Columbia Keeps ‘Investigating’ Student Journalists Covering Pro-Palestine Protests
On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 7, Celeste Gamble was in Columbia University’s Butler Library, studying for her final exams, when about a hundred student protesters launched an occupation of the reading room. It was the latest eruption of ongoing pro-Palestine protests on campus. Students wearing kaffiyehs chanted “Free, free Palestine.” Others draped Palestinian flags and banners around the room; one read “Liberated Zone,” echoing a banner placed on the university’s lawns last year during the Gaza Solidarity Encampments.
Gamble, twenty, is a reporter for WKCR, Columbia’s student radio station. She pulled out her press ID, recognizing that the timing had given her unique access. Other student journalists arriving outside the library were denied entry by campus security officers.
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