Do SIPA Student Polls Impact Columbia University Administration’s Decisions?
(Photo/Alma/David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
By TMP Editorial Board
At Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) this February and March, different groups of elected student representatives separately solicited the student body’s opinion on campus policies. How responsive is the administration to the wishes of its students? The Morningside Post takes an in-depth look at the results of these polls and related administrative decisions.
On Sunday, March 9, at 10:51 p.m., University Senator for SIPA, Gabriella Ramirez, sent SIPA students their results of the University Senate’s Student Affairs Committee poll on mask bans, police presence on campus, and campus access. Senator Ramirez had sent these results directly to the SIPA administration a day earlier, on March 8. Nearly 80 percent of surveyed students felt “very” or “somewhat” comfortable with opening Morningside Campus up with swipe access to buildings.
Ten minutes earlier on the same evening, at 10:41 p.m., SIPA students received an email from Columbia University Public Safety. The message informed students that gates for Columbia ID holders to enter campus would be limited to three locations, without context about why these changes were being made. These policies remain in effect as of April 2025. Students were told to expect longer-than-normal wait times.
(Photo/On March 11, 2025, lines to enter campus stretched blocks/Sneha Sinha)
In the Student Affairs survey, results also indicated that 54.5 percent of students would feel “less safe” or “somewhat less safe” with NYPD presence on campus in the future. Only about 25 percent of students said they would feel “more safe” or “somewhat more safe.” Last spring, former Columbia University President Minouche Shafik authorized the police to enter campus during pro-Palestinean student protests to clear encampments and sweep the occupied Hamilton Hall. During this process, the NYPD arrested hundreds of students. In the Student Affairs poll, over half of students also felt that the Morningside Campus closure was a “somewhat” or “completely” unjustified response to recent campus events.
In the Columbia University Public Safety email, students were also informed that there would be additional Public Safety guards around campus.
(Photo/On February 27, 2025, NYPD on Broadway between Barnard and Columbia’s campuses/Bridgette Lang)
SIPA students overwhelmingly disapproved of a mask ban in the March 9 Student Affairs poll. A mask ban was first proposed by Columbia Professor Andrew Marks in late January, who said it had “nothing to do with protests” but was rather about “the classroom.” A leaked proposal for a mask ban around this time cited an instance this semester when masked protesters interrupted a class on Jewish studies and handed out anti-Zionist fliers, as well as other protests in the past year. Opponents of the ban cite masks as a necessary protection against doxxing, which Columbia defines as “a dangerous form of intimidation involving the publication of someone’s personal information…in an attempt to frighten the individual and encourage additional harassment by others.”
The mask ban was also addressed in a flash poll circulated by the SIPA Student Association (SIPASA) from March 15 to March 17, following a March 13 request from the Trump administration for Columbia to implement the ban. This poll was then directly shared with the Columbia administration on March 17. In both polls, students overwhelmingly disagreed with the implementation of a mask ban (with religious and medical exemptions).
A few days after receiving the results of the SIPASA poll, on March 21, Columbia University released a memo in response to the Trump administration’s March 13 list of demands. Then-Interim President Katrina Armstrong communicated these updates to students in an email titled “Sharing Progress on Our Priorities.” Among other administrative updates, this webpage contained information on a newly implemented mask ban (with religious and medical exemptions).
In the same email, then-President Armstrong emphasized that “our community of thoughtful faculty, students, and stakeholders has shaped a principled and methodical approach to meeting the moment’s challenges.” She added that this “response to the government agencies outlines the substantive work” that the Columbia administration had been doing to “make every student, faculty, and staff member safe and welcome on our campus.” She also linked to a webpage called “Fulfilling Our Commitments,” which contained most of the same information conveyed in the memo to the Trump administration.
A complete list of the SIPASA poll and the administration’s decisions are shown below:
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SIPA Student Association (SIPASA) Poll Open March 15–March 17, 2025 Results sent to administration on March 17, 2025 |
Advancing Our Work to Combat Discrimination, Harassment, and Antisemitism at Columbia (In response to Trump administration’s demands) Published March 21, 2025 |
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Based upon the experience of peer schools, Columbia is clarifying that such protests in academic buildings, and other places necessary for the conduct of University activities, are generally not acceptable under the Rules of University Conduct because of the likelihood of disrupting academic activities. All demonstration activity is subject to the University’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. |
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Public safety has determined that face masks or face coverings are not allowed for the purpose of concealing one’s identity in the commission of violations of University policies or state, municipal, or federal laws. |
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The University’s approach and relevant policies will incorporate the definition of antisemitism recommended by Columbia’s Antisemitism Taskforce in August 2024. |
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Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity (“OIE”) has promulgated a policy and processes for discipline of all student groups that stems from discriminatory conduct. OIE has the ability to sanction these groups, including to defund, suspend, or derecognize. In addition, in the next few weeks, the Office for University Life will announce a sanction policy for violations of University policy unrelated to claims of discrimination with sanctions for registered student groups. Both the existing OIE policy and the new policy will permit sanctions from defunding, suspension, to derecognition. |
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The University has hired 36 special officers who will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and/or arrest them when appropriate. Those individuals are near completion of their training and credentialing under New York law to work on our campus. We will continue to assess the necessary size of this force to achieve our goals. The University has a longstanding relationship with the NYPD. |
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As part of our ongoing efforts, we are appointing a new Senior Vice Provost this week with a focus on promoting excellence in Regional Studies. As part of this portfolio, the Senior Vice Provost, acting with the authority of the Provost Office, will conduct a thorough review of the portfolio of programs in regional areas across the University, starting immediately with the Middle East. This review will include the Center for Palestine Studies; the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies; Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies; the Middle East Institute; the Tel Aviv and Amman global hubs; the School of International and Public Affairs Middle East Policy major; and other University programs focused on the Middle East. |
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Review our admissions procedures to ensure they reflect best practices. Our current admission processes comply with existing law. Columbia has and will continue to engage outside academic experts to review our admissions practices across all of our many schools for students from the United States and around the world, and make recommendations to the President and Provost about how to improve them and ensure unbiased admission processes. As consistent with our practice when faced with concerns over discrimination against a particular group, we have established an advisory group to analyze recent trends in enrollment and report to the President. For example, we have identified a recent downturn in both Jewish and African American enrollment, and we will closely examine those issues. |
“At all times, we are guided by our values, putting academic freedom, free expression, open inquiry, and respect for all at the fore of every decision we make.”
“Columbia’s President has adopted a position of institutional neutrality. The Provost’s Office is working with a faculty committee to establish an institution-wide policy implementing this stance.”
The conversation between Columbia’s administration and its students does not end here. In the same email, former Interim President Armstrong called for student input, saying that “we expect Columbians to engage in robust debate and discussion about our way forward, and we welcome it as an opportunity to shape the future of Columbia.” As the new Acting President Claire Shipman settles into her role, she will also have the opportunity to listen to student voices and respond accordingly.
To continue this discourse, we, the Editorial Board of the Morningside Post, would like to solicit your feedback for one more poll (anonymous):
Editorial Note:
For clarification on data collection methods of the Student Affairs Poll, please see the following note from the University Senator for SIPA, Gabriella Ramirez:
Individual question totals may vary due to the following factors:
1) Partial Responses: We accepted responses even if participants did not complete the entire survey. Some individuals may have answered only a few questions before exiting.
2) Conditional Questions: The campus security section included conditional logic, meaning the number of questions a respondent received depended on the semester they first joined campus. As a result, some individuals answered one, two, or three security-related questions.