Activists Take Over College Library In Protest

By
Rachel Stevenson
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Oh, Columbia. The ivy may still climb your ancient walls, but the lunacy inside has clearly taken root deeper than any old vine ever could.

Let’s start with the obvious: while stressed-out students were trying to cram for finals—a time most of us remember as sacred, if torturous—masked anti-Israel agitators waltzed right into Butler Library and took over. No security dragging them out. No swift disciplinary action. Nope. Columbia just let it happen. Because apparently, studying is now secondary to performative radicalism.

The ringleaders of this intellectual hostage situation? A charming bunch calling themselves Columbia University Apartheid Divest, or CUAD for short—a title just vague enough to sound academic while being militantly anti-Israel. They proudly announced they had “reclaimed” Butler Library and renamed it the “Basel al-Araj Popular University.” Catchy. It’s always nice when privileged college kids feel entitled to rename public institutions for convicted terrorists and fringe ideologues.

Their list of demands reads like a progressive fever dream: full financial divestment from anything remotely tied to Israel, cancellation of academic programs, no police, no ICE, and—because of course—total amnesty for anyone who has broken the rules. It’s like the toddler version of political activism: break the lamp, scream about injustice, demand ice cream.

But wait—it gets better. This isn’t just about Israel. Oh no. CUAD has previously declared that they are literally fighting to “eradicate” Western civilization. Their words, not ours. In a statement they proudly shared with the Bengali Student Association, they wrote, “We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.” That’s right. These students, educated at one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions in the Western world, are calling for its total dismantling. And guess who’s footing the bill for their radicalism? That’s right—tuition-paying parents, donors, and, in many cases, taxpayers.

They go on to praise “militants in the Global South” and talk about rejecting “genocidal, eugenicist regimes.” One has to wonder: is this radical poetry slam supposed to be taken seriously? Or is it just another reminder that elite academia has officially jumped the shark? Because when you say you’re fighting fascism while wearing matching black bandanas and silencing dissent, we’re going to call that what it is: cosplay authoritarianism.

Now, the cherry on top? Columbia, which administers the Pulitzer Prizes—those prestigious accolades that once stood for excellence in journalism and the arts—just gave an award to Mosab Abu Toha. A man who sees the events of October 7, 2023—when over 1,200 Israelis were murdered—as something other than a massacre. He has publicly refused to call abducted Israeli civilians “hostages,” even mocking the word with scare quotes. And for good measure, he labeled Jewish soldiers celebrating Hanukkah “true antisemitism.”

This is the same institution that once represented the height of American intellectualism. The same Columbia that helped define modern journalism is now legitimizing rhetoric that downplays terrorism and actively fuels anti-Semitic tropes. Not just tolerating it—rewarding it. That’s not just ideological drift. That’s a full-on moral nosedive.

At the end of the day, Columbia has become a sanctuary for radicalism dressed up as scholarship. The administrators are either complicit or cowardly. The students playing revolution from their laptops have never seen the kind of oppression they claim to fight. And the victims? The real students, just trying to earn a degree without having to wade through a flash mob of masked activists on the way to a study session.

This isn’t free speech. This is academic anarchy. And Columbia’s silence is deafening.

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