The following is an open letter and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.
We, Princeton University faculty and staff, affirm our solidarity with and support for the Columbia University and Barnard College students who are continuing to demand that the university divest from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and ongoing occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and other Palestinian land. We fully support the rights of all university community members, including students, to engage in peaceful protest at Columbia, at Princeton, and on all university campuses.
Until the following demands are met, we will boycott Columbia University and Barnard College:
First, we call upon the Columbia University administration to reinstate those students who were wrongfully suspended for exercising their constitutionally recognized right to speech and peaceful assembly. We demand that all charges be dismissed and expunged from their student records, and that all rights and privileges be restored to them immediately. All ad hoc disciplinary proceedings against peaceful student protestors must be stopped. We demand that no disciplinary action be taken against any student protesters without due process, and that no police be permitted on campus without serious consultation with the Executive Committee of the Columbia University Senate.
Second, we call upon the Columbia University administration to remove the New York City Police Department from campus. All criminal charges that have been brought against student protestors who were arrested by the NYPD at the behest of the university administration should be dropped immediately. The cases of all students facing disciplinary action linked to their advocacy on behalf of Palestine must be channeled through established university disciplinary procedures for each campus.
Finally, we call upon the Columbia University administration to reverse the suspension of the student groups Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and Columbia Jewish Voice for Peace.
We vow to withhold our academic labor from Columbia and Barnard, not to participate in conferences and other campus events, and not to collaborate with university institutions until such time as the administration has met these demands and demonstrated its commitments to upholding the well-established norms of unrestricted scholarly inquiry and academic freedom.
Signed,
Max Weiss, Associate Professor, History
Karen Emmerich ’00, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature
Joshua B. Guild, Associate Professor, African American Studies
Daniel Sheffield, Associate Professor, Near Eastern Studies
Rob Nixon, Professor, Environment and Humanities, English, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute
Wendy Belcher, Professor, Comparative Literature and African American Studies
Anne McClintock, Professor, Gender and Sexuality Studies and the High Meadows Environmental Institute
Molly Greene GS ’93, Professor, History
Susana Draper, Professor, Comparative Literature
Hal Foster ’77, Professor, Art and Archaeology
Ruha Benjamin, Professor, African American Studies
Tehseen Thaver, Assistant Professor, Religion
Fadi A. Bardawil, Visiting Associate Professor, Anthropology and Near Eastern Studies
Colleen Asper, Lecturer, Lewis Center for the Arts
V. Mitch McEwen, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture
Nancy Coffin, Senior Lecturer, Near Eastern Studies
Dan-el Padilla Peralta ’06, Associate Professor, Classics
Irene V. Small, Associate Professor, Art & Archaeology
Lorgia Garcia Peña, Professor, African American Studies and Effron Center for the Study of American
Lital Levy, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature
Gyan Prakash, Professor, History
Sara Al-Sayed, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Program on Science and Global Security
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Professor, African American Studies
Juan Cruz Ferre, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Program in Latin American Studies
Elise A. Mitchell, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, History
Paola Estrada, Postdoctoral Researcher, Molecular Biology
Jessica Ng, Postdoctoral Research Associate, High Meadows Environmental Institute
Hamza El-Asaad, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Program on Science and Global Security
Barbara Nagel, Associate Professor, German
Meredith Martin, Associate Professor, English
Mostafa Abdou, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Princeton Neuroscience Institute
Spyros Papapetros, Associate Professor, School of Architecture
Frank N. von Hippel, Professor Emeritus of Public and International Affairs
Abdelrahman Hamdan, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment
Agustin Fuentes, Professor, Anthropology
Zia Mian, Research Scientist, Program on Science and Global Security
Pedro Meira Monteiro, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Sergio Garcia, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Chemical and Biological Engineering
May Kosba, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Program in African Studies
James Welling, Lecturer with status of professor, Lewis Center for the Arts, Visual Art
Arcadio Diaz-Quiñones, Professor Emeritus, Spanish and Portuguese
Behrooz Ghamari, Professor, Near Eastern Studies
Rena Lederman, Professor, Anthropology
Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Associate Professor, African American Studies and Art & Archaeology
Lara Harb, Associate Professor, Near Eastern Studies
Gavin Steingo, Professor, Music
Julia Elyachar, Associate Professor, Anthropology and PIIRS
Katie Chenoweth, Associate Professor, French and Italian
Zahid Chaudhary, Associate Professor, English
Gayle Salamon, Professor, English
Nick Nesbitt, Professor, French & Italian
Satyel Larson, Assistant Professor, Near Eastern Studies
Hamza M. Zafer, Lecturer, Program in African Studies
Erin Besler, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture
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