Irie Sentner is a senior at Columbia University and an intern and incoming fellow at POLITICO. NIGHTMARE ON 116TH STREET — As I write this, I am eating lunch with a professor whose class I have not attended in two weeks. In fact, I haven’t attended any classes at all since April 17, the day pro-Palestinian student demonstrators pitched tents on a campus lawn and declared it the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. There’s only one thing we can discuss. His Hamilton Hall office had been forcibly entered hours earlier by New York Police Department officers. Here, at Columbia University, we’re in the eye of the hurricane, and the world’s attention is trained on the protests that are tearing our campus apart. In recent days, I have watched the NYPD march onto my campus twice and arrest nearly 230 protesters, many of whom are classmates and friends. Last night, I watched students link arms in front of Hamilton’s entrances and sing “we will not be moved,” some crying, in anticipation of officers’ forceful entry. And then I watched the police push them to the ground and throw barricades on top of them. My senior spring was supposed to be a time to relax and recharge. I had completed my yearlong tenure as editor in chief and president of the Columbia Daily Spectator — a role in which I worked upwards of 60 hours per week — and I was excited to have the time to actually engage with my classes while celebrating senior traditions with my friends. Instead, the campus has been caught in a crossfire — between student protesters demanding the university divest from Israel and the administrators contending with them; between the interests of wealthy donors and the university; between academia and Washington lawmakers, including those who grilled Columbia President Minouche Shafik during a congressional hearing hours after the encampment began. The demonstrations at Columbia have led to a movement that’s spread throughout the city, country and globe. On a more personal level, it’s made for a surreal experience, a bracing reminder not only of the stakes involved in the conflict but of the many forces that are shaping it. When House Speaker Mike Johnson stood on the same steps on which I have spent many a sunny day and called on President Shafik to resign, I couldn’t believe this was reality. When I received a push notification from the New York Times about a vote by Columbia’s University Senate, I giggled, texting the beat reporter on the student paper I’d once assigned to cover that governing body. As a POLITICO reporter and a student who, before Tuesday, had 24/7 campus access, I’ve spent almost all of my time over the past two weeks covering the unfolding events at my school, watching my senior spring fly past. April 18 was scheduled to be “Surf, Turf and Earth,” a Columbia tradition where the dining halls serve steak and lobster. But that was the day of the first mass-arrests, and no one had much of an appetite, so I ate the meal cold, in my dorm room. I missed the senior cruise on April 25 — I stayed to cover a major pro-Israel protest with sightings of Proud Boys outside the gates. Yesterday’s formal senior dinner? That was canceled, and deans sent a shelter-in-place order instead. It’s led to a grim sense of humor, particularly among those of us chronicling the turmoil. Last night, as I stood outside occupied Hamilton Hall next to a team of Spectator reporters, we all got the same push notification — a reminder to go to an annual end-of-year formal, a celebration of graduating seniors with an open bar and tearful goodbyes. We laughed, then turned our attention back to our reporting. This morning, I walked around the campus where I have spent the last four years. Much of it was unrecognizable. Police gathered in small groups on the central street, and Columbia Public Safety officers guarded the fields where the commencement tents typically stand. It was a warm day, but not a single person sat on the lawns. Finals week is fast approaching, but not a single library was open. Many undergraduates and almost all faculty had been barred from campus anyway. Some students wheeled the contents of their dorm rooms out through the security checkpoint. There was no reason to stay. In less than two weeks I will graduate, becoming the first person in my family to receive an undergraduate degree. My parents and grandparents are flying in from Colorado and Florida. Yet it’s still far from clear that commencement will actually happen. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at isentner@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @iriesentner .
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