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Columbia Protesters Break into Building; Two Columbia Students Interviewed about Protests; Lawsuit Filed against Columbia University. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 30, 2024 - 06:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:31:29]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, welcome back. We're going to get back to our breaking story.

Campus protests sharply escalating overnight. Student protesters smashing windows after storming a historic academic building at Columbia University. They have now barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall. On the outside, a human chain. Witnesses say over 200 protestors holding the line, standing guard outside.

As this has been unfolding, we also have this live video from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. It looks like they're kind of heading out of what was a very active scene. Protesters there clashing with police just moments ago. Several people arrested.

Our panel is back. And Elliot Williams also joins us.

Let's pick up the conversation that we were having.

David Urban, you had been making - you'd been kind of talking about what this means for students, for the country. And I know, Karen, you were about to respond to what he had to say.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, just - you know, one of the things that watching this that is so - it's just heartbreaking is, this could have been, and still is I hope in some communities, an opportunity to have a real conversation about what's happening here. Why is the - you know, what's happening in Gaza? What is the dynamic between the Palestinians and the Israelis? And how do we have, you know, a respectful debate? And, unfortunately - and I'll just say, when - and when I was in high school it was about, you know, apartheid. And on Berkeley campus, on UC Berkeley, it was pretty peaceful. And there was actually sort of an internal policing of, you're getting away from our message about anti-apartheid and a, you know, a feeling of, you know, the violence would take away from that.

And I think David made a great point that we may not focus on the little boy who they're trying to talk about here and instead -

HUNT: Little girl, yes. FINNEY: Little girl. I'm so sorry.

HUNT: No, yes.

FINNEY: Intifada and breaking windows, which is not free speech, right?

HUNT: Right.

FINNEY: That is not about -

HUNT: Well, we should note, this building was also occupied during apartheid.

FINNEY: Yes, it was.

HUNT: During that - that period that you're talking about.

Elliot Williams, they have been trying very hard not to bring in police to avoid escalating things with the protesters. Do they have that choice now?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: They always have the choice. It is when laws are being violated though, of course, they, you know, police have a duty, an obligation to step in. The problem is that Columbia is - or universities are semi-autonomous states. It's private property. But they still are subject to the laws of the state of New York. And if, for instance, people are trespassing on the campus, police can come in. If crimes are being committed, people can come in. And crimes can be in the form of threats or assaults or anything else.

The problem is that, as we were talking about yesterday on the program as well, there's this muddy line between what counts as speech and debate and the marketplace of ideas and what counts as assault and threats. And there are assaults and threats happening here, but there's also probably a lot of legitimate speech.

HUNT: David Urban, we also have been kind of talking about young people - the generational divide that is starkly on display here, right?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

HUNT: You were talking about your experience in the wake of 9/11. That was - Karen, you had apartheid. For - for me it was the September 11th attacks were kind of my coming of age moment.

We have seen comedians, commentators come talk about the generational divide.

[06:35:00]

I mean this is kind of a tale as old as time, but the differences in our media do make it visible in different ways.

Here was Bill Maher. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": Small matters when activism merges with narcissism. Less about the cause and more about me. Look at me. Watch me. And if you like the way I'm fighting injustice, remember to like and subscribe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: David.

URBAN: Yes, look, I mean, I think it's (INAUDIBLE) that these kids who are chanting these chants at - I wonder if half the kids on - who are protesting really understand what they're protesting and what it means.

I've been to Gaza. I've been to Gaza City. I visited Gaza City when I was Arlen Specter's chief of staff with Yasser Arafat when there was going to - in the late '90s and they were going to build an airport and a casino. It's the same beach. Gaza has the same beach as Tel Aviv. It could be a complete -

HUNT: It is beautiful.

URBAN: It could be a completely different place than it is today. And those are choices that are made by the Palestinian people and by the leadership, by Hamas, right?

FINNEY: Right.

URBAN: That's what I'm saying. So, Hamas took over, right? They elected Hamas. And they went a completely different direction. So, I don't - if these - if these kids knew the history, if they took a second to understand the history, what's behind this, maybe they'd have a different perspective.

FINNEY: But, David, remember, one of the things I was saying at the break was that some of the students themselves, in their - in different reporting were saying that some of the people who are the most violent or seem to be chanting the most violent (ph) were actually not fellow student. And so that's the other thing.

URBAN: Right. But to your point -

FINNEY: That as we tease it out - I'm just - let me - you know, that there may be students who are trying to do peaceful protests, who think that's what they're there to do and there may be - we saw it happened with some of the BLM protests and we've seen outside actors come in and co-opt some of these movements.

URBAN: But to your - but to your point about you, and your -

FINNEY: I'd like to know.

URBAN: Your point and your colleagues when you were at Berkeley -

FINNEY: Yes.

URBAN: You were able to do that peacefully. You - were you able to police it? Why can't these kids do that?

HUNT: Well, and again, we should note, this is a historic - and we've been showing video from 1968 of this very building on Columbia University's campus, which is part of why this has some resonance.

Evan Osnos, though, I want to pick up on the generational thing that we're talking about here and kind of what this means. James Carville, who you may remember -

OSNOS: I do.

HUNT: Definitely a different generation from the kids that are protesting. He was talking kind of broadly about the election because, of course, this very, very difficult for President Biden to negotiate, especially among young voters. This is one of the main issues that's creating that generational divide.

But here was Carville over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CARVILLE, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: But that's all right you little (EXPLETIVE DELETED) 26-year-old. You don't feel like the elections (INAUDIBLE). They're not addressing the issues that I care about.

So, my advice to tell these young people, to get off your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) and go vote because you should vote like your entire future and the entire future of this United States depends on it, because, quite frankly, it does. And that's not an exaggeration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

URBAN: And get off my lawn.

FINNEY: Yes, get off my lawn.

EVAN OSNOS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, that was testing how long the beep is actually cable of going.

HUNT: Yes.

WILLIAMS: And how many words can fit under one beep. That was (INAUDIBLE).

OSNOS: You know what's notable about that, as a lot of people here know, James Carville has been very critical of the Biden administration's approach to the selection. He is now saying very clearly, look, the time for that kind of debate is over. If you care about what the future of this country it looks like and you are a Democrat, it's time to get behind Joe Biden.

FINNEY: But can I just ask, when was the last time James Carville won an election? I think I was there in 1992. I don't know how many he's won since. And that is part of why he is not a spokesperson for anybody these days because that's - you know, that's clearly not going to resonate with anybody.

URBAN: Well, it resonates - I - it resonates with people of James Carville's vintage -

FINNEY: Vintage is the right words.

URBAN: And - and - and in Louisiana, I'm sure.

HUNT: Who, frankly, vote in larger numbers typically than young people.

URBAN: I think they do, right? And his message is not - you know, his message is pretty - is actually the base, right? It's, look, if you want to really affect change, don't be sitting in a tent on Columbia's campus. Organize and vote, because that's how change occurs in our country.

WILLIAMS: The only - the only question I have for you to that score is that the argument of, well, do you really understand what you're protesting? I bet variants of that were said in the '60s and '70s.

FINNEY: Yes.

WILLIAMS: And so now that's not to - and I don't want to equate the two.

FINNEY: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Vietnam is - was - people's lives were at stake in a way that -

HUNT: I was going to say, the draft made that so different.

WILLIAMS: I - no, no, no, I -

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: But continue.

WILLIAMS: No, no, no, but - but the mere point of another generation saying these folks protesting don't really know what they're doing. Now, it might be counterproductive and they might be committing crimes and having these interlopers from outside in New York City stepping onto the campus and messing things up for everybody. But the notion that merely by protesting, you know, we, as the grown-ups wagging our fingers at them, I just don't know.

URBAN: No, I like - the only -

HUNT: When did I turn into one of those people.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

URBAN: The only reason I say that is because I've seen some anecdotal like footage -

WILLIAMS: Oh, yes.

URBAN: Of people asking the kids, like, what are you here for?

WILLIAMS: (INAUDIBLE).

HUNT: Yes.

URBAN: And they're like, what - what are you here for exactly?

WILLIAMS: Now.

URBAN: Right. And so that just shows it's anecdotal, but I imagine that it's - that's more widespread than suspect.

WILLIAMS: But the blessing that - 100 percent. The blessing and the curse of the age we live in and the - and the subscribe and like age is that you can take a moment like that, where someone gets called out for sounding like an idiot and make it into a viral video that implies that all of these people don't know what they're doing.

[06:40:10]

Again, I hear you.

HUNT: (INAUDIBLE). Last thought.

OSNOS: Karen mentioned a Harvard poll earlier, which is really interesting. It gives you an insight into the attitudes and the priorities of young voters. And what you hear is, at the top of the list are things like abortion, things like immigration, the economy, inflation. Gaza's in there, but it's not at the top of the list.

URBAN: Yes. No.

HUNT: Well, and, you know, in that poll, and I saw this - and I'll have to ask our folks to maybe dig it up, they asked the ceasefire question in two ways.

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: One was that, you know, do you - do you support a ceasefire? And it was overwhelming, yes. But then they asked, do you support a ceasefire if Hamas still controls Gaza and the hostage have not been released? And the number changes dramatically.

OSNOS: Yes. Well, we're going to talk more about what's happening. We're right on the cusp of potentially an important moment in these ceasefire negotiations. So, I think, you know, this issue is something that people care about. But what we're seeing on television does not really tell us about what the attitudes are broadly speaking among young people. We try to put those two things in some balance.

HUNT: The Biden administration needs that ceasefire probably more than ever this morning. OK, coming up here, we're going to have more of our breaking news

coverage of the protesters at Columbia University now occupying an historic building on campus. Two Columbia students are going to join us to talk about what they've witnessed on campus.

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[06:45:41]

HUNT: All right, breaking news overnight, campus protests escalating. Protesters at Columbia University smashing windows and barricading themselves inside an historic academic building.

Joining me now are two Columbia University students, Jessica Schwalb and Jonas Du.

Thank you both very much for being here.

Jessica, let me start with you. What have you been seeing on campus over the past several hours and how does it make you feel as a student?

JESSCIA SCHWALB, COLUMBIA STUDENT: I've heard a lot of violent rhetoric, such as resistance by any means, or glory to our martyrs, or brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel will fall. So these are seemingly genocidal chants. So that instills a lot of fear in myself and along with my Jewish friends, many of whom have decided not even to come to campus and are using the virtual option of classes and finals.

And just a few hours ago I witnessed the walls - or the windows of Hamilton Hall, where I actually had a class just on Monday, bashed in and the doors barricaded. And a student who is trying to stop this mob from continuing to barricade these doors assaulted by multiple pro- Palestinian protesters or mobsters, as now they have shown themselves to be, and shoved out of the way and called a Zionist. And I was almost part of that corralled of a human chain, but I decided to jump over a table.

But, you know, this student was physically assaulted. And when my friends called the NYPD, they called public safety, there was just silence on their end.

HUNT: Wow.

Jonas, can you help us understand your perspective, what you've experienced, but also a little bit more about this building, it's kind of centrality to the campus and what it means to have it taken over.

JONAS DU, COLUMBIA STUDENT: Yes. I definitely echo Jessica's sentiments about just the overall feeling of being unsafe. And especially as a student journalist trying to cover these protests, being there right in front of the barricades, they are there moving these heavy metal tables, flipping them over on themselves. A lot of the times carelessly. You know, a lot of journalists, a lot of press people, a lot of photographers were awfully close. And I was really afraid that they were going to seriously injure someone with something that heavy.

But in terms of Hamilton Hall, this is a very significant piece of infrastructure at Columbia. This is where the famous 1968 student protests over the Vietnam War took place. Then, student protesters took over Hamilton Hall. They occupied it for days on end. They locked the dean in his office. And, actually, this is still where the dean of Columbia college has his office today.

So, this is a very significant building. It's also where the center for the core curriculum is. And that's the sort of academic cornerstone of the Columbia college experience.

So, there's a reason why they chose this building to do it. And make no mistake, that they are trying to continue the student activism of the 1960s and the 1980s. And they see it as, you know, one in the same.

HUNT: Jessica, you are Jewish yourself and there was, of course, the warning that Jewish students should go home from a rabbi affiliated with Columbia. These protesters, these occupiers have unfurled a banner that says intifada on the outside of the building. Can I just ask you you're reaction to that and how you have felt about your own safety as a Jewish student?

SCHWALB: Yes, I mean the word intifada, if you'll ask a pro- Palestinian protester, they'll say, well, it just means revolution. And they might even want to interchange it with the American intifada instead of the American revolution. But the intifada really involved suicide bombings and a lot of terrorism. And so to use that interchangeably, its - it's just incorrect.

And if you'll talk to someone who is from Israel, if someone comes up to you and says, we want to globalize the intifada, that means one thing, I was told, and that means they want to kill you. And so for students to just go around chanting that very, very inflammatory word, it's - it's terrifying for me to hear. I'm not Israeli, but for my Israeli friends, it is extremely scary. And like I said, a lot of them have chosen to not even come to campus or to really restrict their time on campus because they are afraid for their safety.

[06:50:07]

They're afraid to wear their Star of David necklaces out. But that's the other side of it is, if we do decide to leave and heed the warnings of the Hillel rabbi, who wants - who encouraged students who don't feel comfortable on campus to leave, then we reward their scare tactics and we give them what they want. So, the other side of the coin is, we stay on campus with this fear within our chest, but we can't let them when essentially.

HUNT: Jonas, the university had been trying to de-escalate this because there, of course, had been an incident where the police were called to try to clear it. It seems to escalate the situation and there was an effort to try to de-escalate. We've showed people reports this morning from a student who was on scene who said they called the police, they called the public safety, they couldn't get any help. In your view, what are the options that the university has and what effect would calling police in to try to address this have on what's going on, on the ground?

DU: So, what the university did over the last couple days was actually send daily updates to students saying, were actually going to negotiate with these protesters. We're going to negotiate with the students that are, you know, camping illegally on the lawns and we're going to listen to their demands and then try to reach a compromise with them. Now they're - you know, a lot of students have mixed feelings about this. A lot of people feel that we shouldn't be negotiating with people who violate university rules.

But the fact of the matter is, the university did, and then they realized that the demands of these protesters are just completely unreasonable. Their most important demand is divestment completely from Israel, which means, you know, companies like Google, companies like Amazon that do business in Israel, they want all of that divested. And, you know, Columbia can't actually do that because then they would lose all of their contracts and all of their financial aid from the New York state government under - under an executive order.

So, you know, we're in this situation where they have impossible demands. The university has realized that. And so they said, OK, we've tried negotiation. That doesn't work. And that's why they're now escalating and that's why they're now trying to occupy the halls and, you know, be not so peaceful in their protests.

HUNT: Jessica, what will it mean if commencement is affected by what's going on here because that is, you know, central to the attempts to clear the encampment is so that the class of 2024 can enjoy the celebration of everything that they've accomplished in their time.

SCHWALB: I think sort of like what I was saying before, if the university continues to indulge these negotiations that, like Jonas said, are quite impossible to satisfy, then we're just continuing to reward their very belligerent and tonight violent behavior. And it's - it's lawless on campus right now. And there's an udder lack of enforcement of campus policy and disregard for any of the other students who may not even have a clue of what's going on in the Middle East right now and they shouldn't be suffering.

And I was speaking to a friend whose parents are from South Korea. And if they're coming in, they want to be able to see their son walk across the stage. And if this mob decides to continue to be relentless, which I'm sure they will continue to be, there's many people who will suffer just because of them.

HUNT: All right, Jessica Schwalb, Jonas Du, thank you very much for spending some time with us this morning. I really appreciate it.

DU: Thank you.

SCHWALB: Thank you.

HUNT: All right, this just in to CNN. University officials at Portland State have asked police to come to campus to remove dozens of protesters who've broken into the university's library. Up to 75 protesters started occupying that building late last night. Campus officers have tried to get into the library, but they were not able to get inside. We are working on trying to get more and some pictures on that for you.

But we also want to go to this because at Columbia the university is now facing a lawsuit over how they've handled these pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. An anonymous Jewish students filed the suit yesterday alleging that the university is failing to provide a safe learning environment for students. The lawsuit is seeking class action status. And it takes particular issue with the decision by Columbia to go to a hybrid learning model last week amid unrest on campus. The suit states this, quote, "the segregation of Jewish students is a dangerous development that can quickly escalate into more severe acts of violence and discrimination." Columbia declined to comment.

Our panel is back.

Elliot, let me start with you on just trying to get some perspective on what this means and whether - you know, what kind of standing that this person has.

WILLIAMS: Sure. So, it's a class action just like would be filed against, whether it's a tobacco company or a toxic waste company or whatever else. It's a sign - it's a suggestion that one person can represent the interests of other people against the same defendant.

Now, the question here - and it's interesting how they wrote it because it's not just on behalf of Jewish students, it's on behalf of all students who went virtual.

[06:55:05]

Now, in the argument - in the case they say that Jewish students predominantly went virtual because of the fact that they were the ones who felt scared, although the university gave everybody the chance to go virtual. I just think - the one problem I see with the suit, and it's a very clever lawsuit. The one problem though is, how do you define who the class is and how do you make a case that going virtual itself brought all of the problems that they say it did because of the fact that, number one, a number of classes in the university probably had virtual exams all semester anyway, because that's the world we live in. And number two, so many people lived in an all-virtual environment a couple of years ago.

HUNT: Yes.

WILLIAMS: How can we say now today that you're irreparably harmed?

HUNT: Well, except we do know that it was worse, right? The virtual environment is worse than the in-person environment.

WILLIAMS: Without question. However, lots of environments are still virtual today. And for the purpose of winning a lawsuit -

HUNT: I see.

WILLIAMS: It just muddies your argument a little bit. But they were harmed.

HUNT: Right.

WILLIAMS: They are saying that we can't go to class. We suffered on account of who we are. We suffer disproportionately as a group because we're the ones that went virtual, therefore we're missing out on graduation. And even the experience of taking an exam in a room they say is something.

HUNT: Yes. Well, I mean, and, Evan, I think the sort of politics of it, not - not on Elliot's square ground, but this idea that it lets the university off the hook, right, because they are saying, well, you can do it virtually. It's fine. We don't have to take action here, right?

OSNOS: Well, you've seen - the university has been negotiating. Those negotiations broke down yesterday. That was an important step in what happened now because it's not as if the university has been saying, look, we don't want to engage this seriously.

Look, I think where this is headed is, there is law on the question of how and when can you use your free speech rights. It comes down to time and place and manner. You have to do it in a way where you're not putting the people that you're putting people in a position of feeling intimidated or unsafe or obstructed from going about their lives. There has to be a way to be able to have a legitimate speech right but not do it in a way that's putting the rest of the university at odds this way.

HUNT: Right. Well, in these protests also, I think, have - you know, we see pictures of them. But when you go through one, I did recently, they have a very intense feeling where you can quickly - they - if they're not - if it's not straight up harassment, it sure borders on it. It is not - you know, I've covered a lot of protests in my career and these have a quality to them that has more of an edge.

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: Karen, the president is going to have to say something about this, or at least he's going to come under a lot of pressure to say something about this.

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: After, you know, Karine Jean-Pierre yesterday kind of - and in fairness the timing of that was such that Columbia seemed to, you know, be having some success with getting people to leave this encampment, et cetera.

FINNEY: Right.

HUNT: The state of the situation has changed. What should the president say? FINNEY: Well, number one, I think he's got to go back and affirm the

value that everybody deserves an education, right, and then everybody deserves to feel safe. All of the students, all of the faculty, all of the people who work there, right? That that is a top - has to be a top priority.

And then I think he has got too, if he hasn't already - if they haven't already, what is the intelligence that we've - and I don't mean that in a intel way, but what are we hearing from the campuses and what can be done?

HUNT: Right.

FINNEY: What should be done? And, you know, when these - I suggested last week was, reaching out to these campuses and saying, what do you need? What do you need to get this resolved? What do you need to shut this down? Working - again, it's with mayors and governors. But I think he's going to need to be seen as taking some action. But again, I think for - it is for a president to reaffirm our core values.

WILLIAMS: One of the arguments in the lawsuit is that it's against the university for not - for doing everything, just as Evan was saying, everything you negotiate with the people who are protesting, but not seeking out and helping the needs of Jewish students and sort of not sort of divert -

OSNOS: Well -

FINNEY: And, by the way, not helping - this is not helping the Palestinian people, by the way.

WILLIAMS: Right.

URBAN: I would just say this real quickly. In the campuses that we've seen to date where police show up immediately, students are dispersed, you don't have this Columbia situation, right? You don't have people taking over. At UT, you know, you kind of despaired, you know, Abbott a little bit there. That was squelched. You could - people were protesting -

HUNT: Well, we saw - we saw more arrests yesterday.

URBAN: Yes, they're protesting.

FINNEY: Yes.

URBAN: But nobody's occupied buildings.

FINNEY: Yet.

URBAN: You know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. That's kind of the rule here. Hey, you do something dumb, you get zip cuffed and put in a car. And I guarantee you that the - these crazy, crazy things and breaking into buildings don't occur. You don't let it get to that flash mob kind of scene, right? You nip it in the bud. There's a time and place you can protest. Everybody - it's well-established, First Amendment law.

FINNEY: Right.

URBAN: You can go across the street, protest in a certain area and be as loud as you want, as long as you want, but you can't disrupt the world.

HUNT: Evan.

OSNOS: Yes, we're seeing the outlines emerging of how the White House is thinking about it. They are not saying in a blanket way that you can't protest. But what they are saying very clearly is, when this gets into the realm of anti-Semitism -

FINNEY: Right.

HUNT: Hate speech, yes.

OSNOS: As they said about a case, a student at Columbia, who's been banned from campus for saying vile things, saying that Zionists deserve to die, they said that turns the stomach and it has no place in America.

[07:00:05]

WILLIAMS: You see that -

OSNOS: So, that's a line that the White House is willing to draw.

HUNT: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Videos of breaking windows are another one that right off the bat we have evidence now.

FINNEY: That's violence. I hear you.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HUNT: And we have also seen these protesters today chanting from the river to the sea, hanging the intifada banner. We are in very troubling territory this morning.

Thank you so much for being with us this morning as we have been covering this breaking news out of Columbia University and protests across the country. Our breaking news is going to continue here on CNN. Don't go anywhere. I'm Kasie Hunt. CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.