Columbia fundraising falls by nearly 30% following pro-Palestine protests
Columbia University's recent “Giving Day” fundraiser saw a significant drop in donations, raising 30% less than in previous years.
This decline follows pro-Palestinian protests on campus, with some students calling for the eradication of Western civilization and criticizing Israel's actions.
Columbia University recently held its annual “Giving Day” fundraiser, which received 30% less funds than it had in previous years following the significant pro-Hamas protests at the school.
Specifically, the university raised around $21.3 million, which represented a 28.8% decline in funds compared to 2022, according to The Columbia Spectator.
The university also experienced a 27.9% drop in the number of donations, representing the lowest total in that category that the school has experienced since 2015.
The decrease in funding comes in the wake of pro-Palestine protests and demonstrations at the school.
“We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,” a group of anti-Israel Columbia students has stated, according to The Daily Wire. “We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one—we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people. We reject every genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized.”
”As the fascism ingrained in the American consciousness becomes ever more explicit and irrefutable, we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South, who have been on the frontlines in the fight against tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order,” the group continued.
The interim president of Columbia University, Katrina Armstrong, previously gave an apology to the pro-Palestine demonstrators who erected an encampment on the university’s Morningside Heights campus earlier this year.
Specifically, Armstrong apologized for the university administration’s decision to call in law enforcement to break up the encampment.
“I know that this is tricky for me to say, but I do understand that I sit in this job, right. And so if you could just let everybody know who was hurt by that, that I’m just incredibly sorry,” Armstrong said. “And I know it wasn’t me, but I’m really sorry. … I saw it, and I’m really sorry.”
Anti-Israel student demonstrators at Columbia held an ‘All Out for Lebanon’ protest in late September, demanding that the university divest from companies that have connections to Israel.
“The time for action is NOW,” the anti-Israel student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest stated online. “We cannot succumb to neoliberal apathy, sit scared, or remain silent as we near one year of an exponentially intensifying genocide (that Columbia invests in, profits off of, and abets). . . . Wear a mask. Wear your keffiyeh. Bring a friend.”
Campus Reform has contacted Columbia University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
