Unidentified protesters poured purple paint over the bust of the well-known “Alma Mater” (1903) statue on Columbia College’s Manhattan campus on the primary day of courses, Tuesday, September 3. The obvious protest motion comes after the group named Columbia College Apartheid Divest (CUAD) referred to as on college students to “shut it down,” noting that “Gazan students have no universities left to which they can return.”
Whereas images of the paint-soaked bronze had been reposted by College students for Justice for Palestine, which was not too long ago completely banned by Meta, and CUAD on X, neither group claimed duty. The motion could have been the work of an autonomous group, a time period CUAD and SJP additionally used to explain the people who organized the occupation of Hamilton Corridor earlier this 12 months and coordinated a screaming protest exterior the residence of then-President Minouche Shafik earlier than her resignation.
“This act underscored the student body’s refusal to forget the acts of the same administration currently welcoming us with naive yet predictable pomp and circumstance,” Anand Chitnis, a present Columbia senior and vice chairman of campus life for the faculty’s scholar council, instructed Hyperallergic.
“From what I can tell, we, the students, refuse to conform to the administration’s surface-level amnesia of the past semester,” Chitnis continued.
Cleansing efforts started shortly after “Alma Mater” was lined in purple paint. (photograph used with permission)
The paint tin remained on Alma’s head after the incident. (photograph used with permission)
Images offered to Hyperallergic present upkeep staff utilizing an influence washer to take away the paint from the “Alma Mater” statue. By the tip of the day, the official Columbia Instagram account shared a photograph of scholars posing in entrance of a clear statue on its Tales.
Designed by artist Daniel Chester French, who additionally sculpted the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, “Alma Mater” is a crucial campus image. College students usually pose in entrance of the sculpture to commemorate the beginning of courses and once more on the finish of the 12 months in commencement regalia.
After Hamas’s October 7 assault and Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, nevertheless, the statue took on a brand new significance. In its central location on campus, “Alma Mater” was the positioning of a number of historic moments throughout April’s scholar protests main as much as the raid of Hamilton Corridor by a whole lot of New York Police Division officers.
The statue served as a gathering level within the escalations main as much as New York Metropolis Police Division’s raid on the occupied Hamilton Corridor. (photograph Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic)
The sculpture was steps away from the place college students booed Speaker of the Home of Representatives Mike Johnson throughout his speech calling for the arrest of scholars perpetuating “hatred and antisemitism.” Organizers additionally used the positioning as a communication hub, holding press conferences at its toes.
For Anand, it was not probably the most distracting second of the primary day of courses.
“The closed gates were more disruptive than any protest, causing crowds of students and staff trying to get to class to be trapped in endless lines,” Anand stated.
After the spring protests, the college applied a color-coded entry system that tells college students, college, and non-affiliates after they can enter or are restricted from campus. The brand new coverage is much like its pandemic-era contact tracing system that restricted college students’ motion by way of campus primarily based on their designated coloration.
“I long for the time when protests were a proud part of the university community and were a means to tangible change,” Anand stated.
School members referred to as for the college to reverse suspensions for scholar protesters at a press convention beneath the statue in April. (photograph Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic)
