Metadata

• When: 2025-01-22

• Where: Columbia University

• Who: Layla Saliba, Elwin Wu

• Organizations: CSSW4Palestine

• Tags:

Description

Yesterday was an incredibly disappointing and frustrating day at Columbia School of Social Work where an unsanctioned sit-in advertised and implemented by CSSW4Palestine, an unofficial group that advocates for terrorism and violence against Jews and Israelis, was permitted to take place the entire day in our student lounge. Moreover, students who were supposed to attend Professor Elwin Wu's residential class a few floors above the sit-in were permitted by him to join by zoom. This clearly violates the CSSW policy that was enumerated in an email sent to the faculty on January 10, 2025:

Please remember to launch the pre-setup Zoom session in your Canvas/Courseworks site each week if you would like to record your class. Please do not share the Zoom link with your students. Students taking onsite courses cannot Zoom into the class unless the school makes a school-wide exception due to inclement weather or other circumstances.

Unfortunately, these situations are not rare occurrences at CSSW (please see attached photos from yesterday and October 9th). There is a deafening silence when it comes to shutting down, condemning, or sharing any steps that are being taken to change the climate of CSSW and the University at large.

President Armstrong was asked whether she is okay with students and professors who are praising a terrorist organization when she addressed the CSSW faculty last fall. She was presented with photos of incidents that had occurred at CSSW. President Armstrong dismissed this, saying that she had probably seen the photos already. That was not the correct response as it reflects apathy towards the experiences of the Jewish and Israeli community at Columbia and a lack of interest in taking action.

Yesterday's sit-in is the result.

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