More than 1,000 new students kicked off their freshman year at Columbia University this week. But even with all the institutional changes that took place over the summer, including the naming of a new president, several aspects at the prestigious New York school are already reminiscent of the chaos last academic year — one that was marred by occasional violent anti-Israel disruptions, amid scrutiny of university leaders for not enforcing rules that would keep Jewish students safe. 

Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia Barnard Hillel, told Jewish Insider that he expects to see “plenty of activism again on campus, at least some of which will be highly disruptive.” 

The disruptions have already started, with a week left before classes begin. At a convocation event to welcome incoming freshmen on Sunday, about 50 members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, wearing masks and keffiyehs and holding megaphones and drums, disrupted the event from just outside of the campus gates with chants of “Free Palestine.” 

The group, which labels itself a “student intifada,” distributed fliers around the convocation that told students they were sitting “through propaganda being delivered to you by war criminals of an administration.” A Columbia University spokesperson told JI that the NYPD was present at the protest in case it was needed. The spokesperson did not respond to a follow up question about how the university is preparing to handle larger demonstrations this year. 

CUAD, a coalition formed in 2016 that has gained renewed support since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, with at least 80 student groups at Columbia joining the coalition, also published an op-ed in the Columbia Spectator on Sunday, attempting to rally freshmen to join in on the demonstrations. CUAD “will not sit quietly and watch our campus turn into a microcosm of the settler-colonial state we are protesting, and we need your help to prevent that,” the group wrote.  

CUAD wrote that it is “working toward achieving a liberated Palestine and the end of Israeli apartheid and genocide by urging Columbia to divest all economic and academic stakes in ‘Israel.’” 

Amid an “overall spirit of excitement for the coming school year,” the demonstration was “noisy and loud,” Julia Zborovsky-Fenster, whose son is a freshman at Columbia and daughter graduated from Barnard in the spring, told JI. Zborovsky-Fenster, who was walking on campus during the demonstration, said that she has “not seen anything that has given me a very clear message as to what we can expect” from university leadership this year.

“If I was to look at move-in day and the convocation, and base my judgment only on what happened on that one day, I would say I am optimistic,” she said, noting that law enforcement was abundant on campus and the protest remained relatively small, without turning violent.  

During summer break, Columbia made leadership changes and set new guidelines that some are optimistic will protect Jewish students. 

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation on Aug. 14, months after she testified before Congress about antisemitism and her handling of the disorderly fallout of the first anti-Israel encampment in the nation. 

Days before Shafik’s resignation, in an attempt to prevent activists from occupying buildings, destroying property and engaging in the kind of physical violence that overtook Columbia’s campus last year, the school’s COO, Cas Holloway, said that campus access will now be restricted to affiliates with a valid campus ID. Holloway said that this move would “keep our community safe given reports of potential disruptions at Columbia.”

Zborovsky-Fenster said the changes could lead to an “ushering in not only of a new year but a new era with this new leadership that would show we have learned lessons from a very challenging, divisive period last year.” 

But she added that parents and students deserve more transparency than they received last year. “I would love to see specific messaging as to what the policies are, specifically how they are going to be enforced, by whom, in what timeframe and how that is going to be communicated to the student body,” she said. 

As questions remain around whether the Columbia administration will crack down on disruptions from anti-Israel groups this year, outside organizations have already started doing so. On Monday, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine announced that its Instagram page had been permanently deleted.

A spokesperson for Meta, the company that owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, told JI that the account was disabled for repeated violations of Meta’s dangerous organizations and individuals policies. According to Meta’s policies, it does “not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on our platforms.” 

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has also raised concern about the climate on Columbia’s campus and unwillingness of the administration to enforce its rules. Last Wednesday, the committee issued six subpoenas to Columbia University officials for documents related to the committee’s investigation into campus antisemitism. 

According to a summary of Columbia disciplinary hearings from the end of last semester that was released earlier this month by the committee, of the 40 students arrested when Columbia brought police dressed in riot gear to the campus to remove a student encampment on April 18, just two remain suspended. The remaining students are in good standing and can enroll in classes while waiting for their disciplinary hearings, although roughly half are on “disciplinary probation.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the committee, said in a statement that the lack of consequences for students was “reprehensible.” 

“Following the disruptions of the last academic year, Columbia immediately began disciplinary processes, including with immediate suspensions,” a university spokesperson told JI last week. “The disciplinary process is ongoing for many students involved in these disruptions, including some of those who were arrested, and we have been working to expedite the process for this large volume of violations.”

The subpoena demands that Columbia provide, by noon on Sept. 4, all communications between the school’s leaders about antisemitism and the anti-Israel encampment since Oct. 7, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since April 17, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since Oct. 7 relating to antisemitism or Israel and any documents relating to allegations of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus since Oct. 7.

In a letter to Dr. Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, Foxx said the subpoenas were issued because “Columbia has failed to produce numerous priority items requested by the Committee, despite having months to comply and receiving repeated follow-up requests by the Committee.” Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed reporting.