If school leaders want NYPD to stay on Ivy League campus until May 17 to “babysit unruly students,” Columbia University should release its checkbook, city police say. bipartisan groups were outraged Wednesday.
The embattled elite organization’s president, Minoush Shafiq, has angered city council leaders by demanding that police remain on campus for two days after school starts to prevent anti-Israel encampments from erupting again. bought.
“Columbia created this mess, and Columbia, not New Yorkers, should pay to clean it up,” said Queens Republican Joan Arriola and Minority Leader Joe Borelli ( Nine City Council members, led by Bob Holden (R-Staten Island) and Queens Democrat Bob Holden, wrote: A scathing letter to university officials obtained by The Post.
New York City police on Tuesday night cleared anti-Israel protesters who had been camping on the school’s iconic lawn in Morningside Heights for weeks after university officials lost control and called in police for help. did.
Negotiations between Columbia executives and protesters stalled, and a mob, which Mayor Eric Adams said “included outside agitators,” violently occupied the nearby academic building Hamilton Hall.
“While we can all agree that these protesters should not be allowed to come together again and harass their fellow students,” the City Council members said, “we can all agree that these protesters should not be allowed to come together again and harass our fellow students, but private groups are taking too much of the New York City Police Department’s resources.” “We don’t think taxpayers should be forced to pay for their use.”
“New York City has very serious problems that must be prioritized,” the letter continued, “babysitting spoiled students, activist professors, and professional protesters on Ivy League campuses.” are not included in that,” he added.
If a university requests on-campus assistance from city police, lawmakers directed school officials to contact the NYPD’s Paid Detail Unit, which specializes in securing private areas.
“We certainly can afford it,” the lawmakers said, pointing to Columbia University’s annual tuition of more than $68,000 and endowment of $13.6 billion.
It’s unclear whether there are plans for police presence on campus in the coming weeks.
“We’re going to go out and do an assessment of the campus shortly after this,” Commissioner Jeff Madley said at a news conference Wednesday morning. “We’re definitely going to sit down with campus stakeholders and decide what resources we’re going to put into that.”
The university did not respond to a request for comment.
