On April 18th, Columbia University invited riot police to its campus to clear an encampment of students protesting in solidarity with Gaza, a move that resulted in the arrest and suspension of more than 100 students. The show of force catalyzed a wave of protests at other campuses across the country. Since then, some administrators have entered negotiations with students over their demands for divestment from Israel, while others have chosen to send in police to dismantle the encampments.
Join Columbia law professor Katherine Franke and Forward antisemitism reporter Arno Rosenfeld for a discussion with Jewish Currents associate editor Mari Cohen on these campus crackdowns on student protest. They will discuss why universities are deciding to send in police, administrators’ claims that clearing encampments is meant to protect Jewish students, and what leads different schools to take different approaches. We’ll also consider how civil rights complaints and federal and state efforts to legislate the definition of antisemitism could impact campus protests.
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Katherine Franke is the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University, and Director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law. Professor Franke is the founder and faculty director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project, a think tank based at Columbia Law School, and the author of Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality (NYU Press, 2015) and Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Slavery’s Abolition (Haymarket Press, 2019).
Arno Rosenfeld is enterprise reporter at the Forward, where he covers antisemitism, philanthropy and Jewish politics.
Mari Cohen is associate editor at Jewish Currents.
