Republican Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley have urged President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard to Columbia University amidst ongoing pro-Palestinian demonstrations that resulted in over 100 arrests last week.
The call for federal intervention comes as the Jewish holiday of Passover begins on Monday. Following heated protests on the Upper Manhattan campus, a prominent rabbi at the school urged Jewish students to leave, and Columbia University announced that classes would be held remotely.
Cotton (R-Ark.) took to social media to blame Democrats for the protests, stating that “the radical anti-Israel protestors have always been part of the Democratic Party’s base.”
“The nascent pogroms at Columbia have to stop TODAY, before our Jewish brethren sit for Passover Seder tonight,” Cotton wrote on Twitter. “If Eric Adams won’t send the NYPD and Kathy Hochul won’t send the National Guard, Joe Biden has a duty to take charge and break up these mobs.”
Hawley (R-Mo.) also emphasized the need for National Guard intervention, citing President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1957 order to protect the “Little Rock Nine” in Arkansas after school desegregation.
“Eisenhower sent the 101st to Little Rock. It’s time for Biden to call out the National Guard at our universities to protect Jewish Americans,” Hawley stated on Twitter.
Jonathan Greenblatt, Director and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, also recommended deploying the National Guard to the campus and emphasized the urgency of action from local and federal authorities.
Democratic Representatives Jared Moskowitz, Josh Gottheimer, and Dan Goldman held a press conference at Columbia University, urging President Minouche Shafik to protect students. Republican New York Representatives Mike Lawler and Anthony D’Esposito also called for Shafik’s resignation.
In a statement ahead of the holiday, President Biden condemned the rise of Antisemitism and called for action against harassment and violence targeting Jews, stating that “Silence is complicity” and that such hatred has no place in the country.
