Aaron Holmes
News Editor@aaronpholmes
aaron.holmes@columbiaspectator.com
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University President Lee Bollinger, a legal scholar of the First Amendment, discussed the state of free speech on campus on Friday in an interview with Spectator. Three days earlier, hundreds of protesters disrupted an anti-immigration speech at Columbia by the white nationalist blogger Tommy Robinson.
Eight students walked into a class being taught by Executive Vice President for University Life Suzanne Goldberg Thursday afternoon, holding signs and passing out fliers that criticized Columbia’s gender-based misconduct policies.
A 29-year-old female doctoral student has sued Columbia, alleging that the University failed to act on her complaints of sexual harassment by the prominent professor advising her, according to court records filed Monday.
Voting for first-year elections for student councils opened and closed this week without a single announcement about how or when to vote emailed by the Columbia Elections Board, posted to the board’s Facebook page, or mentioned on the board’s website.
Executive Vice President of the Office of University Life Suzanne Goldberg said that Columbia will remain “vigilant” in adopting policies and procedures regarding gender-based misconduct, following last week’s reversal of Obama-era Title IX guidelines.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, SIPA ’87, fielded questions from students regarding his plan to close Rikers Island jail, his relationship with police union leaders, and problems with the New York City subways during a guest lecture at Columbia on Tuesday afternoon.
A new Residential Life practice that could bring gender-neutral bathrooms to more dorms has provoked debate in the past week. But in most of Columbia’s residence halls, gender-neutral bathrooms were the only option for residents for over a decade.
Of 33 alleged sexual assaults on campus that were reported to Public Safety in the past two years, Spectator has found that only two resulted in an alert sent to the Columbia community, in some cases leaving students unaware of repeated assaults within the same geographical area in a short span of time.
Undocumented students’ ability to remain at Columbia through the current academic year was thrown into question Tuesday when President Donald Trump announced his decision to end an Obama-era administrative program protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Columbia updated its gender-based misconduct policy this month to make it easier for transgender and gender-nonconforming students to report harassment based on their gender identity.