Student editors who publish the Columbia Law Review, a newspaper published by students at Columbia University’s law school, demanded administrators cancel the exams and pass all its students after cops and pro-Palestinian student protesters clashed last week leading to clearing of the encampment in the university.
“The violence we witnessed last night has irrevocably shaken many of us on the Review,” the editors wrote in the letter, published by Above The Law.
“We know this to be the same for a majority of our classmates. Videos have circulated of police clad in riot gear mocking and brutalizing our students. The events of last night left us, and many of our peers, unable to focus and highly emotional during this tumultuous time,” they wrote in the open letter to their college administrators.
“We recognize our position as a student-run academic journal that simply cannot function if our students are not well. Many are unwell at this time, and cannot study or concentrate while their peers are being hauled to jail,” the letter said.
A spokesperson from the law school stated that exams resumed on Thursday following a one-day suspension and will continue until the exam period ends.
The encampment was set up by the students of Columbia University demanding divestment from Israel and seeking a total end to the war in Gaza but according to US media reports some anti-semitic elements had hijacked the protests, bringing the protesters head-to-head against college administrators and the police.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) last week dismantled protesters’ tents which sprung across the campus and evicted them from nearby Hamilton Hall.
University administrators across the US are struggling to contain pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses across the nation. The sweeping protests first began in Columbia University and then spread across other universities, marking the most prolonged unrest to rock US college campuses since the Vietnam war protests of the 1960s and 70s.
Several students and faculty members were detained after police cleared Hamilton Hall. A report by the New York Post said that there were 2,400 arrests at 46 campuses nationwide since April 17.
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