Columbia University students plan encampments, sources say

A group of protesters is planning to set up tent encampments on Columbia University campuses this week in protest of the war in Gaza, according to three people familiar with the planning and a recording of a meeting to plan the action shared with NBC News, writes Matt Lavietes.

The planned encampments come just over a year after students first erected about 50 tents on a university lawn to protest the war and drew the world’s attention. Those demonstrations, in part, fuelled the Trump administration’s effort to extract concessions from Columbia, saying the university failed to quell antisemitism on its campus.

Planning for the encampments has been shrouded in secrecy. The coordinating meeting took place at a community centre on Tuesday night in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighbourhood, approximately 12 miles from campus, according to screenshots of Signal messages from organisers and a person who was at the meeting. Invitations for the meeting were largely distributed in person or verbally over the phone, according to the person who attended the meeting and asked not to be named due to fears of discipline from the school.
Full report on the NBC News site