The anti-Israel protests at Columbia Law School not only haven’t tapered off, but they’ve actually gotten worse. Larger crowds have assembled with the usual signage and chanting. But on Thursday, things were taken to another level when a crowd of demonstrators invaded the lobby of the school, drowning out normal conversations and shutting down several classes for a few hours. The intimidation of Jewish students and those who spoke out against Hamas was also reported. And what did Columbia do in response? Essentially nothing. In the days since, they’ve said nothing about whether the protesters will face any consequences. They also haven’t officially denied the list of demands that the protesters were making, which were outrageous. (Free Beacon)

Administrators at Columbia Law School stood by for hours on Thursday as anti-Israel protesters took over the law school’s lobby, refusing to shut down an unauthorized demonstration that disrupted nearby classes for nearly three hours and violated several school policies. The law school has said nothing about whether the demonstrators will suffer any consequences.

The protest, part of which was captured on video, caused such a ruckus that Menachem Weiss, a third-year law student, left class to see what was going on. Standing beneath a banner that read “ceasefire now,” which had been hung from a second-floor balcony, student protesters used a megaphone to broadcast their demands to the university.

The students, members of the Columbia Law Coalition for a Free Palestine, called on administrators to announce an economic boycott of the Jewish state and acknowledge that “students of color are endangered by Public Safety and law enforcement.” They also demanded the establishment of a “Center for Palestinian Legal Studies” and a “task-force to protect students from Islamophobia.”

Curiously, not much of the action from Thursday’s protest showed up on video. There is one clip on Twitter where you can hear the demonstrators chanting, but the camera is in a different part of the lobby, apparently. Someone else filmed almost two hours of the speeches outside as well as scenes of the demonstrations in the street, but they never made it inside the building. I did a search on YouTube, but if anyone uploaded better footage, it’s not showing up.

Let’s review the list of “demands” that the protesters are making of Columbia. They include:

• An economic boycott of Israel
• An acknowledgment that “students of color are endangered by Public Safety and law enforcement”
• The establishment of a “Center for Palestinian Legal Studies”
• The establishment of a “task force to protect students from Islamophobia”

How the school is supposed to engage in a “boycott” of Israel isn’t clear, unless they are demanding that Columbia not accept any Jewish or Israeli students. Asking them to denounce law enforcement right at the moment the school probably needs it more than ever should be a non-starter also. I wouldn’t be surprised if Columbia agrees to set up some sort of center for Palestinian legal studies and they’ll probably cave and set up an Islamophobia task force despite the immediate, urgent need for help fighting antisemitism instead.

So what explains Columbia’s silence in response to these disruptions and the school’s failure to take action? Perhaps it’s because the administration really doesn’t disagree with the protesters all that much. It’s true that the school suspended two student groups who were supporting Hamas. But more than 100 faculty members recently signed a letter saying that they support the students and agree that Hamas’ “military action” on October 7th was justified.

More than 100 Columbia University professors signed a letter Monday defending students who supported Hamas’ “military action” in Israel on Oct. 7 and called on administrators to protect those students from “disturbing reverberations” on the Manhattan campus…

The Ivy League staffers also demanded that the administration “cease issuing statements that favor the suffering and death of Israelis or Jews over the suffering and deaths of Palestinians.”

Sounds like they’re all singing from the same choir book to me. So why should we be surprised if they remain silent when the mob shows up and shuts down the primary reason for the existence of the school? It’s perhaps more surprising that the faculty wasn’t out there in the lobby joining the protesters. So there are large donors pulling their financial support from Columbia in droves. And now the students who are still attempting to get an education and earn their Ivy League degrees are being disrupted from doing so. Is Columbia even a law school anymore? Or is it just a very expensive social club specializing in unrest?