Columbia punished our kids for protesting against the genocide in Gaza. We condemn the university’s cowardice

Students sit on the front steps of Low Memorial Library on the Columbia University campus in New York City on 10 February 2023. Photograph: Ted Shaffrey/AP

By now, 23 million American college and university students will mostly be back on campus. Undergraduates have stuffed suitcases and crammed one more thing into already bursting backpacks, and moved into dorm rooms and apartments. Graduate students have scrambled to prepare for seminars and their work in classrooms and laboratories and started the new academic year.

But not our children.