Northeast
Columbia canceling graduation ceremony shows 'inmates are running the asylum': students
Several Columbia University students spoke out to Fox News Digital on Monday after administrators announced they would be canceling the school’s main commencement ceremony. Security concerns in the wake of raucous anti-Israel protests were top of mind in making the decision, a university official told Fox News.
One graduating senior, who also testified before the House Education & Workforce Committee about the antisemitic agitators, said she did so in order to give voice to those in the community who all have the same concerns as well as a way to urge Columbia administrators to act.
“I think that [Columbia] has the potential to be the amazing institution that I know that it is,” Yola Ashkenazie told Fox News Digital.
Ashkenazie said she was disappointed that the main commencement ceremony was canceled, saying graduation festivities are as much for the students as they are for the parents and families who work hard to ensure their children can attend a venerated institution like Columbia.
ANTI-ISRAEL UNREST FORCES COLUMBIA TO CANCEL LARGE COMMENCEMENT AS PROTESTS CONTINUE
Anti-Israel protesters rally outside Columbia University in New York City on April 30, 2024. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
“So, it’s really sad that we don’t get to properly mark this moment with them and with all of our friends across all the different schools,” she said.
Ashkenazie said administrators had at first acted like the anti-Israel protests were peaceful demonstrations, but she added that if that were true, she still would be attending graduation.
“[W]hy would they cancel commencement if they thought that they were entirely peaceful? It doesn’t really make sense. And the administration can’t keep their story straight.”
Ashkenazie also told Fox News she had been affected by antisemitic sentiment on campus long before the protests began in April.
“So, I have been vocal [in] speaking out against antisemitism on campus since Oct. 7th, and the students sort of pegged me as that,” she said.
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The Israeli flag waves at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at the Columbia University campus in New York City on April 29, 2024. (Reuters/David Dee Delgado)
“So a couple of months ago, a cyberbullying Instagram account posted a photo of me holding Israeli flags, and that caused students to post horrible things about me on anonymous campus forums. I had people there, even an instance in which someone came up to me in the middle of campus and confronted me about my support for Israel. So yeah, it’s been an incredibly, incredibly frightening couple of months on campus.”
Sophomore Elisha Baker isn’t graduating this year, but he told Fox News Digital the ceremony’s cancelation still affected him.
“Here’s the thing about commencement. This movement that has been on campus has been advocating to ‘shut it down’ and to cancel joy. And by canceling commencement, it seems that the university has caved to both of those demands and basically allowed the mob to win,” he said.
“And to me, that’s really sad. And my heart goes out to the seniors who lost high school graduation due to COVID, lost freshman year of college to COVID and now lost their senior springs and their graduations to a violent mob,” he said.
Baker said he watched protesters unfurl a 20-foot pro-intifada banner from a major academic building in the wee hours of one recent morning.
COLUMBIA LAW STUDENT GROUP REPORTEDLY DECLARES NO JEW IS SAFE UNTIL ‘EVERYONE IS SAFE’
Demonstrators gather outside an entrance to Columbia University on April 29, 2024. (REUTERS/David Dee Delgado)
“To me, that was just really sad – really shocking; violent and totally emblematic of exactly what this movement has been calling for this entire time, which is violence against Jews, which is a prolonged state of war rather than peace,” said Baker, who is Jewish.
He told Fox News Digital that Jewish students have been subjected to hate speech and violence since the protests began.
One of Baker’s friends had an Israeli flag ripped out of his hands by protesters, who purportedly tried to set it ablaze and later pelted him with projectiles.
“Columbia has completely abdicated leadership to a mob that is a small but rageful and vocal minority.”
“That’s full-blown assault inside the campus gates,” Baker said.
When asked about the prospect of not returning to campus because of the protests, Baker said the decision is difficult because to stay away might appear as “let[ting] the bully win.”
“So, to me, to leave campus right now as a Jewish student is almost to give in to the mob. And yes, we have to be concerned for our safety. But also, there’s something about staying and about making very clear that these people can say, ‘We don’t want no Zionists here.’ But guess what? We’re still here. And you cannot bully Jewish students off of this campus.”
“It’s up to the university to decide if wearing a kippah and a hostage dog tag … if that’s going to make me a target or if I’m safe here. Right. Because I deserve to be safe here.”
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Meanwhile, Columbia junior Eden Yadegar told Fox News Digital the cancellation of commencement proves “the inmates are running the asylum.”
“Columbia has completely abdicated leadership to a mob that is a small but rageful and vocal minority. And it’s really unfortunate that now, as a result, all students … are now having to face the consequences that this mob kind of forced everyone else to deal with and also that the Columbia administration put everyone in a situation to deal with,” she said.
Yadegar said the school drew multiple proverbial “red lines” but then did not enforce the promised repercussions.
“And so it’s no wonder that students think there are no consequences for their actions and think that they can get away with wreaking havoc on campus and doing essentially whatever they want.”
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Another Columbia student, Batya Tropper, told Fox News Digital that although she appreciates much of what Columbia has offered her during her academic career, she now finds it harder to encourage fellow Jewish students to attend college there.
“I cannot guarantee that this will be a safe or comfortable environment for them,” she said. “And I never thought that I would be in a position to say that.”
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“And the reason that is so upsetting is because I love this university, and I love the normalcy that I’ve had here and the experiences that I’ve had. But I think it’s very unfortunate that a lot of Jewish students looking to come to colleges might not choose Ivy League universities because they are concerned for their safety, or they might not want to come to college and have to advocate for their identity every day.”
“They might just want to come and get an education, which they should be entitled to, just like everyone else.”
Fox News Digital’s Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.
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More than 200 Fort Fairfield Middle High School students, staff and administrators filed into the school’s gym on April 8 for an anti-bullying assembly.
On stage, surrounded by neon tube lights, was the Icon Dance Team, a New York-based troupe that travels to schools around the U.S. dancing and singing to radio hits interspersed with messages about self-respect and standing up for others.
Parents were notified of the performance in advance, MSAD 20 Superintendent Melanie Blais said. No one contacted the district afterward to complain.
But six days later, on April 14, the conservative influencer Libs of TikTok blasted a series of posts about the performance — and its lead dancer — to its millions of social media followers and accused the district of “openly grooming” its students.
“This is what schools are pushing on your children using our tax dollars,” one caption reads. “SHUT THEM DOWN.”
Commenters tagged the U.S. Department of Justice and called Maine a “demonic” state. Some encouraged violence against one of the dancers.
District officials insist the performance focused only on encouraging positive self-esteem and counteracting bullying. And despite the recent furor on social media, they say local people have shared no concerns.
“The content of the program included messages about standing up for oneself and others, reporting bullying to trusted adults, encouraging students to set goals and to include peers who may be left out,” Blais said.
The issue concerned the group’s frontman, James Linehan, who is also a musician with the stage name J-Line. In his music career, Linehan bills himself as “your favorite gay pop star” and is currently on a tour called the “Dirty Pop Party,” where he performs alongside other LGBTQ artists.
Libs of TikTok, run by Chaya Raichik, a former Brooklyn real estate agent turned social media provocateur, pulled photos from Linehan’s music website, in which he is shirtless, and targeted his sexuality to argue that he was pushing sexually charged content on children.
The Icon Dance Team, which also goes by the names Echo Dance Team and Vital Dance Team, is a separate entity. The group, active since at least 2011, features Linehan and two backup dancers and has performed at more than 2,000 schools, according to its website.
Performances consist of 30 minutes of choreographed dancing and singing to songs about self-acceptance, followed by Linehan recounting how he was bullied in grade school and his journey to finding his life passions and respecting himself.
School officials reviewed the group’s website before scheduling the performance and found it aligned with the district’s anti-bullying goals, Blais said.
“The group was chosen based on strong recommendations from several other school districts where similar performances had been presented in the past,” Blais said. “Those districts described the assemblies as positive and energetic and praised their messages about self-esteem and anti-bullying.”
Hours of the group’s school performances posted by other districts online and reviewed by the Bangor Daily News do not include suggestive dancing and Linehan does not mention his sexuality.
This is not the first time the dance team has faced criticism, nor the first time Libs of TikTok has taken aim at Maine.
In the past year, the account amplified a school board debate over the harassment of transgender students in North Berwick and the election of a Bangor city councilor with a criminal record. The account was among the right-wing influencers that successfully campaigned to doom a 2024 bill before the Maine legislature that surrounded gender-affirming care.
Icon’s performances at schools in Utah, Ohio, Texas and Tennessee have come under scrutiny from parents who referred to Linehan’s music career and posts on his social media accounts.
A district in Missouri canceled two assemblies in 2023 after receiving complaints. Some of the criticism is linked to allegations that Linehan encouraged students at some performances to follow his Instagram, which is tied to his music career. Parents alleged it contained “inappropriate” content.
That Instagram page is now private. Blais said they raised the issue with the group ahead of the performance.
“That was not a part of the performance in any way and we clarified this with the company prior to their visit to our school,” she said.
Linehan did not respond to a request for comment.
Libs of TikTok has almost 7 million followers between X, Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, the platform founded by President Donald Trump.
Raichik, the account’s creator, has mingled with Trump and other right-wing politicians and activists at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, the president’s Florida residence. Her posts, which can receive hundreds of thousands to millions of views, have helped shape anti-LGBTQ discourse in conservative circles and have been promoted by the likes of podcaster Joe Rogan and Fox News.
The Southern Poverty Law Center labels Raichik as an extremist.
But despite the assembly generating national outrage last week, in Fort Fairfield, the community appears unshaken.
“We’ve not received a single call or email from local community members that I am aware of,” Blais said. “We initially received a handful of calls from individuals who were clearly not affiliated with the school district in any way, but they were not interested in hearing what actually took place.”
Two Plymouth, Massachusetts teens were saved from the summit of Mount Washington after a leg injury stranded them.
Khang Nguyen,17, said he and his friend, 18-year-old Vaughn Webb, thought they were well prepared for their hike on Saturday. They brought trekking poles, layers, microspikes for their boots and more.
But halfway up the trail, Nguyen feared the worst when his leg began to hurt.
“It was just incredibly painful to lift up my right leg,” he explained. “I told [Vaughn] to leave me behind so I could go on my own pace and for him to reach the summit to get help at first.”
The pair managed to reach the top of the mountain but had to seek shelter next to a building as wind gusts increased, and the air temperature reached 38 degrees. Nguyen said they also ran out of food and water. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department received the 911 call around 7:30 p.m. and quickly alerted a State Park employee who began to search for the two teens.
“Conservation Officers then began responding in four-wheel-drive pickup trucks to try and get to the summit and back ahead of incoming snow,” the game department said in a statement.
After around 30 minutes of reaching both Webb and Nguyen were found. They were taken inside a building and Nguyen was being treated for his injury.
“The worker that was up there, [said] that they came in record time, and we appreciate their help a lot. It saved our lives potentially,” Nguyen explained.
The pair was successfully taken off the mountain by 10 p.m. The two teens are now safely back in Massachusetts and are incredibly grateful to their rescuers.
A man was killed Monday in an exchange of gunfire with police in Ashland, New Hampshire, authorities said.
The office of New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said Ashland police stopped a vehicle Monday evening on Main Street. A man in the vehicle, whose name has not been released, allegedly pulled a gun.
Officials said the man shot and wounded one police officer. The man was shot during the confrontation and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The officer is being treated at a hospital for a gunshot injury. No one else was hurt, authorities said.
Formella’s office is investigating the shooting alongside New Hampshire State Police.
The names of the officers involved in the incident will not be shared until interviews are completed, authorities said. The man killed in the shooting will be publicly identified after next of kin are notified and an autopsy is conducted.
No further information was immediately available.
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A Maine school hosted an anti-bullying dance team. Libs of TikTok called it ‘grooming’