Brown vs Columbia: The Tale of Two Protests

Columbia University dominated the news Tuesday as campus protesters broke into Hamilton Hall, barricaded themselves inside, and occupied the building. Later that evening, New York police arrived to remove the protesters.

There was a large show of force by police before they moved protesters down the street, entered the building through a window, and arrested those inside.

Brown University was overshadowed by this unrest. But on the same day that police stormed Hamilton Hall, Brown reached an agreement with their student protesters, who packed up their tents and left the lawn they had been camped out on without any police involvement. 

Both groups of protesters had the same general demands, but each protest evolved down a different path.

In some ways, the Brown University protest reflected the Civil Rights protests, which used peaceful sit-ins and mild civil disobedience to raise awareness of their plight.

Students set up tents on a lawn and said they were determined to stay until they were forced to be removed. The protesters remained calm throughout. No buildings were occupied.

The protesters never blocked or harassed other members of the school. There was no increasingly angry or violent rhetoric. They stood fast in their quiet, peaceful protest with the demand that the university divest from any companies that could be connected in any form to the Israel-Hamas war. 

The result was Brown University committing to exploring ways to divest from Israel. The university warned of the complexity of doing so but agreed to hold meetings with students soon to see what could be accomplished—a peaceful end to a peaceful protest.

Columbia was a different story.

Students had also initially erected tents on lawns and demanded that the university divest. They were more stringent with their demands.

Students wanted Columbia to divest from any company that had any connection to Israel. That would include major tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Even companies like Pepsi would be off limits because they had purchased SodaStream, which was an Israeli company.

Given that universities largely invest in hedge funds and mutual funds, trying to find ways to divest from every company that had any connection to a major economic and technological nation like Israel was a steep feat. Steeper than focusing on companies that could be connected to the war specifically.

The more extreme demands ended up foreshadowing the more extreme actions of the Columbia protesters. Over time their rhetoric grew angrier, louder, and more hateful. There were reports of students being harassed and blocked from entering buildings if they were considered to be Zionists.

Two weeks before the students occupied Hamilton Hall, police were called to break up the Columbia encampments. 100 protesters were arrested. However, the encampments were quickly rebuilt, and the university continued to discuss and negotiate with the students.

Columbia’s president had said fully divesting from Israel wasn’t going to happen and instead offered to invest in health and education within Gaza and make all of the endowment’s direct investments more transparent. The protesters refused the offer, and negotiations ceased.

Soon after the negotiations failed, a group of protesters broke windows to access Hamilton Hall and barricaded themselves inside. After refusing to leave, the university president requested that police remove the protesters from the building the following night.

Fortunately, unlike the Kent State protests over the Vietnam War, where 4 students were killed by the National Guard, no protester was killed or seriously injured during the arrests and clearing of the hall Tuesday evening.

The police gave exits for protesters, did not use tear gas, and deployed methods to clear the area without escalation.

This wasn’t the first time Hamilton Hall had been targeted by students seeking to see the university divest. In 1985, students chained the hall's doors shut from the outside and camped out on the front steps. Their protest sought to have Columbia fully divest from companies connected with South Africa due to apartheid.

In that case, students had been pushing for the change for years, but it was a much more specific change, and they didn’t vandalize the building. The result was that the University ended up divesting from South Africa months after the protests.

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Nationwide public sentiment has been largely opposed to the Gaza war protests happening across the country, much like how the Vietnam War campus protests had been condemned in the late 1960s.

The muddied messaging, extremist outliers dominating the media focus, vandalism, and fights breaking out on campuses haven’t endeared the public to their cause.

That is why it is all the more unfortunate that the Brown University protests have been little more than a footnote mentioned as an aside in media coverage. The difference in approach and the subsequent result are important narratives for the nation to hear and for protesters to understand.

The success of protests isn’t just about the cause itself. Equally important is how the protesters conduct themselves.

These lessons are important for the ongoing protests at other campuses, such as UCLA, where fights have been happening between protesters and counter-protesters. Where harassment and extreme slogans have been growing. And where police have now been attempting to disperse the group with rubber bullets.

Protesters who understand the importance of maintaining a peaceful calm environment are far more likely to find success than those who destroy property, intimidate other students, or fight to resist police.

Whether you support these protests or condemn them, it is important to remember that what we’re seeing on campuses across the country is a result of young Americans who are unhappy with what is happening in the world.

They see bloodshed, terror, suffering, oppression, and they want it to end. Their approach may not be the most productive, and their messaging may be flawed, but their goal is, at its core, an attempt at making the world a better place.

That doesn’t absolve them of their crimes or protect them from arrests. But the least we can do is attempt to understand why they’re protesting and have a dialogue about the war in Gaza, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.