Cooper Union is a private college in New York City which teaches art, architecture and engineering to fewer than 1,000 students. Yesterday there were planned protests which escalated into an ugly situation that reminded me of the campus takeover at Evergreen State College. As a result of pro-Palestinian student protesters marching through the school, a small group of Jewish students were locked in the library for their own safety.

Jewish students at The Cooper Union were locked inside the library after telling security staff that about 20 protesters made them feel unsafe.

“They were chanting, ‘Long live the Intifada,’” said one student…

“I genuinely don’t know what would have happened if the doors were left open,” said Jacob, a senior.

This video circulated yesterday. It shows some Jewish students inside the library while pro-Palestinian students are banging on the door chanting “Free Palestine.”

Jewish students at Cooper Union are in the library as protestors pound on the door.

Listen with sound on. pic.twitter.com/pwYRo5KA9X

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 25, 2023

The pro-Palestinian group then moved to a glass window where they could see the Jewish students inside and continued chanting. Some students were reportedly chanting about the Intifada, literally an anti-Jewish rebellion.

Two identifiable Jewish students at @cooperunion are harassed at a pro Hamas rally. Police had to rescue the Jews from the library through an emergency exit.

It's good that the White House @PressSec said, "There is no credible evidence that this is happening in our country" pic.twitter.com/ozIkH1YHWE

— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) October 25, 2023

The pro-Palestinian protest was part of a broader walk out at several colleges yesterday. That protest was meant to remain outside but the students just decided to enter the building and protest at the school presidents’ office. Then they continued walking through the building until they encountered the locked library. The pro-Palestinian students later released a statement claiming they weren’t targeting Jewish students:

We, students of Cooper Union, planned a peaceful protest to demand our institutions acknowledgement of the Israeli apartheid. This was in response to the school’s one-sided stance and participation in the occupation of Palestine. We planned to peacefully protest outside the building before walking in and continuing our protest outside the president’s office. We concluded our protest by calling out our demands through the hallways of the entire foundation building. When we reached the library, we were told that it was closed so we continued chanting outside the glass window of the library. Many different students of all backgrounds were in the library at the time. We would like to make it clear that our protest was not targeting any individual students or faculty, but the institution itself. We would like to reiterate that we DO NOT under any circumstance condone antisemitism and many members of the protest were Jewish.

But people inside the library pretty clearly felt targeted by the banging on the doors and windows.

“It was tense. People were nervous,” one student said. “They were specifically acting very aggressive in those spaces where outwardly Jewish students were sitting.”

“The librarians ran over to us and they were like, ‘We tried to warn you, but we just got notice that they’re coming down,'” sophomore Taylor Lent said.

A NYC Councilwoman pointed out that some of the students were carrying anti-Semitic posters and sticks.

8. The Jewish students barricaded in the library were TERRIFIED, some of them SHAKEN. They believed they could've been physically assaulted and injured, and feared for their well-being. One of the slogans heard was "Globalize the intifada from New York to Gaza"

— Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (@InnaVernikov) October 26, 2023

Jake Novak who worked at the Israeli Consulate in New York claimed that after locking the doors, librarians offered to let the Jewish students hide in an attic. “Librarians bolted the doors and approached the identifiable Jewish students and told them they could hide in the attic if they wanted to,” I haven’t seen this reported anywhere else but obviously this is shades of the Holocaust.

A couple of key highlights from my interview with a major eyewitness/student at this incident:
1) Cooper U. dean said before the protest that he cou;d not stop it because it was not slated to enter school property (which it obviously did)
2) NYPD was called as soon as the… https://t.co/RX2JTJyvSm

— Jake Novak (@jakejakeny) October 26, 2023

Ultimately no one was hurt and by 5pm everyone had gone home. Some concern was expressed by the mayor and the governor over the situation.

While the students at Cooper Union have a right to peacefully protest, hate has no place in our city.

— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) October 26, 2023

State officials are in close communication with local law enforcement regarding protests on the Cooper Union campus tonight.

Antisemitism and all forms of hate and intimidation are unacceptable and have no place in New York State.

— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) October 26, 2023

Still, I think Erick Erickson makes a fair point. If everything had been the same except the people pounding on the doors and windows had been white supremacists, this would have been the top news story in the country last night and this morning.

Intersectionality: if it were tiki torch whites beating on the library doors at Cooper Union with Jewish students inside, it would have been the lead story on the news shows this morning even above the mass shooting. But because it was Palestinian protestors, the news is mostly…

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 26, 2023

One of the Jewish Cooper Union students who spoke to reporters for this story said students had been warning the administration for 2 1/2 weeks that the tension on campus was escalating. Maybe now at least the school will believe it.