Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), appearing alongside President Joe Biden on Monday, praised the anti-Israel campus protests that have sprung up across the United States.
“It is especially important that we remember the power of young people shaping this country today, of all days, as we once again witness the leadership of those peaceful, student-led protests on campuses like Columbia, Yale, Berkeley, and many others,” the New York Democrat said at an event in Virginia with Biden commemorating Earth Day.
After Ocasio-Cortez spoke, Biden urged the audience to “listen to that lady.”
Columbia University earlier announced all Monday classes would be moved online amid safety concerns due to widespread anti-Israel protests on campus. The protests began Wednesday morning with an encampment by hundreds of students on the university’s main lawn. The demonstrations have since turned violent and featured anti-Semitic slogans, and more than 100 Columbia students have been arrested and suspended.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who has donated millions to Columbia since graduating in 1963, said on Monday that he would no longer donate to the university due to the “virulent hate” on campus against Jewish people.
The demonstrations at Columbia have inspired students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, and Yale University to also set up dozens of tents on university grounds, violating campus rules.
At Yale, pro-Palestinian students over the weekend took over a World War II memorial before tearing down an American flag and assaulting a Jewish student.
Anti-Israel hecklers at the University of California, Berkeley, disrupted a backyard dinner party hosted by the university’s Jewish law school dean, weeks after hundreds of Berkeley student protesters broke open the doors to a hall hosting a Jewish event and forced police to evacuate the attendees.
