained (students who weren’t involved in the protests were allowed to leave), then forcibly expelled and arrested. Remember, this is all occurring in one room of one building.

The university’s response triggered an equal and opposite reaction from even more students, with a much larger crowd coming to the original protestors’ aid. Students provided video footage showing that’s when their pushing back began. In all, when the dust settled, 80 people had been arrested.

But this wasn’t some band of violent insurgents. This was a bunch of girls. Of those arrested, 61 were female; 19 were male. And the two people injured? They weren’t NYPD. They were protestors. Meanwhile, other students, including Jewish organizers, were contending that both this administration and others who are strongly pro-Israel are attempting to muddy the water by conflating pro-Palestinian protests and antisemitism.

“I am particularly heartbroken, and incensed,” Acting President Shipman went on to say, “That this disruption occurred when our students are intensely focused on critical academic work. At a moment when our community deserves calm and the opportunity to study, reflect, and complete the academic year successfully, these actions created unnecessary stress and danger.”

But there’s not one single mention of why this “disruption” happened, why these students are putting their lives on the line, instead of holing up studying for finals. Clearly, they thought this was more important. And somehow, Claire Shipman and all the powers that be at Columbia University missed this. She framed the stress caused by their actions “unnecessary.” But again, these students thought otherwise, just like the students who participated in the 1968 protests also at Columbia did.

Those protests were because of the University’s connections to a weapons research institute creating Vietnam War strategies. Yesterday’s protests were part of the longstanding call for the university to no longer invest its $14.8 billion endowment in weapons makers and other companies that support Israel's military occupation of Palestinian territories. Both remind me of that Woody Guthrie quote, “If we fix it so’s you can’t make money on war, we’ll all forget what we’re killing folks for.”

But, the question, for me is, how is it that not a single person calling out this “illegal” protest, including the deluge of news articles reporting on it, mentioned their stated purpose? How did their call for Columbia to divest from war profiteering get turned into accusations of antisemitism? How’s that kind of spin, across all the institutions meant to unspin the narrative, including—and especially—the fourth estate even possible?

It’s no secret that Columbia has been the focus of immense pressure from the Trump administration in the wake of last year's campus protests of the deaths in Gaza, including threats by the administration to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding if certain changes weren't implemented at the school.

Just two days ago, 180 jobs at the university were eliminated after the Trump administration’s revocation of $400 million in federal funding. Disappointingly, Columbia, despite a $15 billion endowment, has complied. Those implemented changes are ones that have made protest, no matter how peaceful, a practical impossibility.

"Everyone has the right to peacefully protest,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. “But violence, vandalism or destruction of property are completely unacceptable." In a social media post, she stated that she’s "grateful to public safety officials for keeping students safe." But again, that’s a qualified term. What she really means is “non-protesting students”. "Public Safety officers have choked and beaten us,” one student group posted. “But we have not wavered. We refuse to show our IDs under militarized arrest. We refuse to go down quietly."

Acting President Shipman continued, “I have seen how much our community wants to take back our narrative, to do what they came to Columbia to do—learn, thrive, and grow—not take over a library.” But clearly, for these students, “taking over a library” is not what this was about. It’s exactly because of how they’re learning, thriving and growing that they’re doing this.

New York City Mayor (and former NYPD officer) Eric Adams had this to say: "To parents of students protesting: call your children and make clear that breaking the law is wrong and they should exit the building immediately.” This, from an in-office mayor who has been indicted on multiple charges ranging from bribery to conspiracy to fraud.

Breaking the law is wrong. Of course, that’s his takeaway. That was also the takeaway when people marched through the streets of Birmingham in 1963, unlawfully, because they were refused “parade permits”. It was the takeaway at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday when Hosea Williams, John Lewis, Amelia Boynton, and others refused to disband. It was the takeaway when police raided the Stonewall Inn and started arresting people for simply existing while queer.

How can Mayor Adams, an African American, not get that there’s more to this than “breaking the law is wrong”? “One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’” Martin wrote in Letter from Birmingham Jail. “The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

So, okay, these students perhaps shouldn’t have written “Columbia Will Burn” on one of the walls, and sure, it sounds like some damage was done to the door the officers were forcibly removing students through. But are we actually treating those things as equivalents to the atrocities being committed right now in that part of the world, the reason these students are protesting? Is that what we’re doing? Is that who we are now?

The fact that the university earned the CNN headline, “White House praises Columbia’s response after 80 arrested in pro-Palestine protest at campus library” should have told them something about the side of history they’re heading for. Because, as I shared in my MLK Day 2025 Letter, history really does have sides.

Whether we like their form of protest or not, these students are not on the sidelines. They’re engaged. They’re taking responsibility for the kind of society we’re becoming. And I, as a member of this Columbia community, and as an African American Birminghamian whose family broke laws by daring to protest when protesting was made effectively illegal (“It’s fine to march if you have a parade permit we’re not going to give you”), I couldn’t be prouder of these students. This is exactly what I hope this generation will be doing – standing up to us – even if we punish them for it.

Acting President Shipman closes her letter by saying, “So, we will get back to business. Our real business. The business of teaching, learning, studying, and researching.” I found myself thinking, “That’s Columbia’s real business? Really? I thought it was preparing people who could make us a better society, a stronger humanity, a more perfect union.”

I thought its business was producing people like Alexander Hamilton and Barack Obama, Shirley Chisholm and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Langston Hughes and Amelia Earhart, Yo-Yo Ma and Alicia Keys. I thought it was about producing the kinds of young adults who care about what’s happening to people they’ve never met and never will meet, just because they matter. That’s what I always understood the real business of Columbia to be. I’m guessing that most members of the Columbia community would say the same.

The thing is, all too often, being on the wrong side of society is the precursor to being on the right side of history. That’s where these kids are. Sure, all these officials are saying they’re wrong, that they’re the disrupters, the ones causing the problem, upsetting the balance. That’s what they said in 1963 Birmingham: “Our Negroes were just fine until that Martin Luther King and all those Northern agitators showed up, disturbing the peace.” But they weren’t fine.

The people protesting the war on Iraq 20 years ago were in a similar position. They found themselves on the wrong side of society at a time when nearly 80% of Americans supported the war, and when every newspaper from the New York Times to the Washington Post, with the exception of one – Knight Ridder – was fanning the flames, spreading claims that Iraq was behind 9/11 and had all kinds of “weapons of mass destruction” in its arsenal.

I remember participating in one such demonstration with other members of the Columbia community. There were about 12 of us in front of Low Library, holding signs about peace, when, all of a sudden, a mob of hundreds descended on us, calling us traitors to our country and declaring that we “hate America”. Clearly, we didn’t. It was our love for our country that had us out there.

When it was all over, when we’d decimated Iraq, and no WMDs had been found, we all wanted to blame the Bush administration for giving us false information. But, ferreting out the truth is exactly what the press is supposed to do. And making sure that the United States stays true to its conscience is exactly what each citizen is charged with.

And that’s what can’t be lost here. These students are out there fighting for the soul of America. The least we can do is stand with them. That’s what we owe them, and what we owe ourselves. That’s why I’m asking something of you: If you know of anyone who’s at all connected to Columbia, whether they attended classes for just one day or taught there for a career, whether they’re connected to people who went there, whether they work there, or whether they’re part of the surrounding community, if they support the cause these students are standing for, forward this letter to them.

Encourage them to make their voices heard, letting it be known that neither Acting President Shipman nor any of the other officials chiming in about this “horrible disruption” speak for them. If you financially support Columbia or if you’re paying someone’s tuition to go there (including your own), write the university and let them know where you stand. Likewise with any other school that chooses this route. Because while this looks like an isolated incident on one college campus, it’s so much more than that. Letting this go is exactly how democracy ends.

“Your grandchildren will be speaking German.” That’s one of my favorite lines from Number 24, the biopic about Gunnar Sønsteby, Norwegian resistance leader and the only recipient of the War Cross with three swords, Norway's highest military decoration. Gunnar, back before he’d even turned 25, had been tasked with engaging the president of the Norwegian Central Bank in the resistance effort.

“Your grandchildren will be speaking German,” Gunnar said, in a last-ditch effort to get through to the man who’d already dismissed him. “What was that?” the bank president replied. “You do understand that your grandchildren will be speaking German? Here, you have a chance to stand on the right side of history.” That’s exactly where we are, and what we’re deciding each time we opt to keep our heads down and act like what’s happening isn’t happening. Or, when others stand, we can choose to stand with them.

“If you would like to get out of a pessimistic mood yourself,” Pete Seeger said during his 1963 live recording of the song he made famous, “I got one sure remedy for you. Go help those people down in Birmingham and Mississippi or Alabama. All kinds of jobs that need to be done. It takes hands and hearts and heads to do it, human beings to do it. And then we'll see this song come true – we shall overcome.”

In Don’t Dream It’s Over, I described three things that are required of both you and me right now: 1. Stand with everyone who needs us to stand with them. 2. Leverage our power to ensure that everyone who doesn’t have enough, has enough. And, 3. Transform ourselves into a government of, by and for the people, a society where we all have a vote, a voice and a stake, a land made for you and me. A democracy.

This – right here – is how we do that.

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Today is May 8, day 109 under this administration. We have just 557 days until the 2026 elections, 1,288 days until the 2028 elections, and 1,356 days until Martin’s 100^th birthday. So, when do we fight? Today, tomorrow, and every day between now and then. Where do we fight? Anywhere and everywhere we see injustice occurring or oppression increasing. And, how do we fight? In every way we can.

I have two closing songs for you today. The first is March, March by the Chicks. It addresses the long history of fighting for justice in a world that all too often wants to deprive us of it. And it gets to the core of the matter – the way we overcome everything that’s currently being done by this faction that’s having their last lap in the driver’s seat is by utilizing the vote – the single most powerful instrument in society. And we, this new diverse, humanitarian majority, own it.

The second is Know Your Rights by the Clash. “All three of them.” “Number 3 – You have the right to free speech… as long as you’re not dumb enough… to actually try it.”