NEW YORK CITY — Columbia University has agreed to pay $395,000 to one of two Jewish students who were suspended in January after spraying student demonstrators with a foul-smelling substance during a pro-Palestine campus protest.
The incident occurred during a Jan. 19 rally organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of around 100 student groups protesting U.S. support of Israeli companies. The case was first described as a possible “chemical attack” involving the use of skunk spray, an agent developed in Israel and used as a crowd-control weapon, The Guardian reports. Some students reported nausea and eye irritation after they were exposed to the spray and several were hospitalized, prompting the school and the NYPD to investigate the incident as a potential hate crime.
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Columbia administrators later confirmed the spray was a “novelty fart spray” purchased on Amazon. Both of the students involved initially received 18-month suspensions. One of the students subsequently filed a lawsuit in April, claiming the student used the spray as a “harmless expression of his speech.” The suit also clamed when the student sought help from the school after receiving antisemitic and death threats, Columbia stayed silent.
In addition to the settlement payout, Columbia agreed to reduce the suspensions to probation.
Columbia Settlement Revealed in College Antisemitism Report
The settlement was revealed in a report on college campus antisemitism released on Oct. 31 by the House’s Committee on Education and the Workforce. The report alleges Columbia administrators failed to publicly correct the false claim of a chemical attack in a timely manner. The report also suggests Columbia’s handling of the incident reflects a broader trend among universities to “appease the unlawful encampment occupiers with shocking concessions instead of enforcing their rules.”
“While this conduct was inappropriate and a violation of University rules meriting discipline, it was also clearly a far less serious incident than characterized by anti-Israel activists or to the public,” the report said.
Millie Wert, the university’s assistant director of media relations, told Gothamist that the school is “committed to applying the rules fairly, consistently and efficiently.”
“Columbia strongly condemns antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we are resolute that calls for violence or harm have no place at our University,” she said, noting the university alerted students that the substance was non-toxic. The House Committee’s report, however, alleges that Columbia “allowed a false narrative used to vilify Jewish students to persist for months despite knowing it was not true.”
Columbia University Student Hospitalized by Fart Spray
The Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition of Palestinian students said the settlement is “nothing short of appalling and sickening,” Gothamist reports.
“Palestinian students have repeatedly been profiled, arrested, and suspended for nonviolent actions, including for simply removing Islamophobic posters,” said spokesperson Maryam Alwan.
A Jewish undergraduate student at Columbia told The Guardian that they were hit by the spray and went to the emergency room for loss of appetite, severe nausea, and a headache. In a medical visit summary seen by The Guardian, the student’s official diagnosis was “chemical exposure.” The makers of the fart spray caution that eye irritation, nausea, vomiting and occasionally diarrhea are possible side-effects if exposed.
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The student called the settlement a “slap in the face.”
“Assault is assault,” she said. “If multiple people have to go to the hospital and get diagnosed with chemical exposure, then, ‘Oh, it was just fart spray’ is not really a defense to me.”
The student also said it was “disgusting” that the committee characterized campus protests that support Palestinians as antisemitic.
“I think it’s disgusting to try to weaponize something with a very real history,” she said. “My family has been very deeply impacted by antisemitism in this country and beyond, and it is just deeply offensive to reduce it to a political ploy to silence activism against the genocide, which is what this is.”
