The Stakes of Solidarity: What Low-Income Students Risked the Day of Columbia’s Mass Arrests - Columbia Daily Spectator (2024)

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\n As the encampment persisted on the west side of South Lawn, I spoke at length with four students from the inner circle. All four said they are low-income, and three were also first-generation college students. For them, the prospect of suspension and arrest threw their financial aid, work-study income, access to food and housing, privacy, family’s immigration status, and job prospects into uncertainty.\n

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\n At the time of our interviews, these students were currently suspended without access to campus, dining halls, and their work-study jobs. Barnard students were also evicted from their dorms. As of April 26, Barnard reached an agreement to lift interim suspension for “nearly all” 55 suspended Barnard students, with routes to amnesty, according to a Barnard spokesperson. A Columbia spokesperson did not respond to The Eye’s request for comment.\n

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\n When I spoke with Maria, a Barnard student who, citing safety concerns, spoke to The Eye on the condition of anonymity, they were staying in their friend’s living room a few blocks from campus after Barnard evicted them. In the corner, a couch was draped with a gray blanket: their bed for the time being. They spoke of the fear of the police, shaped by a legacy of brutality, which “lives in the bodies of people of color through generational trauma.”\n

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\n Those I spoke with educated themselves extensively about the risks before participating in the encampment. During months of preparation, organizers consulted written guides on how to respond to repression, a third-party retired lawyer, and one another, weighing administrative and legal responses to the encampment against their ultimate goals. Maria had long been waiting for more action after witnessing “the pain and grief and traumas that are happening in Palestine,” they said.\n

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\n [Listen: 33 Hours in the ‘Liberated Zone’]\n

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\n Maria explained there was a “Black hats” group chat dedicated to discussing everything that could’ve gone wrong during the encampment and ways to mitigate the risk. National Lawyers Guild Legal Observers—founded as a response to the 1968 mass arrest of Columbia protesters—were identifiable by their lime green hats and took notes while spectating the encampment. The NYPD arrested two legal observers on the lawn outside the circles of protesters on April 18.\n

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\n Low-income student protesters went through another layer of preparation: considering what a record of arrest, suspension, or even expulsion would mean for their—and their families’—financial security and future. “It’s this weird relationship where I’m extremely critical of Columbia, but I’m heavily dependent on it, and I need Columbia for my home,” Khanh said.\n

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\n Luz, a Columbia student who, citing safety concerns, spoke on the condition of anonymity, has a summer tech internship lined up and checked the fine print before the encampment, wondering if getting arrested placed their job in jeopardy—even though they found it hard to believe that Shafik would authorize the NYPD’s sweep.\n

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\n Korrin, who, citing safety concerns, spoke to The Eye on the condition of anonymity, had come to terms with losing financial aid, their job, and even their home.\n

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\n “Because the school has the power to take all of that away from me,” Korrin said. “They can ruin my life if they really want to. But I know that. I would rather not go to school that supports a genocide.”\n

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\n Khanh, Korrin, and Luz did not tell their families about their plans to participate in the encampment.\n

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\n Khanh found it hard to articulate to their Vietnamese mother, whom Khanh said had a “limited understanding” of a situation happening “overseas,” what precisely was at risk for Khanh protesting. Khanh still remained involved in the protest up to and beyond the point of suspension and arrest. They cared less about their own risk and more about their family, including their single mother, who has a disability and relies on Khanh’s work-study job for financial support, Khanh said.\n

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\n “I’m sure for [my mother], hearing about a suspension or an arrest or anything that jeopardizes my career at Columbia is one that’s also terrifying,” Khanh said, noting that losing the opportunities provided by Columbia places their family’s “social mobility at risk.”\n

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\n Before Luz had a chance to tell their mom, they said she had watched a Telemundo broadcast that claimed two of the arrested students were Latino, and suspected one of them was her child.\n

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\n Korrin offered a half-truth. “All I told my mom, ‘I was camping,’” they said. “And she said, ‘Have fun.’”\n

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\n Korrin and Luz were also both concerned about what an arrest would mean for members of their family for whom they plan to petition for citizenship: Korrin’s father is from Mexico, and Luz’s parents are from Peru. Legal advice did not offer a foretold conclusion as most petitions are on a “case-by-case basis,” according to Korrin.\n

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\n But, for Korrin and Luz, the available legal resources staved off most of their concerns, though they didn’t yet know that they would be charged with a violation, a non-criminal offense—not a misdemeanor, which is a criminal offense. Still, Korrin was worried about the political implications of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” since applying for citizenship also places one’s politics under scrutiny by the government.\n

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\n Korrin said CUAD organizers reached out to immigration lawyers but did not give them a clear answer before April 18. As Luz put it, “I accepted the risks even though the future is so scary.”\n

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\n The students told me that their relationship to Palestinian liberation movements is, in part, informed by their personal histories. Khanh considered the way the Palestinian Liberation Organization spoke up during the Vietnam War and their own commitment a kind of “historical solidarity.” Korrin noted parallels between right-wing bad-faith rhetoric about Hamas “infiltrating the schools” and Mexican cartels. Luz’s parents are Andean Peruvians, who have faced repression from the Peruvian government and had to leave when an extreme right-wing faction rose to power in the ’90s.\n

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\n “So moving here, my parents, the whole idea of like, citizenship is also very like, connected with the Palestinian struggle as well, because my parents can’t go back,” Luz said.\n

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\n Khanh also spoke of the broad appeal to humanity that is highlighted by CUAD’s movement and divestment demands.\n

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\n “You shouldn’t need to have a historical alliance with any nation or any community in order to feel compelled to work making your own contributions towards ending a genocide,” they said.\n

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\n By and large, it was a risk the arrested students initially kept to themselves, foreseeing the advice their concerned families might offer. Speaking with other low-income students allowed them to form a community through which they could navigate conflicting sentiments and better understand why so many were willing to take such a risk.\n

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\n “Because we have so little, it’s almost like we have nothing to lose,” Khanh said to a student in a similar position. At the same time, they were conscious of contrasting their situation against that of Gaza. Relative to Palestinians, Khanh said they have “quite a lot of mobility.”\n

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\n “I want to use as much of it as I can,” they added.\n

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\n ***\n

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\n Immediately after the April 18 arrest, a split screen formed. Those that comprised the visible branch of the movement—the original protesters willing to risk arrest—left in correctional buses. Meanwhile, an encampment was developing on the west side of South Lawn, the full scope of which was unbeknownst to the arrested protesters until the NYPD released them in the late hours of April 18.\n

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\n “I wanted to cry,” Luz said on finding out about the west encampment. “I was like, ‘No way.’ It’s such a beautiful thing.”\n

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\n It was also a moment for the arrested protesters, sequestered from campus events, to reflect on the result of months of effort before dealing with the consequences of arrest and suspension in the coming days.\n

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\n Since then, students in that inner circle have described how Columbia’s institutional network was replaced in their lives by an ad hoc support system of mutual aid, friends, and each other—even as long-term ramifications loom. The communal experience of getting arrested inspired the arrested students’ group chat profile picture: a dark magenta plastic package of Raisin Bran—the only food some were offered, according to Korrin.\n

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\n In the aftermath, Khanh has been experiencing a variety of emotions while also dealing with a right thumb sprained by the zip tie used in their arrest, diagnosed by CityMD. On the one hand, Khanh said they were moved and empowered by the way their community had supported them and their collective cause. On the other hand, they feel guilt and a sense of displacement. In New York, they attend Columbia; back home in Washington state, they sleep on a futon in a one-bedroom apartment with their brother and mother.\n

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\n When we spoke, Columbia had denied them access to campus. As of April 29, Columbia sent suspended students a document offering a “one time opportunity to resolve your current suspension,” should they agree to an alternative resolution process involving “disciplinary probation,” an agreement to “comply with policies,” and “disciplinary processes.”\n

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\n “I feel like I’m just floating around,” Khanh said. “[My home] doesn’t feel like my own because I don’t really have my own space. … When I was arrested, I was charged with trespassing at Columbia University, my own institution. So it’s just like, where is my home?” Seven days after their arrest, they still hadn’t told their mother.\n

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\n Maria told me they find it hard to ask for personal help, redirecting supporters of the protest to center the situation in Gaza and consider donating money to “directly support Palestinians.” However, Maria said the interim lack of regular dining hall access has been a financial struggle. They have experienced multiple mental breakdowns and anxiety attacks since their arrest. “A lot of us, our meds were taken, confiscated, and we didn’t get to have that which is like, so f*cked up,” they said.\n

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\n Since the arrests, crowdfunding organizations have raised thousands of dollars to help arrested students as well as to direct donations toward Palestinian funds. The 116th Initiative, a Barnard and Columbia mutual aid collective, sent a statement to The Eye explaining that helping “suspended and evicted peers find housing, afford food, and pay off medical bills is nothing new to our mission.”\n

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\n CUAD has established a relief payment system for disciplined students, through which students can request up to $1,000 at once, as of April 29. The Harlem Neighborhood Defender Service has also been working to provide legal support, according to an April 23 email they sent to an arrested student.\n

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\n As the movement has developed into something far greater than those arrested told me they had anticipated, these students, many of whom were barred from witnessing the movement they had participated in igniting, reflected on their experience outside of campus walls. Some are afraid to venture near campus for fear of escalated punishment.\n

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\n “I’m scared that they’re going to look through the CCTV and use that to make me homeless,” Korrin said. A Columbia spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from The Eye about camera surveillance in or around the encampment.\n

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\n There have now been more than 800 arrests at pro-Palestinian campus protests across the country. As mainstream media has continually noted, the last time Columbia saw such a degree of mass student protest was in 1968. Protesting against the Vietnam War, students were successful in calling for Columbia to divest from weapons manufacturers as well as halt plans for a Morningside Park gym, alleging limited community access and effective segregation.\n

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\n The portrait of a 1968 protester has also been warped in media coverage. Then, women—now visible among CUAD organizers—participated but were not featured in leadership or coverage. Another striking difference is that there were two related but distinct fronts in the occupation of Hamilton Hall in 1968—the Students for a Democratic Society, mostly made up of white male students, and Black students, many of whom were affiliated with the Society of Afro-American Students.\n

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\n “As soon as the white students left Hamilton Hall, we started drilling for possible arrests,” William Sales, then a graduate student protester and organizer, wrote in “Self Determination and Self-Respect: Hamilton Hall, Fifty Years Later.”\n

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\n Organizers of today’s pro-Palestinian movement are part of a multiracial, multigendered coalition, coming from vastly different socioeconomic levels that have so far faced the public as a united front.\n

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\n Korrin acknowledged the fine line that low-income or otherwise marginalized students like them walk between where they’re from and where they are now.\n

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\n “We’re privileged to go to an Ivy League institution. How can people mobilize for this versus how people are apathetic when other people are also … in direct need, are asking for aid like this, but I understand that I just … wanted to clear up that like, the people who are protesting are low-income,” Korrin said. “We can recognize that we have a place of privilege, also recognizing that the people who are protesting … don’t necessarily come from a huge amount of privilege.”\n

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\n Some low-income students also found it frustrating that the portrayal of the entire group as wealthy comes off as a critique of the encampment’s intentions: “It doesn’t even matter if we were all white and wealthy protesters. Like, isn’t that the point?” Korrin asked, explaining how that status allows for the security and resources to be able to participate in risky actions.\n

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\n On April 23, faculty at Columbia walked out onto Low Steps to condemn the arrest and suspension of students “engaged in peaceful protest.”\n

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\n Scores of encampments have sprouted up across the nation, from Ivy League universities to an array of state schools such as Ohio State University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the City College of New York, located several blocks north of Columbia. University administrators have authorized city and state police forces to clear protesters, sometimes using batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets to do so. Within Columbia, there have been varied approaches to disciplinary actions. Only Barnard administrators evicted students at suspension’s onset.\n

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\n [Read more: Barnard suspends and evicts at least 53 students, outlines steps for ‘amnesty’]\n

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\n Khanh told me they have no regrets, because they know the urgency and importance of the struggle for which they protest. CUAD now lists five demands on their website: financial divestment, academic boycott, stop the displacement, no policing on campus, and end the silence.\n

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\n “I’ve never experienced those types of emotions before,” they said, holding anxiety, fear, pride, and awe within themselves all at once, reflecting on the movement that has spiraled out before them. Huddled in the inner circle as the NYPD tapped them, they had already calculated that their life might be forever changed.\n

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\n “Let’s say I was expelled, let’s say like, I did lose my housing,” Khanh told me. “I’ve kind of already been at that point. So if I needed to make that sacrifice, if I needed to return to that low point for something like this, I’m okay with that. Because this is bigger than me. It’s bigger than myself. It’s bigger than all of us.”\n

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\n Edited by Eye Senior Staff Writer Caelan Bailey, Eye Section Heads Itzel Franco and Morgan Desfosses, Deputy Copy Editor Ainhoa Petri-Hidalgo, Associate Copy Editor Posey Chiddix, and Preslotter Eric Aguilar.\n

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\n Senior Staff Writer Ann Vettikkal can be contacted at ann.vettikkal@columbiaspectator.com. \n

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\n Senior Staff Writer Andrew Park can be contacted at andrew.park@columbiaspectator.com. Follow him on X at @androo_park.\n

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