The end of Columbia's 'free speech campus' myth: Administration's descent into identity politics diminishes real political discourse

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During this latest round of extreme violence in historical Palestine and Israel, the story of the battle for Columbia’s conscience started with undergraduates. Naturally, this meant engaging in protest, a crucial role in any social movement that undergraduates do best. We graduate students at the School of International and Public Affairs were not so quick to start there. We did something different—we talked to each other first. After October 7, SIPA’s cohort WhatsApp group chats exploded with conversation—sometimes civil, sometimes tense, and everything in between. As I participated in the discussion and watched my classmates debate, it became apparent that Columbia needed to give students a space to engage with each other, and that it was not doing its job when it came to the issue of Israel and Palestine.