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JEWISH PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS CHAIN THEMSELVES TO GATES OUTSIDE
COLUMBIA  
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Joseph Zuloaga, Spencer Davis, and Daksha Pillai
April 2, 2025
Columbia Spectator
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_ Demonstrators are protesting in support of Mahmoud Khalil, calling
for “the names of the trustees who facilitated the abduction” of
Khalil. _

Pro-Palestinian protesters chained to gate outside Columbia on
Wednesday., Ryan Murphy / Staff Photographer

 

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
[[link removed]] 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
[[link removed]] from
Columbia’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace cites a March
10 report
[[link removed]] 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 
[[link removed]]/ 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 
[[link removed]]/ 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 
[[link removed]]/ 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 
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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 
[[link removed]]/ 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 
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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
[[link removed]] 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 [[link removed]] 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.

* pro-Palestine protests
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* Columbia University
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* Mahmoud Khalil
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