Written by by Aaron Sibarium at freebeacon.com
Organizers of the Columbia University encampment advised activists at Princeton on how to take over their own campus, giving them tips on disrupting university operations and stressing that there is “safety in numbers,” according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The tips were dispensed last week during a meeting between Aditi Rao, a Ph.D. student at Princeton who has defended calls for intifada, and members of Columbia’s encampment. Rao relayed the advice to her fellow Princeton activists in a strategy session last Saturday, notes from which were obtained by the Free Beacon.
The Columbia organizers had spent weeks hashing out a plan to kneecap the university’s core functions and put administrators in an impossible position. If activists at Princeton wanted to pull off a similar coup, there were some things they should know.
Pick a site “that is public and that [the] University needs,” Columbia’s organizers advised, noting that they had targeted the quad where commencement takes place. “Don’t pick the site of historic occupations,” such as libraries or the president’s office, since the university will simply move its operations to a “different building.”
Finding the right target could take time, the organizers said. At Columbia, they were “planning for over a month.”
The meeting notes, which have not been previously reported, are part of a tranche of documents that detail how a highly organized group of activists—including dozens of faculty—planned to paralyze Princeton by copying the Columbia playbook. Key to their strategy was the anticipated fecklessness of administrators, who at Columbia have refused to enforce their own deadlines to clear the encampment and, in past protests, would reinstate students within days of suspending them.
“Columbia thinks they will get suspensions cleared,” notes from the meeting read.