FILE – Scholar protesters camp on the campus of Columbia College, April 30, 2024, in New York. Columbia has agreed to take extra steps to make its college students really feel safe on campus underneath a settlement reached Tuesday, June 4, with a Jewish pupil who had sought a courtroom order requiring the Ivy League college present protected entry to the campus amid protests over the Israel-Hamas battle. (AP Picture/Mary Altaffer, Pool, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia College has agreed to take extra steps to make its college students really feel safe on campus underneath a settlement reached Tuesday with a Jewish pupil who had sought a courtroom order requiring the Ivy League college present protected entry to the campus amid protests over the Israel-Hamas battle.
The legislation agency representing the plaintiff within the lawsuit, filed as a category motion grievance, known as the settlement a “first-of-its-kind settlement to guard Jewish college students from excessive on-campus Gaza battle pr otestors.”
Beneath the settlement, Columbia should create a brand new level of contact — a Secure Passage Liaison — for college students nervous for his or her security. The liaison will deal with pupil security considerations and coordinate any pupil requests for escorts by an present escort program, which should stay accessible 24/7 by at the very least Dec. 31, in accordance with the settlement.
The settlement additionally makes educational lodging for college students who couldn’t entry campus to finish assignments or exams, amongst different provisions.
“We’re happy we’ve been capable of come to a decision and stay dedicated to our primary precedence: the security of our campus so that each one of our college students can efficiently pursue their schooling and meet their educational objectives,” a college spokesperson stated in a written assertion.
The settlement famous the assorted steps Columbia has already taken to make sure pupil security on campus, together with some controversial ones, corresponding to authorizing the New York Police Division to clear the college’s administrative constructing and arrest greater than 100 individuals.
Protests at Columbia, together with an encampment, impressed related demonstrations at faculties and universities across the nation, with college students demanding their faculties separate themselves from corporations advancing Israel’s army efforts in Gaza and in some circumstances from Israel itself.
A authorized group representing pro-Palestinian college students has urged the U.S. Division of Training’s civil rights workplace to analyze Columbia’s compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for a way they’ve been handled.
Jay Edelson, an lawyer for the Jewish pupil plaintiff, stated the negotiated settlement represents “a return to fundamental, shared rules of security on campus for all Columbia college students” after “excessive protesters” selected to “push their Jewish friends off campus with threats and intimidation.”
The settlement additionally states that Columbia will “proceed to work to facilitate alternatives for college students and school to interact in protected, courteous, and constructive dialogue on the essential points which have been raised in latest months” and won’t intrude with pupil efforts to carry public debates on campus.
