Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, was jeered by pro-Palestinian protesters at New York’s Columbia University on Wednesday afternoon as he condemned what he called a “virus of antisemitism” at colleges nationwide.
His appearance came amid rising tensions over a wave of protests at campuses across the US.
The demonstrations began last week after students at Columbia set up encampments calling for the university to divest from weapons manufacturers with ties to Israel. The protests have led to mass suspensions and arrests of students in New York and several other cities.
As temperatures rose, Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor of New York, called Johnson’s trip “divisive”, while the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez assailed authorities for the “reckless and dangerous act” of calling police to non-violent demonstrations, resulting in hundreds of arrests.
Also on Wednesday afternoon, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that Joe Biden believes free speech, debate and nondiscrimination are important on college campuses, adding that “students should feel safe on college campuses”.
Johnson, flanked by a number of Republican members of Congress, drew booing as he also called for the resignation of Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president. He accused her of failing to protect Jewish students and allowing protests that led to the arrest of dozens of people there last week.
“Things have gotten so out of control that the school has canceled in-person classes, and now they’ve come up with this hybrid model, where they will discriminate against Jewish students,” he said.
“They are not allowed to come to class any more for fear of their lives. And it’s detestable, as Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over.”
The jeering continued as Johnson condemned what he saw as the “intimidation of mob rule” at Columbia and elsewhere. “The cherished traditions of this university are being overtaken right now by radical and extreme ideologies. The madness has to stop,” he said.
Hochul accused Johnson of “politicizing” the issue, and “adding to the division”, according to the New York Post.
“There’s a lot more responsibilities and crises to be dealt with in Washington,” she said.
Campus protests have grown across the US this week, with thousands attending marches or setting up encampments at universities from Massachusetts to California, leading to scores of arrests. Students in Los Angeles posted to X, formerly Twitter, photographs of their occupation of the University of Southern California’s Alumni Park.
“We, the USC Divest from Death Coalition, establish our occupation most fundamentally in solidarity with the people of Palestine as they resist genocide and continue in their struggle for liberation,” the group, calling itself the People’s City Council, wrote.
Signs around the encampment laid out the students’ demands to the university, including full transparency of USC endowment and investments, as well as divesting from Israel. Students also protested against university’s cancellation of the valedictorian speech of Muslim student Asna Tabassum, who had posted on social media in support of Palestine, earlier this month.
There have also been protests at the University of California, Berkeley, and at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where protesters barricaded themselves in a university building using furniture, tents, chains and zip ties.
Rows of tents have been added to a cluster set up on the steps of UC Berkeley’s Sproul Hall at the center of campus. Starting with just a dozen, more students have joined the “Free Palestine Camp” over the last three days, a sit-in demanding their school sever its financial connections to BlackRock and other asset managers they see as complicit for financing genocide in Gaza.
UC Berkeley holds a $427m investment in a BlackRock portfolio and school officials have commented that a change in their investment strategy is not on the table. There is minimal police or security presence on site, but the students say they are bracing for that to change. The group is determined to stay even if the university tries to have them forcibly removed.
The protesters are also calling for an academic boycott, which would end collaborations with Israeli universities and the establishment of a new Palestinian studies program.
On Wednesday, Shafik said she had extended by 48 hours a deadline for talks with protest leaders for the dismantling of a tent encampment on Columbia’s west lawn. More than 100 people were arrested at the university last week after she brought in the police, and more than 140 students, faculty members and others were arrested on Monday night at a separate protest at New York University’s Manhattan campus.
“Calling in police enforcement on nonviolent demonstrations of young students on campus is an escalatory, reckless and dangerous act,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet.
Some Jewish students at Columbia, meanwhile, said they had been physically blocked by protesters from attending classes, and subjected to racial hatred by demonstrators demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel’s military operations.
Protest organizers blame outside actors for particularly inflammatory rhetoric against Jewish students.
Johnson’s visit to Columbia follows a number of other trips there this week by bipartisan groups of politicians. Three competing delegations attended on Monday, Axios reported, with the entirety of New York’s Republican congressional delegation demanding Shafik’s resignation, and Democrats criticizing her for not protecting Jewish students and faculty.
The White House has labeled any calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community “blatantly antisemitic”.
Hochul, who called the Columbia protest “visceral” following a visit on Monday, told reporters on Wednesday that Johnson was politicizing the issue, adding: “I’d encourage the speaker to go back and perhaps take up the migrant bill, the bill to deal with closing the border, so we can deal with a real crisis that New York has.
She said her Monday visit was private: “I did not bring press with me. I wanted to have a substantive conversation about public safety with the [university] president, with campus security, with the NYPD.”