Late Wednesday night, Columbia University's leading anti-Israel group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), shared a video of its latest act of anarchy. At Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), toilets were clogged with cement. A Columbia Business School building, meanwhile, was soaked with red paint.
Columbia quickly released a statement calling the acts of vandalism "unacceptable and abhorrent," adding that such acts "will not be tolerated at Columbia." Just months before, however, Columbia's student radicals met within the walls of a recognized student organization to train each other on all things anarchy. Included among the suggested readings was a manual written for "aspiring revolutionaries" that outlined the sewage cementing and graffiti soaking tactics used on Wednesday. And the student organization that played host appears to be in good standing with the school.
The apparently premeditated nature of the attack suggests Columbia could have impeded it by cracking down on the event's attendees and its host, Alpha Delta Phi (ADP), a literary society. While the ADP house is controlled by an outside organization and technically off campus—it sits between several other houses and dorms that Columbia owns—Columbia recognizes ADP as a student organization, according to its website, and provides it with services like WiFi, Ph.D. student Alon Levin told the Washington Free Beacon.
It was at that house that some 100 students, led by CUAD, met in November at a two-day event titled, "Hind's House," a reference to the name anti-Israel activists applied to Hamilton Hall after its illegal takeover last spring. At the event, which was first reported by the Free Press, attendees commemorated that takeover and discussed anarchical tactics.
A PowerPoint presentation, for example, included a slide with suggested revolutionary readings. One recommended manual—a "Recipes for Disaster" tactical guide written by CrimethInc., an "international network of aspiring revolutionaries"—details methods to disable restroom facilities. One method, described as the "Permanent Solution," uses hydraulic cement, pantyhose, zip ties, and an X-Acto knife.
The guide's graffiti chapter, meanwhile, instructs readers how to vandalize property from a distance using a "super soaker" squirt gun or an "old-fashioned pressurized fire extinguisher." A picture from the "Hind's House" event shows a red can of spray paint and a small fire extinguisher sitting on a table. First-person video footage of the Columbia Business School vandalism, meanwhile, shows a perpetrator spraying red paint from a considerable distance.
Tonight at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), pro-Palestine activists cemented the sewage lines of the entire building to force them to "shut down business as normal." pic.twitter.com/p6WKdcqQsC
— Stu (@thestustustudio) January 30, 2025
Levin, an engineering student, attended the anarchist training event as a concerned observer. He described the similarities between the November training and Wednesday anarchy as "perfect."
"The actions that we saw take place yesterday matched up perfectly with the instructions that were being offered as suggested reading at the CUAD Hind’s House event," he said. But Columbia doesn't appear to have taken action in response to the event. Though Levin and another student attendee filed a Title VI complaint noting the "terrorist propaganda and antisemitic tropes" displayed at "Hind's House," Columbia still lists ADP as an active student group and mostly deferred action to local law enforcement and ADP's national leaders. Though it did launch an investigation, the probe remains open and does not appear to have led to suspensions.
"This event took place off campus in a house independently owned and operated by a group known to Columbia as the Association of Graduates of the Columbia Chapter of ADP," a Columbia spokeswoman told the Free Beacon. "Upon learning of the event, the University notified law enforcement, the national Alpha Delta Phi Society leadership and a representative of the owner of the ADP house. We immediately launched an investigation which is ongoing."
Columbia administrators detailed the Wednesday damage in a string of internal messages. One email, penned by SIPA dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, noted that toilets on the 4th, 6th, 14th, and 15th floors of the school's building "were vandalized with a cement-like substance causing the toilets to clog" and touted "same day health, well-being, and counseling offices and resources" available to students. Chief Operating Officer Alexsandra Sanford later updated students to note that, as of this morning, all the facilities were repaired, according to a message obtained by the Free Beacon.
In a SIPA group chat of about 800 students, a vocal minority supported the damages, portraying it as non-violent opposition to an institution that supports Israeli "genocide," according to a student in the chat.
"People that are saying anything criticizing this act are being [accused with questions], saying, 'Oh, so you're supporting the genocide?'" the student told the Free Beacon.
Esther Fuchs, a SIPA professor who co-chairs the Columbia Antisemitism Task Force, condemned the vandalism. She told the Free Beacon that, in over 40 years of teaching, she has "never seen such disregard for the community that this kind of vandalism and hate represents."
Levin said that while he's unsure what will happen next, he believes "violence is possible."
"They made it their goal to make life unbearable for everybody else until they get what they want, which is essentially the end of the Jewish state, right?" Levin said of Columbia's student radicals. "It's never going to happen, so we're all gonna have to be miserable."