This past Thursday, a whole 45 students showed up for the inaugural meeting of Columbia’s newest organization, Columbia Against Trump — a group which will seek “to take action against the Trump presidency.”
The Columbia Spectator reports the group “is a combined effort of various student activist groups on campus, such as Columbia Divest for Climate Justice, and Graduate Workers of Columbia.”
At the meeting, representatives from these groups spoke about “values they felt were in jeopardy” such as “hate crimes, workers’ rights, climate change, and protection of undocumented students.”
Student Ruby Kinney was pumped about the new club: “I’m out here today because I feel very strongly about the election and equally as strongly about the power that the student and faculty body, and Columbia as an island, has,” she said.
But … what can the group actually do? Well, its members touted “pressuring the administrators to take on a bigger role by mobilizing students and faculty” as a “major solution.”
Um … right.
In the weeks following the election, administrators have made some moves in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. University President Lee Bollinger has stated that Columbia will be a sanctuary campus and will provide more financial aid to undocumented students. He has also publicly condemned Trump’s presidency as a threat to the University.
But the group hopes to continue to encourage action from both administrators and their peers.
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“We’re a group that is all about action; we are action-oriented. It is a solidarity network, but we’re really based on action,” Sumaya Awad, a visiting student from Williams College at Columbia College, said. …
Overall, the conclusion and general consensus of the meeting was that the correct response to Trump’s presidency will be to mobilize and actively join together as a community. One student from the audience openly expressed her willingness to take action by saying that she was ready to “[kick] into action immediately.”
Student Jada Young added, “We have no choice but to act together. All of us are under attack—what we need to do is utilize solidarity.”
Wow. All this ambiguity makes one wonder if the group isn’t merely going to be a regularly gathering confab of complaint … and “safe space.”
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