The Ivy League experience: Genocide and the ivory tower

As I type this, I fear I might get another disciplinary notice from Columbia’s Orwellian Office of Institutional Equity. As I have learned from <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/04/22/office-of-institutional-equity-investigates-palestinian-activists-following-spectator-op-ed/" rel="">past experience</a>, Spectator op-eds are now grounds for disciplinary action. My last two years at Columbia were deeply traumatic for both me and my peers. We have witnessed the ongoing <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/07/25/chris-hedges-gaza-famine-starvation/" rel="">mass starvation</a> of our friends and family members in Gaza at an educational institution where some individuals seek to <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/06/07/columbia-law-review-student-editors-to-strike-after-directors-intervene-with-article-on-nakba/" rel="">erase Palestinian existence</a>. Although my experiences pale in comparison to Palestinians in Gaza, I cannot help but think about the shared willingness of those in power to destroy educational institutions and attack intellectual life. What has been done to Gaza—the <a href="https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6472/Amid-the-ongoing-genocide,-Euro-Med-Monitor-documents-the-most-prominent-mass-graves-in-Gaza" rel="">mass graves</a>, the bombing of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israeli-strikes-kill-at-least-72-people-in-gaza-including-children-in-tents-relatives-say" rel="">refugee tents</a>, and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/14/gaza-israelis-attacking-known-aid-worker-locations" rel="">the attacks on aid workers</a>—will be felt for generations.

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