NEW YORK—Today, dozens of students participating in pro-Palestinian protests were arrested after Columbia University president Minouche Shafik called in the New York Police Department to clear an encampment on the South Lawn of Morningside campus that had been set up by students yesterday. 

The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“We were surprised and dismayed by the University’s decision to engage the NYPD to dismantle a student encampment and arrest dozens of students who were involved in a protest that by all available accounts was peaceful. The University has a legitimate interest in enforcing reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner of protests. Its own rules also make clear, however, that external authorities should be engaged to end a protest only as a last resort—only when there is a clear and present danger to persons, property, or the substantial functioning of any division of the University. It’s not evident to us how the encampment and protests posed such a danger, even if they were unauthorized. And involving dozens of police officers in riot gear creates its own risks—to safety but also more broadly to the character of this community. We don’t have all of the information that the University has; perhaps we would view this situation differently if the University explained its decisions more fully. But we are extremely skeptical that engaging the NYPD in this way, at this scale, will turn out to have served this community well.”

For more information, contact Adriana Lamirande, [email protected].