Portside

Four Jewish pro-Palestinian demonstrators chained themselves to the gate near St. Paul’s Chapel early Wednesday afternoon in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, SIPA ’24, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 8. A new group of protesters tethered themselves to the Earl Hall gates later that afternoon.

A Wednesday post from Columbia’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace cites a March 10 report from the Forward in which Ross Glick, former leader of Betar, a self-described “bold Zionist movement,” said he visited Washington, D.C. to meet with officials about Khalil.

The Forward reported that Glick discussed Khalil with members of Congress and that “some members of Columbia’s board had also reported Khalil to officials.” Khalil is a lawful permanent resident.

“We demand to know the names of the Columbia trustees who facilitated the abduction of our beloved friend by collaborating with the Trump administration,” the post read. “We will not leave until our demand is met.”

The demonstration began around 12:20 p.m., with two banners reading “Free Mahmoud now” and “Free Palestine” hanging along the gates and additional protesters gathered along Law Bridge. The New York Police Department began to block off the sidewalk around the gate on Amsterdam Avenue at around 12:52 p.m.

Photo by Stella Ragas / Photo Editor

At around 1 p.m., NYPD officers carrying electric saws arrived on the scene. As of 1:45 p.m., several officers were present at the demonstration, including officers from the Strategic Response Group. An NYPD spokesperson told Spectator that police were maintaining a presence at the scene, but could not speak to any communication between the University and the NYPD.

Jessica Rentz, a University delegate, informed protesters that they were violating University policy preventing students from obstructing a University facility and took photos of all of the protesters’ Columbia IDs at around 1:20 p.m.

Photo by Stella Ragas / Photo Editor

Public Safety officers cut the locks and forced protesters outside the gate at around 2 p.m. Protesters then sat down outside the gate and locked arms.

Photo by Stella Ragas / Photo Editor

A University spokesperson wrote in a statement to Spectator at 2:19 p.m. that Wednesday’s protest “constitutes violations of the Rules of University Conduct.”

“Individuals complied with the demand for identification but refused to leave the area,” the spokesperson wrote. “The chains were removed by Columbia’s Public Safety and the individuals were escorted off campus. We will follow the process established in the Rules of University Conduct for enforcing violations. Our focus is on preserving our core mission to teach, create, and advance knowledge while ensuring a safe campus for our community.”

In a second statement to Spectator at 5:07 p.m., a University spokesperson wrote, “No member of Columbia leadership has ever requested the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on or near campus to target students.”

Public Safety officers told individuals who were wearing masks and standing between Fayerweather Hall and the chapel that they had the right to request student identification. Officers asked individuals standing on the ledge of Fayerweather to leave.

Photo by Stella Ragas / Photo Editor

“If you are a student, we have the right to ask for your name,” a Public Safety Officer told an individual wearing a mask.

Aharon Dardik, GS ’26, asked, “How are we obstructing an entrance or an exit if this gate has been closed since the start of the semester?”

“Because you are currently chained to it, if we were to open it, you would be obstructing that entrance,” Rentz responded.

Photo by Stella Ragas / Photo editor

“I pass by this gate every day when I go to class and it’s always closed,” Dardik said.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not my problem at the moment,” Rentz said while photographing CUIDs.

“Currently, they are claiming that we are blocking a University facility,” one protester said. “Said University facility is this gate, which has been closed since last April.”

“A Jewish-led group of Columbia University students have chained themselves to the locked campus gates in solidarity with Palestinian students, with one demand: that the University provide the names of the trustees who reported Mahmoud Khalil to ICE,” Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition wrote in a Wednesday news release.

CPSC called the appointment of Claire Shipman, CC ’86, SIPA ’94, as acting University president, “a de-facto coup,” writing that “the legality of this move is questionable because the trustees refuse to be transparent and release their by-laws.”

Photo by Stella Ragas / Photo Editor

“We will be staying here until they meet the bare minimum demands, which is to tell us which trustee is responsible for informing on students and telling ICE confidential information which is leading to their kidnapping,” a protester announced at the protest.

“We refuse to accept the ongoing genocide in Gaza, carried out through the investments of our trustees, as normal,” the CPSC release read. “We refuse to accept the kidnapping of our friends as the new normal.”

Columbia University Alumni for Palestine announced in an Instagram post an emergency rally outside the chapel’s gates at 6:30 p.m.

“No member of Columbia leadership has ever requested the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on or near campus to target students,"a University spokesperson wrote in a follow-up statement to Spectator.

“You can be on either side of the building lines, you cannot be here,” an NYPD officer told the protesters sitting outside the gate at around 3:55 p.m. “I need everyone outside my barriers. No one’s going to be inside the barriers. … Nobody can be inside the barriers.”

At around 4:08 p.m. the protesters who were sitting down outside the gates began to walk south on Amsterdam Avenue.

At around 4:20 p.m., a new group of protesters wearing shirts that read “Jews say ICE off campus” tethered themselves with bike locks to the gates by Earl Hall from inside campus, holding signs that read “Release Mahmoud Khalil now” and a banner reading “Accountability now.”

The protesters who walked from the gates outside St. Paul’s Chapel sat outside the gates and sang the lyrics “your people are my people.”

Protesters standing on campus held a banner which read “Free Mahmoud Khalil, name the trustees.”

“I think we should send a strong message to the board of trustees,” a protester said. “They may have removed four students, and four more students took their place.”

Protesters sat outside of the gates with their arms linked singing, “We shall not be moved.”

“We’d be foolish to not acknowledge that if we were Black and brown we would have been arrested by now,” a protester said.

“The level of information and access to campus by students and faculty who are responsible for doxxing students like Mahmoud Khalil has tremendously grown since fall 2023 and in almost every instance, these individuals boast about their connections to Congress and the trustees,” a protester said. “What is the truth about the trustees’ involvement with these individuals, and have they given them information about students?”

Protesters tethered to the gates showed their IDs to a Public Safety officer after the officer had repeatedly asked.

When another protester asked the Public Safety officer whether they planned to photograph the ID, the officer said “no, not at all.”

The protesters criticized the University’s concessions to the Trump administration, saying “no university in the United States of America will save their own skin by caving to the Trump administration and his cronies.”

“There is no negotiation with fascism,” one protester repeated.

One of the protesters announced that Khalil is aware of the demonstration.

“The news of the students chaining themselves to the Columbia gates has reached him in the detention center in Louisiana where he’s currently being held,” the protester said. “He knows what is happening. He was very emotional when he found out, and he wants the students here to know that he sees them and thank them.”

CPSC and JVP announced at 5:40 p.m. an “Emergency: All Out to Columbia!” protest in a joint Instagram post at 6:30 p.m. on 117th Street and Broadway.

“We want accountability from the trustees who have been making decisions on behalf of this entire University community that go against the wishes of the students, against the wishes of the faculty, and they have continued to do that even when students like Mahmoud are put in danger,” Sarah Borus, a Barnard student, said.

Protesters handed out a paper discussing the trustees’ involvement in student doxxing campaigns and deportation efforts.

The students at the gates near St. Paul’s Chapel said that University officials did not tell them which rules they were breaking.

“We were told that we were blocking an entrance and exit, yet that entrance and exit has been closed to the public and to the University community since the beginning of this semester,” Borus said.

“When we asked for clarification, we were told that we would get it, and then nobody came to give it to us,” Dardik added.

“We have to keep fighting until Mahmoud is free,” Dardik said. “We have to keep fighting until the people who are responsible for making sure that students are safe—the administration and trustees—take responsibility and do it themselves.”

“There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” protesters chanted.

Orentlicher told Spectator that the purpose of the demonstration was to “demand that the University release the information of who gave over Mahmoud Khalil’s name, how that happened, so that we can demand accountability from our University and protect our students from the federal government.”

At roughly 11:15 p.m., Public Safety officers cut off the bike locks that protesters had used to tether themselves to the Earl Hall gate and forcibly dragged them across the ground. The officers then opened the gate, forcing protesters off campus to join the outside crowd. By 12 a.m., the remaining demonstrators had dispersed.