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A drawing of Barbara Rose Johns from the Morton Museum in Farmville, Va. (WNV/Morton Museum.)
Sixty years ago on May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson and declared separate was not equal for public schools and was therefore unconstitutional. While the decision in this case, Brown v. Board of Education, has received the most ink over the last six decades, the stories and people behind the landmark decision are even more vividly compelling and inspiring than the sea-changing unanimous ruling itself.
Sixty years ago on May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson and declared separate was not equal for public schools and was therefore unconstitutional. While the decision in this case, Brown v. Board of Education, has received the most ink over the last six decades, the stories and people behind the landmark decision are even more vividly compelling and inspiring than the sea-changing unanimous ruling itself.
The five cases that composed this hearing came from four states and a district -- Virginia, Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina and the District of Columbia -- and were all sponsored by the NAACP. The Delaware case was the only one in which the lower courts actually found discrimination unlawful; the other four cases ruled against the parents and students who were suing for equality and desegregation.
Although the Supreme Court case is named after the suit from Kansas, it is the Virginia fight that stands out. It was the only case sparked by the students themselves, which opened up space for their parents and NAACP elders to fall in behind.
History books, if they mention this backstory at all, talk about the student walk out at R.R. Moton High School led by 16-year-old junior Barbara Rose Johns on April 23, 1951. While that fact alone is impressive, the planning and organization that went into pulling off the action is pure inspiration.
In many ways, Moton High School in Farmville, Va., was representative of the situation across great swaths of the United States in 1951. In comparison to its white counterpart across town, this school that served blacks was underfunded, undersupplied and dilapidated. More than 450 children were enrolled at the school, which was designed to hold only 180. The building had no gym, no cafeteria and no indoor plumbing. As many as three classes were being taught at the same time in the cramped auditorium; others were held in old school buses parked on site.
Conditions were so bad that the state government offered money to improve the school in 1947, but the all-white county school board refused to accept it. Instead, the county built several tar paper shacks -- referred to as "chicken coops " -- that were hot in warm weather, cold in the winter and did not have enough desks.
Parents and educators in the black community had tried to get changes implemented and a new school built, but nothing substantive was forthcoming from the white powers that be. And the risks of organizing were serious under Jim Crow, ranging from casual threats to loss of employment, injury and lynching.
When 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns approached her teacher about the situation, she was told to "do something about it." It's likely that Barbara was also inspired by her uncle, the civil rights leader Rev. Vernon Johns, and others in her family who valued education.
Sometime in the winter of 1950 Barbara had an idea.
"The plan was to assemble together the student council members," she said. "From this, we would formulate plans to go on strike. We would make signs and I would give a speech stating our dissatisfaction and we would march out [of] the school and people would hear us and see us and understand our difficulty and would sympathize with our plight and would grant us our new school building and our teachers would be proud and the students would learn more and it would be grand."
With this vision in mind -- and with the knowledge that those who did not have a vision to sustain their risky and courageous scheming might be more of a liability than an asset -- she began organizing in secret with four other students. By early spring in 1951, they strategically built a coordinating caucus of 15 trusted students who had key ties to different communities of the student body. They kept the date of their event quiet until their decision the evening before. At times the group even sent out false information to head off any interference from so-called Uncle Toms, the name for those who would undermine them. The plan was to trick the principal to leave the building, then call an assembly so that all of the students could decide together to march out to petition the county superintendent for a new high school.
They were bold, smart and somewhat fearful of ending up in jail. So they asked a brother of a student in the core group who was home from college what they should do if they were arrested and held in jail.
"And he said, 'how many students are in your school?'" John Stokes recounted to the civil rights oral history project "Voices of Freedom." "We said 400-something. He said, 'how big is the Farmville jail?' And we knew then we were on a roll. And the rest is history."
On April 23, the decoy phone call came that a couple of truants were causing trouble at the bus station downtown, and the principal left to take care of business. Quickly, the core students distributed forged announcements from the principal calling for an immediate school assembly in the auditorium. The planning caucus was gathered on stage; everyone was paying attention. After the caucus leaders asked the teachers to leave the auditorium, Barbara laid out the plan to go out on strike in protest of overcrowding and inadequate facilities. It was reported that almost all of the more than 450 students were supportive, even though the principal returned and tried to talk them out of it. They marched down to the county courthouse to air their grievances, but because of segregation, the white press and whites in general didn't take much notice.
The next day, when the student strike committee tried to meet with the school superintendent, they were refused and threatened with retaliatory expulsions.
By this point, Barbara and her crew were in touch with the local NAACP leadership and supportive clergy. At first, the elders were not encouraging; all the efforts aimed at getting equal facilities nationally were going nowhere, and the difficult work of fighting segregation was widely seen as the more effective path. Committing to the work of desegregation would serve to show the NAACP that the students were serious and worthy of support; otherwise, the NAACP would not be involved.
The students had to take a vote on this, as they did with all decisions, and it was a hard one. As Stokes remembers, they didn't go on strike for integration but rather for the seemingly simpler demand of better educational facilities and opportunities. They were keenly aware of the value of their existing teachers and their tight-knit, supportive community, and they rightly feared losing these benefits in the process of desegregation. After a difficult meeting, the central caucus voted to commit to integration -- passed by only one vote -- thereby allowing the NAACP to take the case.
With NAACP support, one of the largest ever community-wide meetings was held in the local civil rights church. Parents were asked to sign up to show support for the students and the lawsuit ahead. The white press also finally decided to cover this meeting -- even though it had refused the students' requests to report on the previous three actions. Knowing that having white media at this sensitive meeting would be difficult, the students turned the journalists away.
At one point, one of the respected adults raised objections to moving forward. Again it was Barbara who spoke out and rallied the crowd to not listen to "any Uncle Toms," prodding the assembled students and parents into taking a courageous step for the community. Although described as very quiet and lady-like, when it came to this issue, Stokes said that "she became a tiger ... put on gloves and started fighting." Buoyed by the student's commitment, the parents and students collectively decided to strike until the end of the school year and to support the lawsuit.
A month after the walkout, the NAACP filed the case -- Dorothy E. Davis et al v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia -- and Barbara was sent to live with relatives in Alabama out of fear for her safety.
Later, this case on appeal became part of Brown v. Board of Education. The story of Prince Edward County's resistance to quality education for all of its residents, however, does not end there. The county is more widely known for what it did in response to Brown v. Board of Education than for the student activism that preceded it. After the ruling, the county defunded and closed its public schools in 1959 in order to resist desegregation. It wasn't until 1964 when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the county to operate a public school system that the schools were reopened.
Today, the town of Farmville is still working through issues of racial equality with the help of Moton High School, which has been converted into a civil rights museum. On April 23, current high school students held a commemorative event reenacting the march from Moton to the court house to honor the courageous student strike of 1951.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Sixty years ago on May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson and declared separate was not equal for public schools and was therefore unconstitutional. While the decision in this case, Brown v. Board of Education, has received the most ink over the last six decades, the stories and people behind the landmark decision are even more vividly compelling and inspiring than the sea-changing unanimous ruling itself.
The five cases that composed this hearing came from four states and a district -- Virginia, Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina and the District of Columbia -- and were all sponsored by the NAACP. The Delaware case was the only one in which the lower courts actually found discrimination unlawful; the other four cases ruled against the parents and students who were suing for equality and desegregation.
Although the Supreme Court case is named after the suit from Kansas, it is the Virginia fight that stands out. It was the only case sparked by the students themselves, which opened up space for their parents and NAACP elders to fall in behind.
History books, if they mention this backstory at all, talk about the student walk out at R.R. Moton High School led by 16-year-old junior Barbara Rose Johns on April 23, 1951. While that fact alone is impressive, the planning and organization that went into pulling off the action is pure inspiration.
In many ways, Moton High School in Farmville, Va., was representative of the situation across great swaths of the United States in 1951. In comparison to its white counterpart across town, this school that served blacks was underfunded, undersupplied and dilapidated. More than 450 children were enrolled at the school, which was designed to hold only 180. The building had no gym, no cafeteria and no indoor plumbing. As many as three classes were being taught at the same time in the cramped auditorium; others were held in old school buses parked on site.
Conditions were so bad that the state government offered money to improve the school in 1947, but the all-white county school board refused to accept it. Instead, the county built several tar paper shacks -- referred to as "chicken coops " -- that were hot in warm weather, cold in the winter and did not have enough desks.
Parents and educators in the black community had tried to get changes implemented and a new school built, but nothing substantive was forthcoming from the white powers that be. And the risks of organizing were serious under Jim Crow, ranging from casual threats to loss of employment, injury and lynching.
When 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns approached her teacher about the situation, she was told to "do something about it." It's likely that Barbara was also inspired by her uncle, the civil rights leader Rev. Vernon Johns, and others in her family who valued education.
Sometime in the winter of 1950 Barbara had an idea.
"The plan was to assemble together the student council members," she said. "From this, we would formulate plans to go on strike. We would make signs and I would give a speech stating our dissatisfaction and we would march out [of] the school and people would hear us and see us and understand our difficulty and would sympathize with our plight and would grant us our new school building and our teachers would be proud and the students would learn more and it would be grand."
With this vision in mind -- and with the knowledge that those who did not have a vision to sustain their risky and courageous scheming might be more of a liability than an asset -- she began organizing in secret with four other students. By early spring in 1951, they strategically built a coordinating caucus of 15 trusted students who had key ties to different communities of the student body. They kept the date of their event quiet until their decision the evening before. At times the group even sent out false information to head off any interference from so-called Uncle Toms, the name for those who would undermine them. The plan was to trick the principal to leave the building, then call an assembly so that all of the students could decide together to march out to petition the county superintendent for a new high school.
They were bold, smart and somewhat fearful of ending up in jail. So they asked a brother of a student in the core group who was home from college what they should do if they were arrested and held in jail.
"And he said, 'how many students are in your school?'" John Stokes recounted to the civil rights oral history project "Voices of Freedom." "We said 400-something. He said, 'how big is the Farmville jail?' And we knew then we were on a roll. And the rest is history."
On April 23, the decoy phone call came that a couple of truants were causing trouble at the bus station downtown, and the principal left to take care of business. Quickly, the core students distributed forged announcements from the principal calling for an immediate school assembly in the auditorium. The planning caucus was gathered on stage; everyone was paying attention. After the caucus leaders asked the teachers to leave the auditorium, Barbara laid out the plan to go out on strike in protest of overcrowding and inadequate facilities. It was reported that almost all of the more than 450 students were supportive, even though the principal returned and tried to talk them out of it. They marched down to the county courthouse to air their grievances, but because of segregation, the white press and whites in general didn't take much notice.
The next day, when the student strike committee tried to meet with the school superintendent, they were refused and threatened with retaliatory expulsions.
By this point, Barbara and her crew were in touch with the local NAACP leadership and supportive clergy. At first, the elders were not encouraging; all the efforts aimed at getting equal facilities nationally were going nowhere, and the difficult work of fighting segregation was widely seen as the more effective path. Committing to the work of desegregation would serve to show the NAACP that the students were serious and worthy of support; otherwise, the NAACP would not be involved.
The students had to take a vote on this, as they did with all decisions, and it was a hard one. As Stokes remembers, they didn't go on strike for integration but rather for the seemingly simpler demand of better educational facilities and opportunities. They were keenly aware of the value of their existing teachers and their tight-knit, supportive community, and they rightly feared losing these benefits in the process of desegregation. After a difficult meeting, the central caucus voted to commit to integration -- passed by only one vote -- thereby allowing the NAACP to take the case.
With NAACP support, one of the largest ever community-wide meetings was held in the local civil rights church. Parents were asked to sign up to show support for the students and the lawsuit ahead. The white press also finally decided to cover this meeting -- even though it had refused the students' requests to report on the previous three actions. Knowing that having white media at this sensitive meeting would be difficult, the students turned the journalists away.
At one point, one of the respected adults raised objections to moving forward. Again it was Barbara who spoke out and rallied the crowd to not listen to "any Uncle Toms," prodding the assembled students and parents into taking a courageous step for the community. Although described as very quiet and lady-like, when it came to this issue, Stokes said that "she became a tiger ... put on gloves and started fighting." Buoyed by the student's commitment, the parents and students collectively decided to strike until the end of the school year and to support the lawsuit.
A month after the walkout, the NAACP filed the case -- Dorothy E. Davis et al v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia -- and Barbara was sent to live with relatives in Alabama out of fear for her safety.
Later, this case on appeal became part of Brown v. Board of Education. The story of Prince Edward County's resistance to quality education for all of its residents, however, does not end there. The county is more widely known for what it did in response to Brown v. Board of Education than for the student activism that preceded it. After the ruling, the county defunded and closed its public schools in 1959 in order to resist desegregation. It wasn't until 1964 when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the county to operate a public school system that the schools were reopened.
Today, the town of Farmville is still working through issues of racial equality with the help of Moton High School, which has been converted into a civil rights museum. On April 23, current high school students held a commemorative event reenacting the march from Moton to the court house to honor the courageous student strike of 1951.
Sixty years ago on May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson and declared separate was not equal for public schools and was therefore unconstitutional. While the decision in this case, Brown v. Board of Education, has received the most ink over the last six decades, the stories and people behind the landmark decision are even more vividly compelling and inspiring than the sea-changing unanimous ruling itself.
The five cases that composed this hearing came from four states and a district -- Virginia, Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina and the District of Columbia -- and were all sponsored by the NAACP. The Delaware case was the only one in which the lower courts actually found discrimination unlawful; the other four cases ruled against the parents and students who were suing for equality and desegregation.
Although the Supreme Court case is named after the suit from Kansas, it is the Virginia fight that stands out. It was the only case sparked by the students themselves, which opened up space for their parents and NAACP elders to fall in behind.
History books, if they mention this backstory at all, talk about the student walk out at R.R. Moton High School led by 16-year-old junior Barbara Rose Johns on April 23, 1951. While that fact alone is impressive, the planning and organization that went into pulling off the action is pure inspiration.
In many ways, Moton High School in Farmville, Va., was representative of the situation across great swaths of the United States in 1951. In comparison to its white counterpart across town, this school that served blacks was underfunded, undersupplied and dilapidated. More than 450 children were enrolled at the school, which was designed to hold only 180. The building had no gym, no cafeteria and no indoor plumbing. As many as three classes were being taught at the same time in the cramped auditorium; others were held in old school buses parked on site.
Conditions were so bad that the state government offered money to improve the school in 1947, but the all-white county school board refused to accept it. Instead, the county built several tar paper shacks -- referred to as "chicken coops " -- that were hot in warm weather, cold in the winter and did not have enough desks.
Parents and educators in the black community had tried to get changes implemented and a new school built, but nothing substantive was forthcoming from the white powers that be. And the risks of organizing were serious under Jim Crow, ranging from casual threats to loss of employment, injury and lynching.
When 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns approached her teacher about the situation, she was told to "do something about it." It's likely that Barbara was also inspired by her uncle, the civil rights leader Rev. Vernon Johns, and others in her family who valued education.
Sometime in the winter of 1950 Barbara had an idea.
"The plan was to assemble together the student council members," she said. "From this, we would formulate plans to go on strike. We would make signs and I would give a speech stating our dissatisfaction and we would march out [of] the school and people would hear us and see us and understand our difficulty and would sympathize with our plight and would grant us our new school building and our teachers would be proud and the students would learn more and it would be grand."
With this vision in mind -- and with the knowledge that those who did not have a vision to sustain their risky and courageous scheming might be more of a liability than an asset -- she began organizing in secret with four other students. By early spring in 1951, they strategically built a coordinating caucus of 15 trusted students who had key ties to different communities of the student body. They kept the date of their event quiet until their decision the evening before. At times the group even sent out false information to head off any interference from so-called Uncle Toms, the name for those who would undermine them. The plan was to trick the principal to leave the building, then call an assembly so that all of the students could decide together to march out to petition the county superintendent for a new high school.
They were bold, smart and somewhat fearful of ending up in jail. So they asked a brother of a student in the core group who was home from college what they should do if they were arrested and held in jail.
"And he said, 'how many students are in your school?'" John Stokes recounted to the civil rights oral history project "Voices of Freedom." "We said 400-something. He said, 'how big is the Farmville jail?' And we knew then we were on a roll. And the rest is history."
On April 23, the decoy phone call came that a couple of truants were causing trouble at the bus station downtown, and the principal left to take care of business. Quickly, the core students distributed forged announcements from the principal calling for an immediate school assembly in the auditorium. The planning caucus was gathered on stage; everyone was paying attention. After the caucus leaders asked the teachers to leave the auditorium, Barbara laid out the plan to go out on strike in protest of overcrowding and inadequate facilities. It was reported that almost all of the more than 450 students were supportive, even though the principal returned and tried to talk them out of it. They marched down to the county courthouse to air their grievances, but because of segregation, the white press and whites in general didn't take much notice.
The next day, when the student strike committee tried to meet with the school superintendent, they were refused and threatened with retaliatory expulsions.
By this point, Barbara and her crew were in touch with the local NAACP leadership and supportive clergy. At first, the elders were not encouraging; all the efforts aimed at getting equal facilities nationally were going nowhere, and the difficult work of fighting segregation was widely seen as the more effective path. Committing to the work of desegregation would serve to show the NAACP that the students were serious and worthy of support; otherwise, the NAACP would not be involved.
The students had to take a vote on this, as they did with all decisions, and it was a hard one. As Stokes remembers, they didn't go on strike for integration but rather for the seemingly simpler demand of better educational facilities and opportunities. They were keenly aware of the value of their existing teachers and their tight-knit, supportive community, and they rightly feared losing these benefits in the process of desegregation. After a difficult meeting, the central caucus voted to commit to integration -- passed by only one vote -- thereby allowing the NAACP to take the case.
With NAACP support, one of the largest ever community-wide meetings was held in the local civil rights church. Parents were asked to sign up to show support for the students and the lawsuit ahead. The white press also finally decided to cover this meeting -- even though it had refused the students' requests to report on the previous three actions. Knowing that having white media at this sensitive meeting would be difficult, the students turned the journalists away.
At one point, one of the respected adults raised objections to moving forward. Again it was Barbara who spoke out and rallied the crowd to not listen to "any Uncle Toms," prodding the assembled students and parents into taking a courageous step for the community. Although described as very quiet and lady-like, when it came to this issue, Stokes said that "she became a tiger ... put on gloves and started fighting." Buoyed by the student's commitment, the parents and students collectively decided to strike until the end of the school year and to support the lawsuit.
A month after the walkout, the NAACP filed the case -- Dorothy E. Davis et al v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia -- and Barbara was sent to live with relatives in Alabama out of fear for her safety.
Later, this case on appeal became part of Brown v. Board of Education. The story of Prince Edward County's resistance to quality education for all of its residents, however, does not end there. The county is more widely known for what it did in response to Brown v. Board of Education than for the student activism that preceded it. After the ruling, the county defunded and closed its public schools in 1959 in order to resist desegregation. It wasn't until 1964 when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the county to operate a public school system that the schools were reopened.
Today, the town of Farmville is still working through issues of racial equality with the help of Moton High School, which has been converted into a civil rights museum. On April 23, current high school students held a commemorative event reenacting the march from Moton to the court house to honor the courageous student strike of 1951.
"Trump is clearly comfortable weaponizing Social Security for political purposes, and we fear that this is only the beginning," said one critic.
The top Democrat on the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Wednesday led calls for the resignation of acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Leland Dudek following the revelation of internal emails confirming that the SSA canceled contracts with the state of Maine as political payback after Democratic Gov. Janet Mills publicly defied President Donald Trump in support of transgender student athletes.
The emails—which were obtained by House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)—show that Dudek ordered the cancellation of enumeration at birth and electronic death registration contracts with Maine, even though SSAd subordinates warned that such action "would result in improper payments and potential for identity theft."
"These emails confirm that the Trump administration is intentionally creating waste and the opportunity for fraud."
Dudek—who is leading the SSA while the Senate considers Trump's nomination of financial services executive Frank Bisignano—replied to the staffer: "Please cancel the contracts. While our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child."
He was referring to Mills, who stood up to Trump in February after the president threatened to suspend federal funding for Maine unless the state banned transgender girls and women from participating on female scholastic sports teams.
The termination of the enumeration at birth contract briefly forced Maine parents to register their newborns for a Social Security number at a Social Security office, rather than checking a box on a form at the hospital as is customary, before the SSA reversed its decision.
Connolly sent Dudek a letter demanding that he "resign immediately" and submit to a transcribed interview with House Oversight Committee Democrats. Connolly wrote that Dudek "ordered these contracts terminated" as "direct retaliation" for Mills' defiance, "even though you knew that doing so would increase improper payments and create opportunities for fraudsters."
Government accountability advocates also condemned Dudek's actions.
"These emails confirm that the Trump administration is intentionally creating waste and the opportunity for fraud—in this case, to punish Maine Gov. Janet Mills for not bowing down to Donald Trump," Social Security Works president Nancy Altman told Common Dreams.
"The people actually punished by these actions were exhausted new parents in Maine, forced to drag their newborns to overcrowded Social Security offices in the middle of a measles outbreak," she continued. "Thankfully, the Trump administration had to quickly reverse course after massive public outrage. But Trump is clearly comfortable weaponizing Social Security for political purposes, and we fear that this is only the beginning."
"Once again, we see Team Trump resorting to revenge to set domestic policy."
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, told Common Dreams that "it does not surprise us at all that this administration would weaponize Social Security against anyone who disagrees with or challenges President Trump."
"It's one of the concerns that we have with Elon Musk and [the Department of Government Efficiency] having access to everyone's personal data without any defensible explanation for why they need it," he continued. "We and the American people have legitimate worries, not only that this information will be vulnerable to hackers, but also that it could intentionally be misused as a weapon against anyone who publicly disagrees with Trump."
"The fact that the acting commissioner himself publicly admitted that he didn't really understand the Maine contract, but canceled it anyway, proves that this administration is making reckless changes that affect real people for no legitimate reason," Richtman added. "Once again, we see Team Trump resorting to revenge to set domestic policy."
The revelation of Dudek's emails comes amid SSA turmoil caused by the termination of thousands of agency personnel in what Trump, Musk, and other Republicans claim is an effort to reduce waste and fraud. Musk—who recently referred to Social Security as the the "biggest Ponzi scheme of all time"—has proposed the elimination of up to 50% of SSA's workforce and has said that up to $700 billion could be cut from programs including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
"As Jewish students, we grew up learning about the rise of fascism, learning about how important it is to stand up when you see injustice in the world," said one protester.
Jewish Columbia University students had chained themselves to a fence on campus for 45 minutes on Wednesday, in protest of the school's cooperation with immigration agents to arrest a leader of last year's pro-Palestinian encampment, when New York City Police officers arrived to break up the nonviolent action.
One student identified as Shea, who was wearing a kippah with a watermelon design and a keffiyeh—symbols of Palestinian solidarity—told independent journalist Meghnad Bose that university trustees are "directly implicated" in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) targeting of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student who helped lead negotiations demanding Columbia's divestment from Israel last year.
Shea said trustees handed over the names of Khalil and other pro-Palestinian students at Columbia to the government.
"We are here in protest of that to demand that the university tell us which trustees, which members of the university administration, are responsible for this so we can demand immediate consequences for them and hold them accountable for what they've done to our peer," said the undergraduate student.
Shea added that Jewish students were leading the protest because "the attacks on our international students, on students of color, have been so fierce, so dangerous, so disproportionate that we are the only students who can be here right now taking this risk."
Listen in to the student protesters themselves @DropSiteNews pic.twitter.com/R3LIWWQspI
— Meghnad Bose (@MeghnadBose93) April 2, 2025
Plainclothes ICE agents abducted Khalil last month as he was returning home to his apartment in a Columbia-owned building with his pregnant wife. The agents refused to identify themselves and ultimately Khalil was sent to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent and had a green card, which has reportedly been revoked by the Trump administration, while his wife—who is pregnant with their first child—is a U.S. citizen.
A federal court in New Jersey ruled Tuesday that the challenge to ICE's unlawful detention of Khalil should continue in the state. His wife responded that "this is an important step towards securing Mahmoud's freedom, but there is still a lot more to be done. As the countdown to our son's birth begins and I inch closer and closer to my due date, I will continue to strongly advocate for Mahmoud’s freedom and for his safe return home so he can be by my side to welcome our first child."
Khalil was detained days after the Trump administration announced it was canceling $400 million in grants and contracts for Columbia in retaliation for what it claimed was a failure to address antisemitism on campus. The Trump administration has conflated expressions of support for Palestinian rights on college campuses with attacks on Jewish students, as did the Biden administration before it.
Columbia oversaw an aggressive response to the protests last year, allowing NYPD officers to drag students out of a building they occupied and unofficially renamed Hind's Hall after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
An analysis of last year's pro-Palestinian campus protests, many of which were led by Jewish students, found that 97% of them were nonviolent.
A Barnard College student identified as Tali said Wednesday that "as Jewish students, we grew up learning about the rise of fascism, learning about how important it is to stand up when you see injustice in the world."
Campus security quickly cordoned off the area where students had chained themselves to the fence. After the NYPD arrived, security officers used bolt cutters to remove the protesters from the fence.
Breaking: Columbia campus security bring giant bolt cutters to forcibly break the student protesters away from the Columbia gates they had chained themselves to.@DropSiteNews pic.twitter.com/pSROblLjjf
— Meghnad Bose (@MeghnadBose93) April 2, 2025
Bose reported that "in [a] sudden escalation, Columbia campus security aggressively [engaged] student protesters," and tried to take away a banner reading, "Free Mahmoud Khalil."
"Love and solidarity to these courageous Jewish students who have chained themselves to the gates of Columbia in protest of the university turning over their friend Mahmoud Khalil to a fascist administration," said Simone Zimmerman, co-founder of the Jewish-led group IfNotNow.
The students, said Zimmerman, "are taking risks today that they know most of their peers cannot."
The Trump administration is "plotting to sell off America's national public lands to their billionaire friends, and Kate MacGregor is the perfect henchwoman."
Watchdog groups are warning that U.S. President Donald Trump's pick for deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Kate MacGregor—who they call a friend of the fossil fuel industry—will be an enthusiastic accomplice in the Trump administration's efforts to open up public land to oil and gas leasing.
Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Trump's billionaire adviser Elon Musk "are plotting to sell off America's national public lands to their billionaire friends, and Kate MacGregor is the perfect henchwoman," said Alan Zibel, a research director with the watchdog Public Citizen, in a statement on Wednesday.
MacGregor, an energy company executive who was deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior during the first Trump administration from early 2020 until January 2021 had her confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Oil Change International's U.S. campaign manager Collin Rees blasted MacGregor over her testimony, including support for legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) that would require the Interior Department to hold two offshore oil and gas lease sales per year for 10 years.
MacGregor's previous time in the Interior Department, showed she "prioritized fossil fuel interests over the good of the American people."
"Her support for a decade of at least two offshore oil and gas lease sales is completely incompatible with avoiding the worst impacts of the climate crisis, as well as the Department of Interior's mandate to protect public lands and waters," Rees said.
In 2017, as an aide to then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, MacGregor helped successfully fast track a permit for an oil firm to begin fracking on a patch of farmland in Oklahoma, according to 2019 reporting from the investigative outlet Reveal.
"While a senior staffer of the House Committee on Natural Resources, she developed strong ties to the energy industry and its lobbyists," according to Reveal. "In recent years, she has also built a public profile as an advocate of offshore oil drilling and a foe of any environmental rules that might limit energy production."
According to a record of her work calendar, which was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the nonprofit publication Pacific Standard, MacGregor met over 100 times with extractive industry groups or representatives between January of 2017 and January of 2018, when she was at the Department of the Interior but not yet the deputy secretary.
Pointing to MacGregor's background, executive director of the watchdog Accountable.US Tony Carrk said that with MacGregor's nomination, Trump "continues to build a dream team of big oil and gas shills to ravage America's public lands, while taxpayers and our environment deal with all the fallout."
Zibel of Public Citizen also noted that "public lands belong to all Americans, not wealthy corporate executives."
Meanwhile, Public Citizen is also sounding the alarm on the expected appointment of Matt Giacona, a lobbyist for the National Ocean Industries Association—which represents oil, gas, and wind companies working offshore—to head the Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The current person leading BOEM is retiring, according to Politico Pro.
In response to the potential appointment of Giacona to BOEM, which oversees offshore energy production in deep waters, director of Public Citizen's energy program Tyson Slocum on Wednesday said: "Trump Appointing a Big Oil lobbyist to oversee deep water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico shows that the administration's goal is to empower and enrich powerful corporations at the expense of everyone and everything else."
"This continues the clear trend of Trump turning federal agencies and the public good into profit opportunities for powerful corporate interests," he said.