Columbia University and the New Student Anti-War Movement
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Joe Howley on how Israel’s war in Gaza is coming to the home front.

The Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the South Lawn of Columbia University.
(Lara-Nour Walton)There’s a new battleground in Israel/Palestine conflict: academia. Columba University, long the hotbed for arguments about the issue, has boiled over in open conflict as pro-Palestine students set up an encampment, only to be met with an administration that called the police to crack down on the protesters. They students have also been denounced by a bipartisan group of politicians led by Joe Biden and been accused of antisemitism.
But this repression has only emboldened the students and their peers across America, as encampments have spread to numerous other campuses.
To gauge the prospects for this new anti-war movement, I was very happy to talk to Joseph Howley, an associate professor at the Department of Classics at Columbia. Howley brought a wealth of knowledge to describing how the situation looks on the ground. During the discussion, the recommended these sources of student journalism: the Columbia Daily Spectator, the radio station WKCR, and the blog BWOG.
Subscribe to The Nation to Support all of our podcasts
Time is running out to have your gift matched
In this time of unrelenting, often unprecedented cruelty and lawlessness, I’m grateful for Nation readers like you.
So many of you have taken to the streets, organized in your neighborhood and with your union, and showed up at the ballot box to vote for progressive candidates. You’re proving that it is possible—to paraphrase the legendary Patti Smith—to redeem the work of the fools running our government.
And as we head into 2026, I promise that The Nation will fight like never before for justice, humanity, and dignity in these United States.
At a time when most news organizations are either cutting budgets or cozying up to Trump by bringing in right-wing propagandists, The Nation’s writers, editors, copy editors, fact-checkers, and illustrators confront head-on the administration’s deadly abuses of power, blatant corruption, and deconstruction of both government and civil society.
We couldn’t do this crucial work without you.
Through the end of the year, a generous donor is matching all donations to The Nation’s independent journalism up to $75,000. But the end of the year is now only days away.
Time is running out to have your gift doubled. Don’t wait—donate now to ensure that our newsroom has the full $150,000 to start the new year.
Another world really is possible. Together, we can and will win it!
Love and Solidarity,
John Nichols
Executive Editor, The Nation
