AAADS/IRAAS STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF STUDENTS

The Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, and Institute for Research in African American Studies stand with our students who face arrest, suspension, and police harassment for expressing their constitutional rights of assembly and speech on their campus.

We condemn the reprehensible choice to militarize our shared campus by inviting the intervention of the New York Police Department. This constitutes an unconscionable threat to both free speech and public safety. The university president and leadership must engage student protesters. The NYPD must be immediately uninvited.

Suspended students must be reinstated, suspensions revoked, and disciplinary records of sanctioned students must be expunged.

Columbia University
African American & African Diaspora Studies Department (AAADS)
Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS)