Columbia University Encampment
Last night I had the privilege of being able to go to the pro-Palestinian Columbia encampment, read some poems, hang out with students, and lead some breathing exercises.
I am so moved by the student protests across the nation.
When I went to college, having a dorm was the first time I felt a sense of security in my home life. Being on financial aid, my university covered my housing. It was dependable, reliable, not marked by turbulence or instability. Having access to safe housing on my own terms was revolutionary—it allowed me the space to fully thrive, to be myself, to be able to grow.
When I read that Columbia and other universities were suspending and expelling students, giving them only 15 minutes to pack up their stuff before they were kicked out of their dorms, I felt heavy. I’m proud of these students who are banding together, protesting, and creating a community that is counter to what their respective institutions value. I’m proud of them for saying no, this isn’t okay, I will not be here for this, this has to stop, even if it risks their housing, their safety, the security of their future.
I was very shocked by the amount of police presence that I saw at Columbia, around the encampment. There were both police and private security stationed every few meters around the school. While walking, one of the police officers tried to ask me and my partner what we were up to and where we were going. In order to get into the encampment, we had to be snuck in. Given the stakes of what was happening there at the moment, it also wasn’t a guarantee that we could get in.
Sitting in an intimate circle with the students in the encampment, I was moved by hearing what they had to say. A few of them talked about how the encampment, the love and community and raw imaginative power of the space, was the exact thing that they had been looking for when they had applied to school. That they hadn’t been able to find that within the university but that they had been able to find that in the protests, in the encampment. As I was reading my poems, there was a bit of commotion behind me. I realized, after, that there was another Columbia student behind the encampment who was trying to take photos of the people inside the encampment to dox their fellow classmates. The students in the circle confirmed that this was something that was happening—they and their peers were being doxed by people that they knew, that they attended class with.
This was horrific to me. Imagine being in a space of learning and being so surveilled--- not only by the institution but by your fellow classmates.
Yesterday, right before we got to the encampment, it was announced that the university was going to try and make the students leave by today. I’m rooting for these students, and hoping that they achieve their demands.