At least two university staffers were among the 44 anti-Israel protesters arrested inside the Columbia University building that a mob broke into and occupied this week, school officials said.
In a fence-sitting video address posted on X Friday, embattled Columbia president Minouche Shafik praised the university’s ultimately fruitless efforts to negotiate with the protesters, but sharply criticized the group who broke into the Hamilton Hall building Tuesday night, which she called “a violent act that put our students at risk.”
Shafik — fresh off calls for a vote of no confidence by a faculty group — called the last few weeks “among the most difficult in our school’s history” and said the protesters who forced their way into the academic building “crossed a new line” in the demonstration, which has simmered on campus since April 18.
Among them was Violet Bupp-Chickering, a laboratory technician at the Simon John Lab of the Columbia University Ophthalmology department, according to her LinkedIn.
The left-leaning biologist and neuroscientist’s YouTube page contains several videos from 2017 in support of marijuana legalization, as well as a mock film trailer for “The Communist Manifesto,” the seminal 1848 anti-capitalist pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles.
In the video, vintage black-and-white images of workers are interspersed with text hailing communist ideals and denouncing capitalism.
Bupp-Chickering declined to comment when The Post reached her by phone Friday.
Also arrested was Gabriel Yancy, a Fordham graduate who now works as a research assistant at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute, according to his LinkedIn.
His arrest at Columbia wasn’t the first time Yancy wagged his finger at a school he was closely affiliated with.
In a video distributed by the school’s African & African American studies department’s official X account in 2021, Yancy accuses the university of using “coded language” at student orientation at Fordham’s Manhattan Lincoln Center campus to deliberately instill fear in students about the Rose Hill neighborhood, home to the Catholic university’s campus in The Bronx.
Antisemitism controversy at Columbia University: Key events
- More than 280 anti-Israel demonstrators were cuffed at Columbia and the City of New York campuses overnight in a “massive” NYPD operation.
- One hundred and nine people were nabbed at the Ivy League campus after cops responded to Columbia’s request to help oust a destructive mob that had illegally taken over the Hamilton Hall academic building late Tuesday, NYC Mayor Eric Adams and police said.
- Hizzoner blamed the on-campus chaos on insurgents who have a “history of escalating situations and trying to create chaos” instead of protesting peacefully.
- Columbia’s embattled president Minouche Shafik, who has faced mounting calls to resign for not cracking down sooner, issued a statement Wednesday saying the on-campus violence had “pushed the university to the brink.”
- Columbia University president Minouche Shafik was accused of “gross negligence” while testifying before Congress. Shafik refused to say if the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic.
- More than 100 Columbia professors signed a letter defending students who support the “military action” by Hamas.
- Not affiliated with school: 13
- Students at affiliated institutions: 6
- Undergrad students: 14
- Grad students: 9
- Columbia employees: 2
He also took issue with campus public safety at Fordham introducing themselves to students as associated with the NYPD.
“Whether it’s true or not, they did link themselves to the NYPD as something that should make us feel safer and positive, which was not a shared experience I had when that came up,” he said.
He closes by warning that the “whiteness” of the student population and social spaces is “very instantly noticeable” at the school. This despite Fordham’s own demographic data showing a student body consisting of 43.5% white students compared to 48.2% “domestic students of color.”
Yancy did not respond to a request for comment.
Columbia University would not comment on Bupp-Chickering or Yancy’s employment status, and declined to speak on personnel matters when asked what if any discipline they might face in light of their arrests.
About 30% of those busted in Hamilton Hall Tuesday night were outsiders with no formal connection to the Ivy League school, according to a press release from Columbia.
“A significant portion of those who broke the law and occupied Hamilton Hall were outsiders,” the statement released Thursday said.
“The majority were a mix of adults, including graduate students, two employees, and outsiders unaffiliated with Columbia University,” it noted.
The university’s implication that the illegal occupation of the academic building was spearheaded in part by outside actors echoed Mayor Eric Adams’ insistence that “outside agitators” were radicalizing the city’s college students.
Fourteen of those arrested inside Hamilton Hall were Columbia undergraduates, while nine were graduate students and two were employees, the school said.
Six others were students at institutions affiliated with Columbia, the statement added.
The gaggle of masked protesters broke into the academic hall shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday – with at least one demonstrator using a hammer to break through the glass-paneled doors.
Once inside, a number of the protesters covered the security cameras with trash bags and tape.
“Protesters have chosen to escalate to an untenable situation — vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, and blockading entrances,’’ university spokesperson Ben Chang said at the time.
The protesters also hung at least one sign emblazoned with the word “intifada” from a Hamilton Hall window, photos and videos showed.
Over several hours, the demonstrators set up camp inside the hallways and classrooms.
The participants made themselves at home with a microwave, electric tea kettle, and dozens of sleeping bags, photos later distributed by the NYPD showed.
One classroom was converted into a makeshift cafeteria, complete with a chalkboard chart listing the occupiers dietary needs, according to the New York Times.
In another room, the protesters made an outline for two-hour security shifts – which included three Maoist sayings as motivation.
NYPD officers descended on the Morningside Heights campus late Tuesday after being called in by Columbia President Minouche Shafik, with cops clad in riot gear using a ramp-like setup to gain access to Hamilton Hall from a window facing Amsterdam Avenue.
The police proceeded to round up the protesters and arrest them, while also clearing through the hallways now piled high with discarded desk chairs and other debris.
One officer accidentally fired his weapon while trying to get into a locked office in another part of the building, police officials said Friday.
No one was injured in the incident, said a rep for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which is investigating the incident.
