Columbia’s Campus in Crisis

Every day since the start of the encampment, Nina has come to campus with her camera, positioned herself inconspicuously in the crowd, and captured slices of this fraught and fractured moment in our history. They are startling images that will stay with me: the pensive gaze of a protester whose face is obscured by a keffiyeh, which has become both a symbol of solidarity with Gaza and a practical means of masking one’s identity to avoid doxing. A student adds to a clutch of miniature Israeli flags planted in the grass. Two opposing protesters—one holding an Israeli flag, one in a keffiyeh—engage in a heated discussion.