At the encampment, now in its second week, participants voted nearly unanimously to stay put.
Around 2:45 p.m. — after the 2 p.m. warning time to leave — protesters marched on the quad and chanted “Disclose! Divest! We will not slow, we will not rest!’”
A part of the encampment has been cleared to make space for the upcoming commencement ceremony for graduates, and picketers are largely sticking to the perimeters of the encampment.
David Lederer, a 22-year-old sophomore at Columbia, walked up to the picket line and began waving a large Israeli flag in opposition to the protests.
“I’m here to show we’re here to stay; we’re not going anywhere,” Lederer said.
President Minouche Shafik asked the protesters in her statement to voluntarily disperse, saying that the demonstration had created “an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty,” that “external actors” have contributed to a “hostile environment” around university gates and that it had become a “noisy distraction” for students.
Shafik also cited the May 15 commencement, saying, “We also do not want to deprive thousands of students and their families and friends of a graduation celebration.”
More than 15,000 Columbia students are graduating this spring, the university said.
At the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the main stage commencement ceremony was canceled after protests.
Columbia was the first institution struck by protests in support of the Palestinian cause, with students demanding that the school divest from investments that support weapons manufacturing and Israel amid the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, in which more than 34,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip.
Protests spread quickly last week on campuses from coast to coast, resulting in mass arrests and crackdowns.
“While the University will not divest from Israel,” it offered to create an expedited timeline for a review of new proposals from students by the school’s Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing, which explores divestment, Shafik said.
“The University also offered to publish a process for students to access a list of Columbia’s direct investment holdings, and to increase the frequency of updates to that list of holdings,” she added.
Shafik said the university had offered “to make investments in health and education in Gaza, including supporting early childhood development and support for displaced scholars.” She urged those in the encampment to voluntarily disperse.
