If ideas have consequences — and they certainly do — actions certainly have more. (Or at least they should.)
Isra Hirsi, daughter of “squad” member Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, may be learning that lesson now, but she appears to have more to learn.
Hirsi attends Barnard College — one of several partially independent colleges that share resources with and whose students receive diplomas from Columbia University. Police intervened Thursday in an anti-Israel protest on Columbia’s campus in which Hirsi was involved.
Hirsi and others “encamped” in the center of the campus early the previous morning, and by early Thursday afternoon, Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik asked the New York Police Department to clear the students out.
Jewish students expressed concerns about their safety — especially with Passover beginning the following Monday, according to USA Today.
Hirsi was one of about 100 students arrested and then suspended for her role in the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
those of us in Gaza Solidarity Encampment will not be intimidated. we will stand resolute until our demands are met.
our demands include divestment from companies complicit in genocide, transparency of @Columbia’s investments and FULL amnesty for all students facing repression
— isra hirsi (@israhirsi) April 18, 2024
Hirsi told Teen Vogue in an interview that she was arrested and held in custody for about eight hours, and was zip-tied for most of that time.
Should students engaging in hateful rhetoric against Jews be expelled?
She was ultimately charged with trespassing, she said, but was also suspended from both the school and the campus, where she lives in a dorm.
“I live in a building where professors also live, and a lot of the professors that live in our buildings are in [Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine], so I reached out to them before I got out of jail, like, ‘can you guys please talk to desk attendants in my building?’” she told the outlet. They were, like, ‘can we bring her in as our guest, anything?’ And they were, like ‘no,’ essentially.
“They also showed that [no entry] photo to every single public safety officer at Barnard and sent it to all my professors, so I kind of have no option,” she added.
She hadn’t been formally evicted from the dorm when Teen Vogue’s interview was published on Sunday, but had lost “swipe access” to the building, which requires a coded badge to enter. She also cannot access the dining hall, but was told she could pick up prepackaged food there.
“It’s pretty horrible,” she told Teen Vogue.
Hirsi now awaits the results of a hearing — the date of which has not yet been set — before she can again access most of the amenities of her college.
Barnard College estimates the total cost of attendance at around $90,000 annually, according to the school’s financial aid website.
That’s more than twice the average cost of private college in the U.S. and more than eight times that of public, in-state tuition, according to a survey from U.S. News published in September.
In the end, Hirsi noted the irony that a protest designed to raise awareness of the Israel-Hamas War — as if there were people unaware that that was going on — has instead taken the focus off of Gaza and redirected it toward Columbia University.
“A lot of us are grateful that people are paying attention and noticing how severe our campus repression has been, but it has been a little bit frustrating to focus on Columbia over the focus of what is even happening in Gaza,” she told Teen Vogue. “The whole point of the encampment was to shed light on Columbia’s complicity in genocide and to focus back on the folks in Gaza, so a big thing for all of us is trying to redirect the language.”
In other words, Hirsi has just figured out that actions have consequences — but they’re not always the consequences one is hoping for.
