While prospective students moved between events during Sunday night’s Days on Campus programming, No Red Tape projected phrases like “Rape happens here” and “Columbia protects rapists” onto Low Library.
Activists said they held the event to coincide with Days on Campus, a visiting weekend for prospective students, in order to educate incoming first-years about sexual and dating violence on college campuses.
But the activists were met by a bit of pushback from Residence Hall Director Aaron Hukari and Graduate Hall Directors Rainikka Corprew, who arrived at the protest at approximately 8 p.m., just as the protesters were setting up the projection. A number of Public Safety officers also were present during the protest.
Corprew, who declined to comment, physically blocked the projector from displaying messages onto Low Library, telling activists the projection was a safety hazard because the light was blinding to individuals inside Low.
As Corprew attempted to block the projector, she audibly told the activists, “I feel like I’m being violated in the same way that you’re defending women’s bodies… It’s like you’re becoming the oppressors.”
Corprew declined to comment to a Spectator reporter at Sunday night’s protest, and she did not immediately respond to a follow-up email from a reporter asking for comment.
No Red Tape member Zoe Ridolfi-Starr, CC ’15, said that the way Corprew handled the protest was “disappointing.”
“It is so hideous to look at a survivor in the face and say you’re an oppressor,” she said. “To try to use the vocabulary and the rhetoric we have put our personal stories on the line to put ourselves on the forefront of people’s attention here and to use it against us is disgusting.”
Corprew and Public Safety officers later told activists to wait until prospective students left campus before projecting onto the library again. Activists complied, and in response, activists held banners reading “Carry That Weight” and “Columbia Protects Rapists” over Low Steps and ledges by Kent Hall.
Corprew asked a number of activists for their UNIs during the protest. When activists asked Corprew if they were violating the Rules of University Conduct, which are currently under review and govern protests on campus, Corprew audibly told them that “it’s not about the rules, I just need your UNI.”
It’s unclear if Corprew attended the event in a role to enforce the Rules of Conduct, as it was not immediately known whether Corprew served in an official role as either a presidential delegate—an individual appointed by University President Lee Bollinger—or a divisional delegate—an individual appointed by a dean or director of a school program. The Rules of Conduct say that these delegates “have principal authority for the enforcement of these Rules. They shall warn individuals and groups whose actions may violate these Rules and may declare their belief that the demonstration is illegal.”
As prospective students left Low Library at 9 p.m. to board buses for a city tour on Amsterdam Avenue and 116th Street, the Marching Band formed a passageway and played “Roar, Lion, Roar.”
“It was all so unreal,” Evan Caplinger, a prospective student, said. “It was the juxtaposition of the school spirit and this striking message against the school. It was invective against the administration and it’s policies.”
After prospective students left the event in Low Library and headed toward buses on Amsterdam Avenue for a tour of the city, No Red Tape members were allowed to begin projecting the text on the library again. The text—which was projected by Illuminator, a politically-oriented arts collective that paired with the group as one of its many collaborative art projects—read “Columbia has a rape problem,” “President Bollinger: Carry that weight,” “We deserve a safe campus,” and “Do you want a rapist as your RA?”
When prospective students returned from their bus tour around New York City, prospective students told Spectator that they were ushered directly along Broadway from their buses to Lerner Hall. As prospective students entered Roone Auditorium, a number of No Red Tape members distributed fliers that advertised the group’s Teach In scheduled for tomorrow at noon in 509 Knox Hall.
Activists said they planned their protest to coincide with Days on Campus because it was the most likely time that administration would feel obligated to react to activists’ demands. No Red Tape has previously staged four protests in February at undergraduate admissions info sessions, for which nine members of the group received warning letters from the Office of Judicial Affairs on potential violations of the Rules of Conduct.
“This is the University’s chance to show off shiny Columbia,” No Red Tape member Julia Crain, BC ’18, said. “If we can do anything while these people are here that’s when they’ll feel most pressure to make active change.”
Crain also said that the intention of the event was to raise awareness among incoming freshmen about the issue of sexual assault on college campuses in general.
“Prospective students have a right to know if they will feel safe at a school they attend,” she said. “We are arming them with questions they should ask for their own well-being. Here and at any school, they have a right to know the truth about how schools handle these cases.”
As the scrutiny on sexual assault policies intensified at colleges and universities across the country over the past year, activists have criticized Columbia’s sexual assault policy, which was revised in August. Columbia is also currently under investigation of Title IX and Title II, following a federal complaint filed last April against the University alleging violations of Title IX, Title II, and the Clery Act.
But administrators have defended Columbia’s policies, with EVP for University Life Suzanne Goldberg telling New York Magazine last year that she thought Columbia’s policy was “one of the best in the country, with more resources dedicated to supporting survivors and other students affected by gender-based misconduct than most.”
Prospective students interviewed on Sunday night had mixed thoughts about the protest.
For some, like Andrew Murphy, a prospective student, No Red Tape’s action was a reminder of the activism that appealed to him about Columbia in the first place.
“It was powerful,” Murphy said. “It definitely conveyed a message where a lot of people’s voices can’t be heard in an institution like this where voices should be heard.”
Veronica Brusilovski, a prospective student, said it was abrasive for administrators to hide students from the protest.
“They are trying to make sure that we don’t know, even though we do,” she said. “Obviously, we are connected online, we see everything that is going on, we read the papers, it’s in every single publication in America right now. Obviously we know.”
Still, others said that they were apprehensive about No Red Tape’s protest.
“It seemed super invasive,” prospective student Peter Wright said. “I’m here for a day.”
Sebastian Espinosa, a prospctive student, said that No Red Tape’s protest could make Columbia and its handling of sexual assault cases seem worse to prospective students than they actually are.
“Kids are coming here to learn about the school, learn about its positives,” he said. “It’s going to deter people from wanting to come to Columbia, seeing all this strife, when there may also be strife at other schools and people may simply be complacent.”
A University spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Prabhjot Grewal contributed reporting. Second photograph by Samantha Velasquez for Spectator.
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Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified a graduate hall director in attendance, as Meghan Chidsey was not in attendance. Spectator regrets the error.
