Columbia Student Union Demands ‘Academic Freedom’ To Protect Political Activism in the Classroom

Columbia University’s student union has been in a yearlong contract dispute with the Ivy League school, demanding everything from massive raises to dismantling ties to Israel. The union is also demanding an article protecting so-called academic freedom, which the union suggests could prohibit disciplinary action against teaching assistants who bring their political activism into the classroom.

The academic freedom article was crafted by the Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) in February and has not been previously reported. It states that "Student Employees … have the right to address the larger Columbia and global community with regard to any matter of social, political, economic, or other interest, without institutional discipline" and "will not be disciplined for extramural activity that would normally be covered under First Amendment principles."

In particular, SWC wants to give teaching assistants free rein to continue demonizing Israel in the classroom. An SWC member identified as "FT" said the problem the union is "trying to solve" is "talking about Palestine in the classroom" and added that what "we have seen in the last few years is the university abuse speech in our workplace," according to a transcript of the March 9 bargaining session, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

"That is why we are firmly saying that we want these legal protections, and for that to be the basis through which we understand acceptable speech," he said.

Another member, "JP," shared an "actual story" involving "someone terminated" and described a teaching assistant who faced disciplinary action after making "references to Palestinian astronomers in their lab assignments."

"We want to protect against discipline in those situations. That is our intention with this article," he added.

JP was likely referring to a teaching assistant who added lab notes to an astronomy class session that read, "As we watch genocide unfold in Gaza, it is also important to tell the story of Palestinians outside of being the subjects of a military occupation," the Columbia Spectator reported in January 2025. The university condemned the insertion of "political views within the lab notes for a class session."

Columbia’s vice president of human resources, Dan Driscoll, disputed that anyone was fired for the lab note. He told the SWC representatives he wasn’t "familiar with any student employees who was [sic] terminated for that reference, so maybe it was an academic issue."

Plenty of protected First Amendment speech, including political activism, is likely of questionable propriety in the classroom and Columbia’s negotiators raised questions about the intent of the article. Rebecca Hirade, the dean for finance and operations for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, pointed out that the academic freedom article "would have protections for racism, sexism, etc" and noted that "[s]omeone might feel strongly about vaccines and autism."

An SWC member identified as "JH" accused Hirade of "bringing an extreme example."

Instructors using their classrooms to push anti-Israel sentiment is not new at Columbia. The university’s December anti-Semitism report identified numerous instances of teachers using "classes whose subject matter is far removed from Zionism, Israel, and the Middle East" to offer "harsh condemnations of Israel." A group of graduate students "urged each other to 'teach for Palestine' in their classes on a wide variety of subjects."

SWC and Columbia have been locked in negotiations since their contract expired last year. Besides pushing Columbia to increase Ph.D. students’ salary minimum to $76,000 (far above other Ivy League schools), bumping hourly wages to $36.50 (more than double New York City’s minimum wage), and a $50,000 childcare subsidy per child, the union is also demanding a litany of protections unrelated to wage and working conditions, such as neutering public safety officers’ enforcement capabilities, dismantling security cameras, and divesting from Israel.

On Wednesday, Columbia said the two sides "remain far apart on virtually all issues." It also said they "were unable to make progress" during the latest bargaining session on March 20 because, "at the union’s insistence, the session comprised a series of presentations by SWC," which "precluded any real back-and-forth discussion."

Columbia declined to comment, and SWC did not respond to inquiries from the Free Beacon.

SWC, which says it represents roughly 3,000 student workers, voted to authorize a strike on March 10. The United Auto Workers, of which SWC is part, told SWC it wouldn’t support a strike unless the bargaining team toned down its demands, the Free Press reported.

SWC has long pushed an anti-Israel standpoint, which has played a major role in contract negotiations. Another union representative told Columbia it modeled its academic freedom article after a post written by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a group that has embraced anti-Israel causes. AAUP has also defended individuals like University of Pennsylvania lecturer Dwayne Booth, who published a series of anti-Semitic cartoons showing Zionists drinking the blood of Palestinians, and Muhlenberg College professor Maura Finkelstein, who called to "shame" Zionists. "Do not welcome them in your spaces. Do not make them feel comfortable," she said.

One SWC board member, Johannah King-Slutzky, a doctoral student studying "theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens," wrote in the union’s group chat that its members should be cautious in what they text as "you wouldn’t want a bad faith reporter to see."

"Happily everyone already knows where I stand so I can say ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’ whenever I want but not everyone is so lucky," King-Slutzky wrote on March 2, a screenshot obtained by the Free Beacon shows. She added that the "world would be a better place if Columbia did hate America, god willing."

She also wrote, "Personally I think Zionism is Jewish supremacy and well as white supremacy and I’m comfortable calling it such."

King-Slutzky was widely mocked in the wake of the Hamilton Hall takeover for demanding "humanitarian aid" for those inside. She was arrested for her participation in the April 2024 encampments and again last May when she joined dozens of students in a library storming organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).

King-Slutzky did not respond to a request for comment.

SWC president Grant Miner, meanwhile, can’t participate in bargaining negotiations since Columbia expelled him after he joined a mob organized by CUAD that stormed Hamilton Hall in April 2024. SWC has been a close ally with CUAD, the banned student organization that wished "death to America" after President Donald Trump initiated military operations against Iran last month.

Elsewhere in its negotiations, SWC accused Columbia of compelling "its workers to perform research that will be used to break the law" like "biohack[ing] organisms for military technology that is in the early stages of real mind control." It points to Department of Defense-backed research that aims to "break the code" of a jellyfish-like organism’s nervous system to "design novel behaviors"—the grant notes that it could "revolutionize neuroscience" and artificial intelligence.

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