Members of a group called Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine at Columbia University have now gone on strike as a show of support for anti-Israel student protesters. They claim they are objecting to the presence of law enforcement on campus.
If the school had any brains, they would fire every single one of these people.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Columbia Faculty Group Goes on Strike in Solidarity With Anti-Israel Student ProtestersA Columbia faculty group has gone on strike in solidarity with arrested student protesters and will not return to campus until law enforcement is removed.Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine at Columbia announced on Friday that “faculty, staff, and graduate workers of Columbia University, Barnard College, and Teachers College” would be “immediately” going on a strike until police are removed from the recently occupied campus.”We will not return to a campus that is extremely dangerous for Black, Palestinian, Middle Eastern, Latinx, South Asian, Arab, Muslim, trans, queer, and other communities who are disproportionately profiled by police,” said the group. “As members of the faculty, staff, and graduate workers, we will not return to campus nor engage remotely for administrative service work—we will only serve students directly—until police are removed from our campus.”The announcement comes as Columbia president Minouche Shafik struggles to reestablish normalcy on campus. It is unclear how Shafik will respond to the strike and calls to get rid of the police. The school’s plan for law enforcement to remain on campus extends until May 17, two days after its graduation ceremony was supposed to take place, to ensure order and safety. Columbia on Monday canceled the ceremony in light of the protests.
Here’s more from the group’s announcement on Instagram:
CALL FOR STRIKE: DEMILITARIZE EDUCATION!While all hands have been on deck to demand for our disciplined and arrested students full amnesty and their records expunged, the entire world watched as President Shafik turned our campus into a site of police brutality. We, the faculty, staff, and graduate workers of Columbia University, Barnard College, and Teachers College, unequivocally repudiate the use of police against nonviolent student protesters. Given the use of military-grade assault weapons and surveillance technology against our students, an NYPD officer firing a gun inside university buildings in which students were present, and the announcement of the plan for police to remain on campus until May 17th, we believe no one can safely return to campus.
Columbia could easily replace these faculty members with other people and they should.
But probably won’t.
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