Aymann Ismail (interviewer): What is the mood on campus right now?
Milène Klein: Actually, pretty good. We’re in the newsroom right now. The mood on campus is actually high. There’s a lot of energy. People are chilling on the lawns.
This weekend is the first time the NYPD had been called to actually break up a protest. There had already been arrests around campus, if not actually on campus, so I think many people are very distressed and extremely disappointed—but not surprised. The university introduced security forces to disrupt peaceful protest simply because they want to appease the people who are watching the congressional hearings and who are asking questions in bad faith. This is the audience they are kowtowing to. I think that’s what people are more distressed by than the police presence, to be honest.

Roedl: Actively calling for more police contributes to feelings of unsafety. And those feelings of unsafety are contributing to more police. So we’re seeing a feedback loop with absolutely no communication from our administration. That is the uniting point for a lot of people, regardless of politics, that we’re seeing complete silence from our administration. They made the decision to authorize NYPD on campus, and that’s the last time we have heard from her.

Klein: There’s a lot of discussion about what is happening at Columbia campus. Like, “There’s crisis at Columbia”—you have this image of students hunting each other in the street, like absolute chaos. There are alarmists framing this all around antisemitism, or a crusade against Jewish students, whom are hiding or being pushed out of campus. I don’t think any of us have seen that. The reality is that we’re a community of people who live together, eat together, and go to class together every single day. And for people who want to hear what Columbia students have to say, you have to read what they’re saying in their own words.