Columbia leadership rebuked by faculty panel for police crackdown on protesters

Columbia University's embattled president came under renewed pressure on Friday as a campus oversight panel sharply criticized her administration for clamping down on a pro-Palestinian protest at the Ivy League school.

Columbia University's embattled president came under renewed pressure on Friday as a campus oversight panel sharply criticized her administration for clamping down on a pro-Palestinian protest at the Ivy League school.

President Nemat Minouche Shafik has faced an outcry from many students, faculty and outside observers for summoning New York police to dismantle a tent encampment set up on campus by protesters against Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

After a two-hour meeting on Friday, the Columbia University Senate, approved a resolution that Shafik's administration had undermined academic freedom and disregarded the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty members by calling in the police and shutting down the protest.

"The decision ... has raised serious concerns about the administration's respect for shared governance and transparency in the university decision-making process," it said.

The senate, composed mostly of faculty members and other staff plus a few students, did not name Shafik in its resolution and avoided the harsher language of a censure.

There was no immediate response to the resolution from Shafik, who is a member of the senate but did not attend Friday's meeting. Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang said the administration shared the same goal as the Senate -- to restore calm to the campus -- and was committed to "an ongoing dialog."

Police arrested more than 100 people that day and removed the tents from the main lawn of the school's Manhattan campus, but the protesters quickly returned and set up tents again, narrowing Columbia's options on dismantling the encampment.