Jessica Costescu writes for the Washington Free Beacon about the return of anti-Israel protesters to a prominent Ivy League campus.
“We’re back, bitches.” That is how student protesters at Columbia University announced the return of an anti-Israel encampment on the school’s main lawn, coinciding with the school’s alumni reunions, which took place over the weekend.
A sign declaring, “We’re back bitches,” greeted alumni returning to campus for their class reunions, as students pitched tents and congregated under a large structure the university erected on the school’s south lawn. The students also unveiled a cardboard missile plastered with photos of Columbia president Minouche Shafik and other university leaders, including the co-chairman of the school’s board of trustees, David Greenwald, and Abigail Black Elbaum, the vice chairwoman of the board.
Security officials entered the encampment Friday night and removed what Shafik later referred to in an email as “four unoccupied tents.” Students responded by occupying other tents, which security officials refrained from removing. The students slept in the encampment overnight, and it remains standing as of Sunday afternoon.
In addition to the security officials, university leaders “entered the encampment Friday night to initiate discussions with student leaders,” Shafik said in her Saturday email to Columbia community members, which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
That decision, Shafik said, was “consistent with our mission as an educational institution.”
“We welcome this effort to establish dialogue,” she wrote, adding that as of Saturday afternoon, the encampment “consisted of seven tents, and most protestors had relocated to an adjacent, large-scale tent that had previously been erected by the university.”
The group ranged from 25 to 60 individuals at various times on Saturday, Shafik said. Student protesters dispersed from the encampment Sunday night but left behind a sign reading, “We’ll be back, bitches.”
The ordeal comes just a month after Shafik engaged in protracted negotiations with student protesters who occupied the campus green during the academic year, pushing back four separate deadlines for students to clear out.
