College Faculty Members Are Teaching a Lesson in Solidarity

Professor Susan Bernofsky had just finished teaching a writing class and was starting her lunch break when she saw the New York Police Department take more than 100 Columbia University students away in zip ties. “To stand there and watch policemen grabbing students and picking them up and dragging them out of campus was traumatic.”

Students had formed a Gaza Solidarity Encampment two days earlier, setting up tents on the school’s East Butler lawn and calling on the school to divest from Israel, when President Minouche Shafik asked the NYPD to arrest them for trespassing on April 18. “UNSUSPEND MY STUDENTS, COLUMBIA,” wrote Bernofsky on X, formerly Twitter, the next morning.

She wasn’t alone—especially among faculty. On Monday, April 22, over 200 Columbia and Barnard University staff members staged a walkout, gathering on the steps of Columbia’s historic Low Library. “We did not consent to police being brought onto campus to arrest students, and the administration did it anyway,” said Bernofsky. “Faculty members at Columbia have a wide range of political opinions about a lot of things, but we’re pretty united that we do not want our students mass arrested.”

More than two weeks later, another encampment on campus—which stood for two weeks—was swept away after more than 300 arrests by the NYPD. So far, more than 100 American colleges and universities have formed similar protests. Every campus is unique, but excessive force has been a common factor. Videos of cops with riot gear, rubber bullets, tear gas, and, in some cases, sniper rifles, have engulfed social media as students call on their academic institutions to cease funding Israel’s continued assault on Gaza.

But professors coast to coast are standing up for students’ right to protest, working to drop charges, evictions, and suspensions, and often echoing their demands directly. “As faculty, our labor helps to fund our university endowments, which profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the genocide which Israel is committing in Gaza,” said Lara Jirmanus, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School.

“Students of this historical moment understand that our liberation struggles are deeply interconnected and that our institutions cannot be relied upon to set us free,” said Jennifer Brody, an assistant professor at HMS. “The students help channel and reflect the bravery of the Palestinian people and serve as a call for us all to be braver.”

At Ohio State University (OSU), both campus police and state troopers arrested dozens of students in late April. “The university is betraying its students,” said Dr. Pranav Jani, an associate professor of English and a faculty adviser for Students for Justice in Palestine. “Administration used the rhetoric of safety to attack, arrest, and jail nonviolent protesters. They had snipers on the rooftops, in the name of safety!” said Jani. “Not a single administrator came to the students to de-escalate: they just sent their police.”

Ashley Pérez, an assistant professor of Comparative Studies at OSU, said that student protesters followed every instruction of police in the yard so that their action could continue, repeatedly requesting guidance on how they could carry out their intended free speech. “I asked if students could be in small study groups with a faculty member in each group. All of these efforts to access any avenue for expression were dismissed, and the police threatened them—and all present—with arrest if they did not disperse,” said Perez. “Even after protesters had dispersed, police arrested a person standing alone, far from the site of the original gathering, alleging that he did not follow the order to leave.”

“There have been very ridiculous efforts to manufacture false claims of violence and harassment,” said Tavia Nyong’o, an American Studies professor at Yale University and member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine. “The only violence that we witnessed was the police arresting our students.”

“Neither the President of Yale nor the dean of Yale College met with the students, or even communicated directly with them,” said Kishwar Rizvi, a professor of the history of art and architecture at Yale. “Instead, the leadership sent public safety administrators, and—eventually—the police, to curb their peaceful dissent and right to freedom of speech.”