The administrative board of the Columbia Law Review is calling on the university to pass all law students after weeks of tension between students and the administration over pro-Palestinian activism culminated in police involvement and the university moving exams online.
In addition to the upheaval caused by the police raid, the law students also pointed to logistical issues brought on by the university's decision to move final exams online, in response to the protests.
The law students requested that if the university did not cancel exams altogether, it should switch to a mandatory pass/fail system, instead of traditional letter grades. They pointed to a late-April poll, in which nearly three-quarters of law students called for the policy change - which they say that the university "refused to consider."
"The current exam policy raises questions around equity and academic integrity. Students, especially those with needed academic accommodations, have been spending less time studying and more time asking questions on how to accommodate all the exam changes," the students wrote.
"This is compounded by the fact that exams are being conducted virtually, creating more confusion and anxiety to an already difficult situation."
"The violence we witnessed last night has irrevocably shaken many of us on the Review," the students wrote on May 2nd - one day after the New York Police Department raided the university's Hamilton Hall, arrested 112 people and discharged a gun inside the academic building.
"Videos have circulated of police clad in riot gear mocking and brutalizing our students. The events of last night left us and many of our peers unable to focus and highly emotional during this tumultuous time."
The NYPD entered Columbia's campus at the request of university President Minouche Shafik, who asked that law enforcement remain until May 17 - two days after the undergraduate university's scheduled commencement date. This was in response to protestors - at least some of whom were Columbia students, threatened with expulsion - allegedly sneaking into Hamilton Hall after hours and taking control of the building.
The university did not directly inform Columbia students about the NYPD before police officers in tactical gear arrived on their campus. Instead, students received an email from the university administration, advising that they shelter in place at 8:18 p.m. but were given no guidance on where to go. Some students, reporting for the university radio station WKCR, alleged that they were repeatedly turned away from dorms while attempting to shelter in place during the NYPD raid.
