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What is going to be left of Columbia after this is all over?
Early this morning, in response to the Columbia University administration’s repeated orders to clear the pro-Hamas tent city on the quad, protesters — suspiciously thirtysomething-looking tattooed activists decked out in ski masks and freshly bought matching “Columbia”-branded sweatgear — smashed out the windows of Hamilton Hall on campus, “occupied it,” and barricaded themselves inside, festooning it with banners calling for the elimination of Israel.
But they are now entrenched inside the building, have set up camp and barricaded the doors, and are refusing to budge in the face of threats of expulsion. (Only now, at this late moment, is expulsion finally on the table for Columbia.) And they have found a spokeswoman. Allow me the pleasure of introducing you to one Johannah King-Slutzky, Ph.D. candidate in the English and Comparative Literature Department at Columbia. She focuses on . . . well, “stuff,” near as I can gather from her biography page on the department’s website. (Note: Her page was taken down almost immediately after the publication of this piece.) She IS also (and unsurprisingly) happy to mention she comes from a lengthy background in left-wing protest:
My dissertation is on fantasies of limitless energy in the transatlantic Romantic imagination from 1760-1860. My goal is to write a prehistory of metabolic rift, Marx’s term for the disruption of energy circuits caused by industrialization under capitalism. I am particularly interested in theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens in order to update and propose an alternative to historicist ideological critiques of the Romantic imagination. Prior to joining Columbia, I worked as a political strategist for leftist and progressive causes and remain active in the higher education labor movement.
I’m guessing that this is a lady with a lot of free time on her hands, is all I’m saying. (Look, some theses just take longer to draft than others.)
So out comes this Mouth of Sauron this afternoon, emerging to address the media with the protesters’ key demands, which although poorly articulated are generally understood from the slogans shouted to include (1) immediate divestment by Columbia from Israel, (2) an end to the Israeli war in the Middle East, and (3) an end to the Israeli state in the Middle East. Ms. King-Slutzky has added a new one: (4) access to free meals and drinks while they wait for Nos. 1-3 to be addressed. Because darnit, they’re thirsty.
Standing outside Hamilton Hall this afternoon, she addressed reporters wearing a keffiyeh scarf (always, always with the keffiyeh scarves) and demanded they allow the occupying army of protesters to “resupply” from the outside. I guess someone has to go out there and make a complete ass of themselves in the name of impossible demands, so it might as well be the protest “professional,” but I still marvel at the delusional strength of this woman, to stand in front of the cameras and speak as she did. I commend the brief video to all as a memorable up-close experience of the caliber of minds we’re dealing with here:
REPORTER: Why should the university be obligated to provide food to people who’ve taken over a building?
KING-SLUTZKY: Uh, well first of all we’re saying that they are obligated to provide food to students who pay for a meal plan here.
REPORTER: But you mentioned that there was a request that food and water be brought in. Unless I misunderstan—
KING-SLUTZKY: To allow it to be brought in. Well, I guess it’s ultimately a question of what kind of community and obligation Columbia feels it has to its students. Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even if they disagree with you?
At this point, if you’re like me, you’re half-jokingly thinking to yourself, “well . . . why not? Worked well enough in those medieval sieges, I guess.” (The other half of me wonders why we haven’t yet begun to seriously consider catapulting plague-infested bodies over the ramparts to hasten the matter.) But she continues as reporters begin to crudely assault her with commonsense questions:
KING-SLUTZKY: If the answer is no, then you should allow basic—I mean, this is crazy to say because we’re on an Ivy League campus, but this is like basic humanitarian aid we’re asking for, could people have a glass of water?
REPORTER: But they did put themselves, very deliberately, in that situation and that position, so it seems like you’re sort of saying we want to take over this building — now would you please bring us food and water?
KING-SLUTZKY: Nobody’s asking them to bring anything, we’re asking them to not violently stop us from bringing in basic humanitarian aid.
OTHER REPORTER: They’re stopping the delivery of food?
KING-SLUTZKY: We’re looking for a commitment that they will not do it.
OTHER REPORTER: But they haven’t stopped it yet.
KING-SLUTZKY: Well, I don’t know to what extent it has been attempted, but we’re looking for a commitment.
First things first — a round of applause to those reporters. The video is worth watching only so you can hear how hilariously neutral their tones are when incredulously asking obvious questions of King-Slutzky, as if they cannot believe they’re lucky enough to be interviewing anyone this stupid. (“This doesn’t normally happen to beat reporters like me,” their internal monologues are screaming. “I am living the dream.”)
As to the administration’s proper response, it should be this: Nothing. Let them wonder, and then interdict any supplies that occupiers are attempting to smuggle into the building. Form a complete cordon to accomplish it. And then say: If you want your free lunch then by all means, come to the cafeteria and get it.
What is going to be left of Columbia after this is all over? How does this disastrously handled mess end with anything except incredibly humiliating footage on the evening news? On Saturday morning, I wrote a piece I hope you’ve read titled “You Don’t Need to Be A Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind’s Blowing at Columbia.” (If you happen to be a Bob Dylan fan familiar with the history of the Columbia chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society in the late Sixties, then you get my gist already.) It was framed around the memorably crazed undergrad zealot Khymani James but was much more about the lost nature of an entire generation of children. I intended a subtext with that title: The logic of all this inevitably leads to insanity, irrational escalation, and ultimately (I fear) bloodshed. I ended by noting “make no mistake, James and his ilk will return until they are wholly uprooted, and until they are they will only radicalize further and further.”
At every single step of the way during this rolling debacle, the behavior of Columbia University’s administration has been a disgrace that encouraged that radicalization — in fact made it inevitable. They have acted with cowardice, incompetence, hesitance, confused messaging, and a manifest failure of will. And if anyone gets hurt, they will likely be held civilly liable as well, particularly given their refusal to ask the New York Police Department (as professional an organization as it gets when it comes to riot control) to help on campus. I can’t well call on an entire college administration to commit ritual public seppuku to expiate its failures, but I certainly can suggest the idea in a friendly manner to them in this column.
King-Slutzky ended her press conference today by threatening upcoming commencement ceremonies. She places the blame squarely on the administration, which she accuses of “participating in and fueling a genocide”: “It’s really up to Columbia to come to a peaceful solution as soon as possible if it wants to preserve graduation, but that’s entirely something in their control.”
Give us the impossible — or else. Are we surprised that the defenders of terrorists have escalated rapidly into the leveling of terroristic demands themselves? I am instead shaking my head at the grim irony — or was it entirely predictable? — that it is well in the process of happening at Columbia University for the second time in 56 years. The wind blows ill at Columbia, and we have seen from the past which way it threatens to blow.