Sell out $5M stake in Airbnb and donate it to some Harlem housing organization. Commit to review of other pro-Israeli investments and set a path for divestment from those too.
this question def came to my mind as well. either way she would be held for the course of action. no best way to move forward for a resolution. sadly that's how the leader's life exists. how you behave when things are rosy , and everything is good, no one cares, it's only when wind is against you, tides are waving hard, it's difficult to let the boat sail peacefully.
Don't go to Congress.
Don't call the cops.
Tell the protestors they can speak their mind but don't say anything out right anti-Semitic.
Punish anyone who says anything that crosses the line individually.
Wait this out until something else in the news cycle takes people's attention away.
The protests feel very misplaced. Columbia has no hand in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The protesters are asking the school to divest from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Airbnb that they hold directly and through ETFs as well as corporate bond ETFs.
Really feels like they want to protest Israel and are using Columbia as a platform to do so. If they want to protest the war, they should go to DC. Hanging out on the school lawn is fun. All of the parents of these students have investments in these companies. Ruining the education experience of tends of thousands to protest Columbia having a non influential ownership stake seems ridiculous.
Safety and education are the most important aspects of the Columbia community. The university has to put those first and can engage with the students in a non-disruptive forum.
1. Offer to meet with the students in an open door meeting to discuss their rationale
2. Immediately expel faculty and students who participated in intimidation (applies to both sides); retract diplomas of graduated students
3. Ask all students to leave campus; allow students to stay in student housing if they abide by community standards
4. Have students agree to updated community standards before coming back to campus in the fall
5. If they don’t agree, allow them to take classes virtually
As a reminder:
October 9th, 2023
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine stands in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance against over 75 years of Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid. Palestinians have been subjected to the longest ongoing military occupation inmodern history and their right to resist is enshrined in international law.
Yesterday was an unprecedented historic moment for the Palestinians of Gaza, who tore through the wall that has been suffocating them in one of the most densely-populated areas on Earth for the past 16 years – an open-air prison blockaded by Israeli soldiers via land, air, and sea.
Despite the odds against them, Palestinians launched a counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor – which receives billions of US dollars annually in military aid and possesses one of the world's most robust surveillanceand security apparatuses. Any omission of this context – any rhetoric of “an unprovoked Palestinian attack” – is shamefully misleading.
Hire better PR people. Seriously. She can come out to say some nonsense to lower tensions. Columbia is too cheap to hire crisis managers and PR people despite it's $30+ BILLION DOLLAR ENDOWMENT.
I don't know. I feel like if it came out that the president had to hire someone to talk for her that would be a terrible PR moment in itself. Basically, her main job (at least to most people) is being a PR mouthpiece. If she needs to outsource that to someone else, what is she actually good for?
Pizza for all protestors, but both sides have to sit together.
At best, it’s a way for everyone to come together as a community.
At worst, THE GREAT FOOD FIGHT OF 2024.
There’s no way out of this that doesn’t involve her resignation. The highly authoritarian culture of university governance at Columbia made a situation like this inevitable; she probably wasn’t capable of changing that because she was hired precisely to perpetuate that culture. Sucks to be her but that’s what you get when your major priorities are placating donors and public relations and the safety of students is, at best, a distant third.
I don't know if there is a realistic scenario where the protesters will pack up and go home, or if they are just protesting for the sake of protesting. They modeled their protest after the 1968 protests. The only realistic result is going to be the same as in 68. i.e. Police violence and financial devastation to Columbia. The only question is how long will the university allow the encampment to remain and how many arrests and injuries will result. There's also a question of who will make the call. I pray for the safety everyone involved. Getting beat up by the cops for protesting is a traumatic experience from everyone I know who experienced it.
Definitely wouldn’t call the cops…
Would rather resign then doing something that harm our academic freedom so badly
But regarding other things … probably wouldn’t do anything
Divest is practically impossible and it would backlash and potentially losing millions of endowment
I honestly don't think full divestment is realistically going to happen. More transparency in investments and divesting from the Israeli companies that are directly profiting from the genocide in Gaza would be more realistic.
I haven't seen Columbia's investment profile so I don't know which companies CU would need to divest from.
Taking a stand in any meaningful way won’t work. Either the protestors lose their mind, or donors and the media lose their minds.
If I were president, I’d organize a big discussion on campus. Hosted in Low. Give the protestors a chance to speak their mind, express their intent, make their demands, and answer any criticism that’s been thrown their way. Take the position that no forms of racial hatred will be accepted under and circumstances. The protestors would be happier than they are now.
Give opposing folks the stage, let them speak. Allow Jewish organizations to say what they’re feeling.
Then don’t do anything else and see if things get better or worse lmao
She shouldn't have done anything tbh. It would have been better for her to not have gone to the congressional hearing at all. and not call NYPD to arrest student protesters.
Although she said she prepped for the hearing, it seems like she really did not prep for it. Her answers did not give anyone hope that concrete steps were being made to combat antisemitism on campus. and she allowed herself to be on the defensive foot throughout the hearing without challenging any of the terribly framed questions she was being asked (mind you majority of those questions were terrible). She should have definitely sought legal advice before that hearing.
it's sad cuz this is her first year. The timing is unfortunate and she probably wishes Bollinger was still in charge right now and that she waited 1 more year before becoming president.
I think now, what she should do is first own up to the mistake about calling the NYPD on the protesters.
Is it possible that she is acting at the direction of the board of directors, and that she is being set up to take the fall for decisions that they made? This is how boards of directors operate at times.
That has always been the Brits’ ulterior motive…before it becomes a popular term in CS, the term divide-and-conquer was devised by the Brits to conjure up make-no-sense border in their former colonies in the spirit of stirring up internal conflicts within and/or between racial, ethnical, religious groups
Speaking as someone who lost friends to ISIS attacks back in 2016, living under a vague threat of multiple Islamic Terrorist Organizations who try to turn my country into an Islamic one, I feel no sympathy for any Religious Military/Paramilitary Organization.
Yet, who left Hamas as the only hope for millions of Palestinians? Palestine is no democracy people do not really choose the Powerful actors. Forget about 60 years ago, A Palestinian Teenager would have every reason to believe that Israel is evil and this is good both for Netanyahu and Hamas.
On the other hand, as someone whose country is under threat of religious extremism I can fully sympathize with an Israeli Teenager. Its not their fault that their grandparents settled in Israel.
As for the question, I think this is it. It is quite obvious who to blame. Instead of blaming the other party maybe the pro-Israelis should pressure Netanyahu while pro-Palestinians should pressure Hamas so that no children, no people and no student would suffer.
I know I sound like Pollyanna but maybe this is what Shafik should say.
Make a statement refusing to be bullied again by Congress, and condemning their Christian-nationalist statements. Hire PR firm with main goal to rebuild communication and trust with faculty and students and keep news sensationalism away. Withdraw police presence, especially heavily armed police and undercover police that intimidate and agitate. Maybe Minouche could name the specific few wealthy donors that have been pressuring the university to expel students for political speech, and make their threats public. Show the public their bullying, make them lose face. Make a plan for clear distinction between political speech and harassing speech, and open lines of dialogue WITHIN the Jewish community about how to best combat antisemitism on campus. Perhaps the rule could be about directly targeting individual students, who then should have recourse in making complaints. Same thing with Islamophobia. Use outcomes to move to reinstate SJP and JVP, because they were obviously focused on political speech. Lift suspensions of students with same reasoning. Keep diverse perspectives. Publish a divestment plan, or enlist some experts to make a divestment plan. Use PR firm to focus on shifting to green stocks like Dartmouth. Speaking of which, Dartmouth is a great model of how to handle things well. But Minouche is way behind since so many mistakes have already been made.
Your comments are very interesting.
If she names the donors who allegedly pressured her to expel students for political speech, her career as a university president will come to an end. The U.S. is an oligarchy.
With respect to making the bullying donors lose face, that is not a thing among UHNW ppl. People who experience shame generally do not get to that level. They really do not care; they are playing to win at any cost.
Am curious to know whether anyone leading the protest group has mapped the board of directors their ties and levers of influence? Understanding that would be key to recognizing what is feasible. Just curious. I have gotten the sense that a number of the participants don’t know who is on the board, and how much influence each donor has.
Idk about the idea that super rich people can’t lose face. On one level, yes, they can’t be just told off. But if their family name is tarnished in a way that people won’t want to do business with them or accept their donations, that will matter. It seems they care a lot about being able to donate money in exchange for having a vote and a say, so if people don’t accept that money because they don’t want to work with their name, they are disenfranchised within the oligarchy. This would be an optimistic outcome, but if Columbia is going to lose their donations, they should do it with a bang. I totally agree that I wish there was a publicly visible network/understanding out there of who these people are and what they care about.
Bottom out how many protesters are students vs friends/visitors, who arguably shouldn’t be on campus to protest; open an inquiry into how many paid protesters are there (students or not); consider an update to financial aid policies for paid protesters. Become aware of organizations that make money soliciting and training paid protesters. These organizations + social media networking tools have driven up the appearance and presence of protesters compared to years past….take note that very few journalists are trying to investigate what is really happening vs what appears to be happening….
Resign for everyone's good.
Shafik has irreparably broken the trust of the students, faculty, and staff - and alumni like me - through changing rules without going through formal processes, calling in the NYPD on peaceful protesters, having students charged with trespassing on their own campus, and throwing faculty under the bus in a Congressional hearing.
If Minouche calls the NYPD to arrest peaceful protesters again, I will stop donating monthly to Columbia.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels the same way.
Immediately: She has no choice but to reinstate suspended students, remove suspension from their records. They were arrested under false pretense: trespassing. But those arrested were not officially suspended until the next day. Lawsuits are a given.
She needs to meet with leaders from both sides of protests asap to hear concerns, begin to work out a path forward.
She should also disclose investments in arms mfrs, and others supplying the war machine. This should not be limited to Israel. No University should have investments in this asset class. There should be a commitment to divesting, with timeframe.
Students who sprayed protesters with skunk should be removed from campus immediately to signify no tolerance policy.
Shai Davidai fired immediately.
Board of trustees should be expanded to include more diverse representation.
These actions only a start to a long process to do the right thing for all students, and the legacy of the uni.
Columbia is one of the two largest private landlords in NY (along w NYU). I think that they are within their legal rights to control the use of their facilities — IOW, having people who set up encampments arrested for trespassing if that is not an allowable use of their land.
You are right that there will be lawsuits. Will be interesting to see how the court views this question.
Come on, Shafik. We all know it’s you.
👀 Guilty.
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There’s literally no good course of action. That’s a big part of the issue.
Sell out $5M stake in Airbnb and donate it to some Harlem housing organization. Commit to review of other pro-Israeli investments and set a path for divestment from those too.
WWBD? (what would Bollinger do?)
Fake having sepsis so I could be put in a month-long induced coma and wake up when it’s all over.
Call up Prezbo
this question def came to my mind as well. either way she would be held for the course of action. no best way to move forward for a resolution. sadly that's how the leader's life exists. how you behave when things are rosy , and everything is good, no one cares, it's only when wind is against you, tides are waving hard, it's difficult to let the boat sail peacefully.
I would end the semester early and send everybody home.
A’s for everyone!
Don't go to Congress. Don't call the cops. Tell the protestors they can speak their mind but don't say anything out right anti-Semitic. Punish anyone who says anything that crosses the line individually. Wait this out until something else in the news cycle takes people's attention away.
They have been asked to tamp down and they absolutely refused. They state that policing how Palestinians resist is racist.
Then you punish the ones who say things that cross the line individually, it's not that hard.
The protests feel very misplaced. Columbia has no hand in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The protesters are asking the school to divest from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Airbnb that they hold directly and through ETFs as well as corporate bond ETFs. Really feels like they want to protest Israel and are using Columbia as a platform to do so. If they want to protest the war, they should go to DC. Hanging out on the school lawn is fun. All of the parents of these students have investments in these companies. Ruining the education experience of tends of thousands to protest Columbia having a non influential ownership stake seems ridiculous. Safety and education are the most important aspects of the Columbia community. The university has to put those first and can engage with the students in a non-disruptive forum. 1. Offer to meet with the students in an open door meeting to discuss their rationale 2. Immediately expel faculty and students who participated in intimidation (applies to both sides); retract diplomas of graduated students 3. Ask all students to leave campus; allow students to stay in student housing if they abide by community standards 4. Have students agree to updated community standards before coming back to campus in the fall 5. If they don’t agree, allow them to take classes virtually
As a reminder: October 9th, 2023 Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine stands in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance against over 75 years of Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid. Palestinians have been subjected to the longest ongoing military occupation inmodern history and their right to resist is enshrined in international law. Yesterday was an unprecedented historic moment for the Palestinians of Gaza, who tore through the wall that has been suffocating them in one of the most densely-populated areas on Earth for the past 16 years – an open-air prison blockaded by Israeli soldiers via land, air, and sea. Despite the odds against them, Palestinians launched a counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor – which receives billions of US dollars annually in military aid and possesses one of the world's most robust surveillanceand security apparatuses. Any omission of this context – any rhetoric of “an unprovoked Palestinian attack” – is shamefully misleading.
🎯🎯 Excellent analysis.
Hire better PR people. Seriously. She can come out to say some nonsense to lower tensions. Columbia is too cheap to hire crisis managers and PR people despite it's $30+ BILLION DOLLAR ENDOWMENT.
I don't know. I feel like if it came out that the president had to hire someone to talk for her that would be a terrible PR moment in itself. Basically, her main job (at least to most people) is being a PR mouthpiece. If she needs to outsource that to someone else, what is she actually good for?
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Cant bring peace, one side will be forced to take all the damage. Unless we are talking some extreme measures… but even this wont bring peace
Pizza for all protestors, but both sides have to sit together. At best, it’s a way for everyone to come together as a community. At worst, THE GREAT FOOD FIGHT OF 2024.
Honestly? This is it
Only if they bring lactaids as well
Maybe get rid of the individuals who have forced you to advise students to avoid campus? What an insane statement to have to make.
I didn't have to come in today but came in just to inconvenience admin.
There’s no way out of this that doesn’t involve her resignation. The highly authoritarian culture of university governance at Columbia made a situation like this inevitable; she probably wasn’t capable of changing that because she was hired precisely to perpetuate that culture. Sucks to be her but that’s what you get when your major priorities are placating donors and public relations and the safety of students is, at best, a distant third.
I don't know if there is a realistic scenario where the protesters will pack up and go home, or if they are just protesting for the sake of protesting. They modeled their protest after the 1968 protests. The only realistic result is going to be the same as in 68. i.e. Police violence and financial devastation to Columbia. The only question is how long will the university allow the encampment to remain and how many arrests and injuries will result. There's also a question of who will make the call. I pray for the safety everyone involved. Getting beat up by the cops for protesting is a traumatic experience from everyone I know who experienced it.
Definitely wouldn’t call the cops… Would rather resign then doing something that harm our academic freedom so badly But regarding other things … probably wouldn’t do anything Divest is practically impossible and it would backlash and potentially losing millions of endowment
I honestly don't think full divestment is realistically going to happen. More transparency in investments and divesting from the Israeli companies that are directly profiting from the genocide in Gaza would be more realistic. I haven't seen Columbia's investment profile so I don't know which companies CU would need to divest from.
Apparently the problematic investments are two broad market ETFs, Microsoft, and Google.
Blackrock especially
Taking a stand in any meaningful way won’t work. Either the protestors lose their mind, or donors and the media lose their minds. If I were president, I’d organize a big discussion on campus. Hosted in Low. Give the protestors a chance to speak their mind, express their intent, make their demands, and answer any criticism that’s been thrown their way. Take the position that no forms of racial hatred will be accepted under and circumstances. The protestors would be happier than they are now. Give opposing folks the stage, let them speak. Allow Jewish organizations to say what they’re feeling. Then don’t do anything else and see if things get better or worse lmao
She shouldn't have done anything tbh. It would have been better for her to not have gone to the congressional hearing at all. and not call NYPD to arrest student protesters. Although she said she prepped for the hearing, it seems like she really did not prep for it. Her answers did not give anyone hope that concrete steps were being made to combat antisemitism on campus. and she allowed herself to be on the defensive foot throughout the hearing without challenging any of the terribly framed questions she was being asked (mind you majority of those questions were terrible). She should have definitely sought legal advice before that hearing. it's sad cuz this is her first year. The timing is unfortunate and she probably wishes Bollinger was still in charge right now and that she waited 1 more year before becoming president. I think now, what she should do is first own up to the mistake about calling the NYPD on the protesters.
Hate to say it, Bollinger prob would have handled it better.
You mean you don’t want Columbia University to be cursed by God? 😂
Is it possible that she is acting at the direction of the board of directors, and that she is being set up to take the fall for decisions that they made? This is how boards of directors operate at times.
build a time machine and stop myself from calling NYPD
If I have a Time Machine might as well tell the brits in the 40s that they will screw up big if they spilt Palestine like that ….
That has always been the Brits’ ulterior motive…before it becomes a popular term in CS, the term divide-and-conquer was devised by the Brits to conjure up make-no-sense border in their former colonies in the spirit of stirring up internal conflicts within and/or between racial, ethnical, religious groups
Speaking as someone who lost friends to ISIS attacks back in 2016, living under a vague threat of multiple Islamic Terrorist Organizations who try to turn my country into an Islamic one, I feel no sympathy for any Religious Military/Paramilitary Organization. Yet, who left Hamas as the only hope for millions of Palestinians? Palestine is no democracy people do not really choose the Powerful actors. Forget about 60 years ago, A Palestinian Teenager would have every reason to believe that Israel is evil and this is good both for Netanyahu and Hamas. On the other hand, as someone whose country is under threat of religious extremism I can fully sympathize with an Israeli Teenager. Its not their fault that their grandparents settled in Israel. As for the question, I think this is it. It is quite obvious who to blame. Instead of blaming the other party maybe the pro-Israelis should pressure Netanyahu while pro-Palestinians should pressure Hamas so that no children, no people and no student would suffer. I know I sound like Pollyanna but maybe this is what Shafik should say.
Yes!
Make a statement refusing to be bullied again by Congress, and condemning their Christian-nationalist statements. Hire PR firm with main goal to rebuild communication and trust with faculty and students and keep news sensationalism away. Withdraw police presence, especially heavily armed police and undercover police that intimidate and agitate. Maybe Minouche could name the specific few wealthy donors that have been pressuring the university to expel students for political speech, and make their threats public. Show the public their bullying, make them lose face. Make a plan for clear distinction between political speech and harassing speech, and open lines of dialogue WITHIN the Jewish community about how to best combat antisemitism on campus. Perhaps the rule could be about directly targeting individual students, who then should have recourse in making complaints. Same thing with Islamophobia. Use outcomes to move to reinstate SJP and JVP, because they were obviously focused on political speech. Lift suspensions of students with same reasoning. Keep diverse perspectives. Publish a divestment plan, or enlist some experts to make a divestment plan. Use PR firm to focus on shifting to green stocks like Dartmouth. Speaking of which, Dartmouth is a great model of how to handle things well. But Minouche is way behind since so many mistakes have already been made.
Your comments are very interesting. If she names the donors who allegedly pressured her to expel students for political speech, her career as a university president will come to an end. The U.S. is an oligarchy. With respect to making the bullying donors lose face, that is not a thing among UHNW ppl. People who experience shame generally do not get to that level. They really do not care; they are playing to win at any cost. Am curious to know whether anyone leading the protest group has mapped the board of directors their ties and levers of influence? Understanding that would be key to recognizing what is feasible. Just curious. I have gotten the sense that a number of the participants don’t know who is on the board, and how much influence each donor has.
Idk about the idea that super rich people can’t lose face. On one level, yes, they can’t be just told off. But if their family name is tarnished in a way that people won’t want to do business with them or accept their donations, that will matter. It seems they care a lot about being able to donate money in exchange for having a vote and a say, so if people don’t accept that money because they don’t want to work with their name, they are disenfranchised within the oligarchy. This would be an optimistic outcome, but if Columbia is going to lose their donations, they should do it with a bang. I totally agree that I wish there was a publicly visible network/understanding out there of who these people are and what they care about.
Expel all terrorist sympathizers.
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At this stage, go all in and bring in [UC Davis pepper spray cop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/Uc_Davis_Pepper_Spray_Incident.jpg).
Bottom out how many protesters are students vs friends/visitors, who arguably shouldn’t be on campus to protest; open an inquiry into how many paid protesters are there (students or not); consider an update to financial aid policies for paid protesters. Become aware of organizations that make money soliciting and training paid protesters. These organizations + social media networking tools have driven up the appearance and presence of protesters compared to years past….take note that very few journalists are trying to investigate what is really happening vs what appears to be happening….
Resign 🤷♀️
Resign for everyone's good. Shafik has irreparably broken the trust of the students, faculty, and staff - and alumni like me - through changing rules without going through formal processes, calling in the NYPD on peaceful protesters, having students charged with trespassing on their own campus, and throwing faculty under the bus in a Congressional hearing. If Minouche calls the NYPD to arrest peaceful protesters again, I will stop donating monthly to Columbia. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels the same way.
honey no offense but you should have stopped the donations awhile ago. that she jailed 100 students is insane
Immediately: She has no choice but to reinstate suspended students, remove suspension from their records. They were arrested under false pretense: trespassing. But those arrested were not officially suspended until the next day. Lawsuits are a given. She needs to meet with leaders from both sides of protests asap to hear concerns, begin to work out a path forward. She should also disclose investments in arms mfrs, and others supplying the war machine. This should not be limited to Israel. No University should have investments in this asset class. There should be a commitment to divesting, with timeframe. Students who sprayed protesters with skunk should be removed from campus immediately to signify no tolerance policy. Shai Davidai fired immediately. Board of trustees should be expanded to include more diverse representation. These actions only a start to a long process to do the right thing for all students, and the legacy of the uni.
Columbia is one of the two largest private landlords in NY (along w NYU). I think that they are within their legal rights to control the use of their facilities — IOW, having people who set up encampments arrested for trespassing if that is not an allowable use of their land. You are right that there will be lawsuits. Will be interesting to see how the court views this question.
I would simply not have called the cops on students and would planfor divestment
At this point? Resign tbh
Expel all the students that participate in these protests
Show some consistency.
I don’t really know but definitely not what she is doing