Jessica Costescu and Jessica Schwalb write for the Washington Free Beacon about the latest questionable demands from one group of Ivy League students.
Columbia University’s student union has been in a yearlong contract dispute with the Ivy League school, demanding everything from massive raises to dismantling ties to Israel. The union is also demanding an article protecting so-called academic freedom, which the union suggests could prohibit disciplinary action against teaching assistants who bring their political activism into the classroom.
The academic freedom article was crafted by the Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) in February and has not been previously reported. It states that “Student Employees … have the right to address the larger Columbia and global community with regard to any matter of social, political, economic, or other interest, without institutional discipline” and “will not be disciplined for extramural activity that would normally be covered under First Amendment principles.”
In particular, SWC wants to give teaching assistants free rein to continue demonizing Israel in the classroom. An SWC member identified as “FT” said the problem the union is “trying to solve” is “talking about Palestine in the classroom” and added that what “we have seen in the last few years is the university abuse speech in our workplace,” according to a transcript of the March 9 bargaining session, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
“That is why we are firmly saying that we want these legal protections, and for that to be the basis through which we understand acceptable speech,” he said.
Another member, “JP,” shared an “actual story” involving “someone terminated” and described a teaching assistant who faced disciplinary action after making “references to Palestinian astronomers in their lab assignments.”
“We want to protect against discipline in those situations. That is our intention with this article,” he added.
JP was likely referring to a teaching assistant who added lab notes to an astronomy class session that read, “As we watch genocide unfold in Gaza, it is also important to tell the story of Palestinians outside of being the subjects of a military occupation,” the Columbia Spectator reported in January 2025.
