Columbia University’s leading anti-Semitic group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), showcased its latest act of anarchy Thursday afternoon: a campus bathroom defaced with red paint and inverted Hamas triangles.
“A group of anonymous actionists welcomed @Columbia’s new AIPAC-backed university dictator Claire Shipman with a redecoration of Columbia’s bathrooms during her campus visit,” CUAD wrote in an X post accompanying four photos of the graffiti.
SUBMISSION: A group of anonymous actionists welcomed @Columbia’s new AIPAC-backed university dictator Claire Shipman with a redecoration of Columbia’s bathrooms during her campus visit.
Who is Columbia’s latest President – the third in under two years?🧵 pic.twitter.com/1Da3ImZFmE
— CU Apartheid Divest (CUAD) (@ColumbiaBDS) April 3, 2025
The photos show two bathroom stalls vandalized with red paint on the walls reading “WELCOME SHITMAN”—referring to Shipman, Columbia’s new acting president—punctuated by upside-down triangles, a symbol Hamas uses to denote Israeli targets. The same symbol accompanied other phrases, including “FUCK the TRUSTEE COUP” and “free PALESTINE.” “WELCOME SHITMAN” was also scrawled across a toilet seat.
Flyers were posted in the stalls featuring a doctored image of Shipman crawling out of a toilet with a caption reading, “Shitman! Shitman! We know you. You arrest your students too!” The flyers bore the logo of Columbia’s Students for a Democratic Society chapter, another anti-Israel student group, suggesting it was also involved in the vandalism.
Columbia released a statement saying it notified law enforcement and was investigating to identify the perpetrators.
“On Thursday, restroom facilities at Lerner Hall, Columbia University’s Student Center, were vandalized with graffiti that included disturbing, personal attacks,” the statement read. “Law enforcement was notified, the vandalism was removed swiftly, and an investigation is underway to identify those involved. Defacing property with harassing, threatening, or intimidating language is unacceptable and will not be tolerated at Columbia.”
The incident comes as Columbia struggles to rein in campus anti-Semitism, a crisis that has destabilized its leadership and triggered a $430 million loss in federal funding. Shipman, a former ABC and CNN journalist, took on the new role on Friday following interim President Katrina Armstrong’s abrupt resignation. Days earlier, Armstrong publicly promised to enact policy reforms intended to jumpstart negotiations with the Trump administration to restore the funding, then privately downplayed or denied that change was underway. Shipman took on her new role just two weeks after finalizing her divorce from former Obama press secretary Jay Carney.
“Shipman’s ties to AIPAC and Zionist violence run deep. In 2018, she led interviews at the AIPAC Policy Conference, sharing laughs with guests including MARCO RUBIO. Rubio is directly responsible for the targeting and abduction of Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil by ICE,” CUAD wrote on X.
Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student and foreign national, was detained by ICE in March after Rubio revoked his visa and green card over his pro-Hamas organizing on campus.
“But it must be noted, regardless of personal involvement, every Trustee and every Administrator is complicit in Mahmoud’s abduction. It’s their role in the genocide of the Palestinian people that has paved the way for this brutal repression today,” CUAD continued. “After months of organized pressure and protest, Columbia has been forced to reveal its entire institution as built, bought, and sold by the Zionist death machine. The Uni can no longer hide its fascist fangs, so it’s resorted to a full-force crackdown on the mvmnt [sic] for Palestine.”
This isn’t the first time CUAD targeted Columbia bathrooms. In January, the group used cement to clog the School of International and Public Affairs’s toilets. Just months prior, Columbia student radicals had gathered in a recognized student organization for a crash course in anarchy. Training materials included a manual crafted for “aspiring revolutionaries,” detailing the very tactics seen on campus.
Wednesday afternoon, meanwhile, several Columbia student activists chained themselves to a school gate, chanting, “globalize the intifada.” After a few hours, the school’s Public Safety department removed the chains and escorted the activists through the gate, where they continued their protest. Later in the evening, Public Safety removed a second group that had chained themselves to a nearby fence.
Last week, Grant Miner, a Columbia graduate student who was expelled earlier this month for overtaking Hamilton Hall, gave a speech on campus, telling anti-Israel protesters they had to “fight back.”
Miner, the president of Columbia’s radical graduate student union, Student Workers of Columbia, led a chant before giving the speech on the steps of Low Memorial Library, an administrative building. The union organized the protest, demanding “No research cuts. No ICE. No censorship. No layoffs.”
Four days earlier, the union coordinated another demonstration to protest the Ivy League school’s policy reforms, which include new restrictions on mask-wearing during protests. Members of the union handed out masks to protesters while Columbia’s Palestine Solidarity Coalition—a CUAD splinter group—called on students to “wear a mask on Monday to protest mask bans and the fascist trustees.”
