By David Kattenburg

“A university is definitely not a democratic institution.”

So said Columbia University’s Vice Dean of Graduate Faculties, Herbert Deane, back in April 1967, at the height of campus protests against America’s war on Vietnam.

“Student or faculty opinion should not in itself have any influence on the formation of administrative policy,” Deane declared, in an interview with the university’s student newspaper, the Daily Spectator.

“When decisions begin to be made democratically around here,” Deane warned, darkly, “I will not be here any longer.”

Then, Dean Deane’s famous throwaway line:

“Whether students vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a given issue means as much to me as if they were to tell me they like strawberries.”

Sixty years later, Herbert Deane’s infamous ‘Strawberry Statement’ continues to sum up Columbia University’s indifference to and contempt for free speech.

Last spring – amid rising campus protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, university investment in the Zionist war machine, and sweetheart study deals for Israeli soldiers with blood on their hands — the Columbia University administration suspended four protest leaders, banned them from campus, forcibly evicted them from precious, off-campus housing, and cancelled their scholarships.

Now, three of those students have struck back.

In a February 3 filing to the Supreme Court of the State of New York [hereafter referred to as ‘The Complaint’], counsel for Catherine Curran-Groome, Brandon Murphy and Aidan Parisi charged Columbia University with breach of NY State landlord-tenant and human rights statutes, breach of contract, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and willful misuse of its student conduct system to discriminate against, harass, endanger, and deny their “Tedeschi Rights.”

“Tedeschi Rights,” set forth in the 1980 NY State Appeals Court ruling Tedeschi v. Wagner College, 1980), stated:

“[A] private university must strictly observe and grant the procedural and substantive rights it promises its students in its manuals and codes; implied obligation of good faith and fair dealing; due process, equal protection, and academic freedom set forth in its Student Manual and Charters and Statutes, as well as the confidentiality of their records, including disciplinary files.”

Columbia University has until February 24 to reply to The Complaint.

At the time of her two-year suspension, in early May 2024, Catherine Curran-Groome was pursuing a Master’s degree in International Affairs at Columbia’s Morningside campus, in Harlem, Manhattan. Her full-scholarship was revoked, and she was evicted from her university-leased off-campus flat.

Suspended for a year, Brandon Murphy and Aidan Parisi were both first-year Master’s of Social Work students.

Due to graduate in May 2025, the academic and personal lives of Curran-Groome, Murphy and Parisi have now been upended.

So has their health.

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Three months prior to their university suspension, in the course of a peaceful, January 2024 demonstration, Curran-Groome and Parisi were allegedly sprayed with a noxious chemical substance by a pair of former Israeli soldiers enrolled in Columbia’s School of General Studies.

The Complaint identifies the two former soldiers as Menachem Mendel Perez and Yuval Hadari.

Mendel Perez and Hadari had reportedly been the subject of prior complaints, for spitting on, physically threatening, and doxxing Arab, Muslim, and pro-Palestinian students.

Following the alleged ‘skunk spray’ assault (which campus security personnel had reportedly witnessed, but done nothing), Curran-Groome came down with a host of symptoms Columbia University’s health clinic associated with “toxic chemical inhalation.” According to The Complaint, the clinic declared itself “shocked that a chemical weapon had been used on students on campus and that they had not been notified in order to prepare the necessary services.”

Unable to get her breathing problems addressed at the campus clinic, Curran-Groome transferred herself to Mt. Sinai Hospital, for nebulizer treatment, returning days later after almost eight hours of “unrelenting vomiting.” In the course of these hospital visits, health workers spotted a heart murmur – something Curran-Groome never knew she had. Most distressingly, persistent bleeding forced her to seek treatment at an off-campus gynecology – bleeding that continued for five months following the skunk spray attack.

For their part, soldiers Mendel Perez and Hadari were suspended, then, following a lawsuit against Columbia brought by Mendel Perez, reinstated in good standing.

Israeli soldier

At the heart of Catherine Curran-Groome, Brandon Murphy and Aidan Parisi’s February 3 complaint against Columbia University at the NY State Supreme Court – the 2021 supplanting of Columbia’s University Judicial Board (UJB) by the Orwellianly-named Center for Student Success and Intervention (“CSSI”).

Empowered to pursue disciplinary action in response to numerous acts of “behavioral” and “academic” misconduct, CSSI procedures eliminated protections offered by the UJB – the right to an attorney, time to prepare a defense, to call witnesses, to a prompt hearing, adequate notice, and to make opening and closing statements.

And, in contrast to the UJB — constituted by and accountable to the Columbia University Senate — CSSI proceedings would be overseen by the office of the President, and by extension, the Board of Trustees, populated by corporate figures beholden to powerful interests, including the pro-Israel lobby.

Subjected to chemical attack in January 2024, Curran-Groome and her comrades’ woes would grow.

On March 24, they held an off-campus “Resistance 101” event, featuring Palestinian activist Khaled Barakat.

Their choice of Barakat as a speaker couldn’t have been more daring.

Outspoken proponent of Palestinian resistance, in all forms, with ‘alleged’ ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — a designated “terrorist” organization in the US, Canada and EU (a connection he wisely denies) — Khaled Barakat is a popular bête-noir among pro-Israeli lobbyists.

The session was publicly advertised, and proceeded without immediate incident.

Nine days later, on April 3, 2024, CSSI slapped Curran-Groome and Parisi with “interim suspensions” for organizing an event “at which non-affiliates were granted access to a campus residence, and which enabled members of the University community to directly communicate with individuals and/or organizations known to advocate for violence,” thereby compromising the “well-being and safety of the University community.”

Curran-Groome and Parisi were also banned from campus, and denied access to campus health clinic and psychological services. Desperate for health care, Curran-Groome’s only source of income, a campus research assistant post, was also cancelled.

But Curran-Groome and her comrades remained obdurate.

Catherine Curran-Groome rallies crowd on Columbia campus

On April 17, 2024, they and other pro-Palestine students set up a Gaza Solidarity tent encampment on Columbia University’s East Lawn, one of two spaces formerly designated “Free Speech Zones.”

That same day, campus protests heating up across the US, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik was hauled before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

For the seemingly hapless Shafik, it was a harrowing encounter.

Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) had “watched in horror” as Columbia and other elite campuses “erupted into hotbeds of antisemitism and hate,” Foxx snapped at Shafik.

“Columbia stands guilty of gross negligence at best, and at worst has become a platform for those supporting terrorism and violence against the Jewish people,” Foxx sniffed.

Citing ‘From the River to the Sea,” “Viva, Viva Intifada!” and other outrageous chants, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) wanted to know if calls “for the genocide of Jews” violated Columbia University’s code of conduct.

Yes, they do, Shafik and two other Columbia administration staff replied.

What did “by any means necessary,” or “intifada” mean to Shafik, Bonamici asked, smelling blood?

“Incredibly distressing,” Shafik replied – both to her and Columbia’s Jewish students.

Jews Against Genocide (David Kattenburg)

Thoroughly chastened, Minouche Shafik hastened to set things right. The day after her House grilling, overriding a decision by the Columbia Senate, Shafik called in the cops. Curran-Groome and over 100 other protestors were arrested, and their tent encampment torn down. Fifteen students were suspended, and another six placed on disciplinary probation.

“They are getting the message,” Shafik said.

Shafik’s move was swiftly condemned by the Columbia and Barnard chapters of the American Association of University Professors, and by the Columbia Senate.

In an April 26 resolution, the Senate “unreservedly” condemned “external interference in the internal affairs of Columbia University that undermines the traditions of academic freedom and shared governance.”

But Columbia students remained undeterred.

On April 21, they formed a “human chain” (to “forcibly exclude others from the South lawn of Columbia University’s Morningside campus,” pro-Israel forces alleged). Curran-Groome watched from the sidelines, engaging in “textbook de-escalation,” The Complaint states.

Then, outraged by seventh months of genocide in Gaza and feeling their oats, in an action harkening back to 1967 anti-Vietnam protests, on April 29, fifty students stormed Hamilton Hall. “Hind’s Hall,” they renamed it, after 6-year-old Hind Rajab, brutally murdered by Israeli soldiers in January 2024. Hundreds of other students rallied outside.

The following day, Shafik declared Columbia’s Morningside campus a restricted zone, accessible to students and essential employees, and no one else.

The NYPD on quick dial, Shafik also called the cops — again.

On the evening of April 30, armed with batons and flash grenades, drones and a helicopter hovering overhead, police stormed Hind’s Hall.

Read a detailed description of the raid here.

Catherine Curran-Groome

Catherine Curran-Groome was “severely injured” (according to The Complaint). Police escorted her, handcuffed, to the Harlem Hospital for Children and Families, where she was X-rayed, treated for a leg wound and other injuries, issued pain medication, and released, then taken to the local precinct for booking, along with fifty other protesters.

Curran-Groome would be the only student protester not to have her charges immediately dismissed. According to The Complaint, she was “singled out by the DA at the request of [Columbia] University.”

Minouche Shafik thanked the NYPD police for their “incredible professionalism.”

The following day, May 1, 2024, Catherine Curran-Groome, Aidan Parisi, and Brendon Murphy received the word: They were now under investigation for committing “egregious violations” of the “Standards & Discipline guidelines,” and “immediately suspended and banned from Columbia University with the expectation of [permanent expulsion] after an expedited hearing.”

Due process, CSSI-style.

Reaffirming the highest academic principles, that same day, Minouche Shafik issued a public statement:

“This drastic escalation of many months of protest activity pushed the University to the brink, creating a disruptive environment for everyone and raising safety risks to an intolerable level,” Shafik wrote. Continuing:

“Columbia has a long and proud tradition of protest and activism on many important issues such as the Vietnam War, civil rights, and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Today’s protesters are also fighting for an important cause, for the rights of Palestinians and against the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. They have many supporters in our community and have a right to express their views and engage in peaceful protest. But students and outside activists breaking Hamilton Hall doors, mistreating our Public Safety officers and maintenance staff, and damaging property are acts of destruction, not political speech. Many students have also felt uncomfortable and unwelcome because of the disruption and antisemitic comments made by some individuals, especially in the protests that have persistently mobilized outside our gates.”

Once again, President Shafik was roundly condemned by her peers.

“There has been a disregard for the students the University exists to educate, a disregard for the University’s Rules and Statutes, and a continued flaunting of the practices of shared governance, to say the least,” Rules Committee member Candice Kail stated at a May 8, 2024 meeting of the University Senate.

“The administration has not only not course corrected but has doubled down in their bulldozing over any possibility of due process and in their refusal to acknowledge the harm they are doing and have done to this institution and this campus,” Kail said in her statement. “We need the CSSI to be disbanded. And we must remove the NYPD and private security from campus and return our campus to students, faculty, staff, and researchers,”.

On May 8, 2024, by unanimous vote, the Columbia Senate called for a halt to CSSI disciplinary proceedings.

“President Shafik’s violation of the fundamental requirements of academic freedom and shared governance, and her unprecedented assault on students’ rights, warrants unequivocal and emphatic condemnation,” the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors declared.

“President Shafik,” the declaration continued, “violated the fundamental obligations of shared governance when she ignored the opinions of the faculty and students on the Senate Executive Committee who unanimously rejected her request to summon armed New York City police onto our campus.”

Minouche Shafik also missed an opportunity to connect with three highly principled Columbia University students; to speak with them, personally – something she may not have imagined doing.

Instead, on September 10, 2024, Columbia University’s “Rules Administrator” sent notices to Catherine Curran-Groome and Brandon Murphy, informing them that four charges continued to be laid against them from their involvement in the April 17 encampment: “unauthorized access” to the lawn, “refusal to self-identify,” and “failure to disperse.”

“Not responsible,” Curran-Groome and Murphy responded.

Since December 20th, 2024, Curran-Groome, Murphy and Aidan Parisi sit in “disciplinary purgatory,” The Complaint states.

Notwithstanding the case’s transfer to the University Judicial Board (something that happened late last year), CSSI interim suspensions against the three students remain active.

On that day, the UJB informed Curran-Groome and Murphy that disciplinary hearings would be held the following week (right after Christmas). Murphy requested a delay, to consult with counsel in the new year.

The “Rules Clerk” rejected his request.

Curran-Groome told the UJB that she’d already been effectively expelled by the CSSI, and asked the UJB if its involvement in her case meant that the expulsion was now rescinded.

The Rules Clerk did not answer her question.

Curran-Groome’s effective expulsion has not been rescinded. Rescinding it, on protest, would have suggested that Columbia University is a democratic institution – something it wasn’t back in 1967, and certainly isn’t today.

Listen to our conversation with Catherine Curran-Groome in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

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Watch our conversation here: