Columbia, City College protesters split on Manhattan DA's offer to drop charges -- with strings attached
Published in News & Features
NEW YORK — More pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University and the City University of New York may see charges dismissed by the Manhattan district attorney’s office — if they avoid arrest and complete mandatory programming.
Five people arrested at City College, CUNY’s Harlem campus, during an April 30 police raid accepted the DA’s offers Thursday that would drop their burglary cases if they attend a free, three-hour class and stay out of trouble with the law for the next six months — including at any protest or demonstration.
The training includes “learning what constitutes peaceful, legal protesting” and the impact their actions had on CCNY and the surrounding neighborhood, according to Doug Cohen, a spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
But eight protesters at City College turned down deals in Manhattan Criminal Court, including a staff member at CUNY’s Guttman College — passing their cases along to a grand jury for indictment, the DA’s office said.
Another 14 protesters who were arrested at Columbia — and included two students at the university or its affiliated colleges — accepted Bragg’s offer, first extended in June.
The deals were made “after a careful review of the evidence in this case, including the limited video evidence, and taking into consideration the fact that the charges did not include any allegations of violence; the defendant’s age; and lack of a criminal history,” prosecutors said.
“The case can be restored if the defendant gets rearrested in the next six months,” they added. “If that offer is not accepted today, it will not be reoffered.”
The DA’s office had already dismissed cases last month against 31 students and staff at Columbia and its affiliated colleges, and nine at CUNY. Many continue to face disciplinary action at their respective schools.
While the decision faced blowback from some Jewish groups — and even former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — a group of influential Black New York leaders rallied behind Bragg and condemned the disgraced official’s recent op-ed in The Forward, the New York Daily News previously reported. In a radio interview, Mayor Eric Adams, who had been critical of the antiwar campus protests, said of Bragg: “I respect his decision.”
On Thursday, dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters clad in keffiyehs and face masks packed the rooms and halls of Manhattan Criminal Court, calling on Bragg to drop all the charges. Almost all of the remaining defendants were not current students or staff at Columbia or CUNY.
In rejecting the deals, CUNY protesters, in a joint statement, condemned what they viewed as an attempt to divide them as “good” or “bad” protesters, while continuing to call for an end to the war in Gaza and the Israeli state.
“The division of our group has nothing to do with our actions,” the group wrote, “but is a deliberate attempt to isolate us and intimidate us to not continue our fight.”
On April 30, university officials at Columbia and City College summoned the New York Police Department to arrest hundreds of people demonstrating against the war in Gaza. Their call for reinforcement came after a smaller groups of protesters occupied buildings on each campus, ratcheting up a standoff between students and their administrations over divestment from Israel.
Most of the 282 people arrested that night were issued lower-level criminal summonses or desk appearance tickets, and not prosecuted. Several other cases between the two campuses remain ongoing. One protester, James Carlson, who was busted inside Hamilton Hall, is still facing charges for burning an Israeli flag at another Columbia protest and striking a camera in a holding cell. He was not offered the same deal as other protesters for trespassing the building, Cohen said.
At City College, five protesters who stand accused of assaulting police offers are still facing criminal charges, according to the DA’s office. Another case, involving a person charged with criminal possession of a weapon the night of the raid, remains ongoing.
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