Columbia University in the City of New York

New York, NY

D
Score: 401/1400
8,832
Undergraduate students
97%
Retention rate
$66,139
Annual tuition
0.59
Diversity Index
Data submitted by: Isolate, e[redacted]69420, Anonymous
Medium Campus
Medium Campus
private
Private University
Urban Campus
Urban Campus
Four-Year College
Four-Year College
Northeast Region
(Neo)Liberal Campus
(Neo)Liberal Campus
Sports Culture
Sports Culture
Noisy Campus
Noisy Campus
Graduate Students Unionized
Graduate Students Unionized

Description

There is very little coverage of disability in The Spectator, Columbia University's student newspaper, which evinces how invisible the disabled community is on campus. Of the few disabled students' voices that have been published over the years, one has to go all the way back to 2015 just to find something besides an op-ed written in 2022. One of the pieces written in 2015 was a letter to the editor titled, "Don't call me disabled," in which the author uses the term "wheelchair-bound" to describe those other students who "deserve accommodations."

On top of that rampant ableism at Columbia (this is a school where writing an op-ed that it's ok to sit by oneself in the dining hall was considered radical) stairways are the dominant motif in the design of the physical campus and literal gates surround the entire main campus to separate the elites from the plebs who actually live in the Morningside neighborhood. This is a campus that is besotted with the ideologies of meritocracy and gatekeeping.

In 2022, a disabled Columbia student wrote an op-ed in The Spectator, stating that "since I stepped through those iron-wrought gates, the University has made it clear that they don’t believe it is their job to offer that support—for me or other students with disabilities... My pleasantly unhelpful [Disability Services] coordinator said I could receive extra help when my condition “flared up,” demonstrating a clear misunderstanding of what I was going through."

Columbia's Department of Public Safety employs many former senior members of NYPD, including Timothy Malin, Deidre Fuchs, and James McShane, former VP of Public Safety. Members of Columbia’s Mobilized African Diaspora have pointed out the hypocrisy in some of the progressive scholarship that comes out of Columbia and the institution's heavy-handed policing of the community and its surroundings. They ask, “How can you have Mariame Kaba in your faculty and then also have James McShane as your [vice president for] public safety? These are people who had their careers under Ray Kelly, under peak stop and frisk, during Guiliani, clean up the streets, tough on crime, broken windows—and then you have the Center for Justice that’s talking about restorative justice.”

In recent years, two Columbia students were stabbed to death just steps away from campus despite Public Safety officers being stationed nearby.

Abigail B. Elbaum, Vice Chair of the Columbia Board of Trustees, sits on the Board of the New York City Police Foundation. Alan R. Batkin, who sits on the Board of Advisors at the School of Public Health, is a Trustee of the New York City Police Foundation.

In 2022, Columbia University was removed from U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of top universities for falsifying data that led to it rising to the 2nd spot in the rankings.

Are all campus buildings physically accessible to students who use wheelchairs or other mobility aids?

NO

A former student writes, "I believe that most buildings on campus are technically accessible. But whether they are practically accessible is another matter. For example, one of the main academic buildings, Hamilton Hall, has just a single elevator for 6-8 floors (I can't remember how many). In between classes, there is always a long line in front of the elevator, and I can't imagine a wheelchair user having an easy time getting through that. Also, all the steps around campus are a nightmare, and College Walk has so many loose bricks that even able-bodied people are always tripping or getting their heels stuck."

Are class session recordings readily available for lecture courses?

NO

A former student writes, "Of course there is a security camera in every classroom, but they cannot deign to allow recording of lectures." Note: According to one independent study, Columbia is the most surveilled campus in the nation, with the highest ratio of cameras to students.

Are students required to provide documentation of disability to qualify for receiving initial accommodations?

YES

A student says, "I have a really hard time focusing and an even harder time getting disability services to believe me. They require so much documentation much of which I just don't have."

Is there required diversity and inclusivity training for faculty/staff/and students, and does training include recognition of neurodivergence and disability?

NO

What types of student-run peer support groups exist on campus?

Disability Cultural Center

NO

Mutual Aid Networks

YES

Peer Support Groups

YES

Other

NO

Have you experienced ableism, discrimination, or witnessed stigmatizing language?

YES

A student says, "I get told a lot how lucky I must be to receive accommodations and how much they wish they had extra time for tests too. People make fun of those who have visible disabilities all the time. Or call themselves ADHD when they’re busy or excited."

Are police involved in responding to student mental health crises?

YES

https://universitylife.columbia.edu/bluefolder

Does your college have a Student of Concern reporting page?

No

There is no online report mechanism, but members of the community are encouraged to contact the Dean of Students about any student they are concerned about.

Clery Report data: Number of sexual assaults reported on campus per thousand students.

1

*2021 data

Has the college published an official statement in support of racial justice movements?

Support for Black Lives Matter

NO

Support for Land Back

NO

Does your college offer a Disability Studies curriculum?

NO

Does your college offer a course on Critical Theory?

YES

MDES UN1001 CRITICAL THEORY: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Does the college engage in morally questionable research?

Animal Experimentation

YES

Cure Autism

NO

Other

YES

Surveillance: According to The Washington Post, Columbia is one of a handful of universities that has partnered with the startup, SpotterEDU, founded by Rick Carter, a former basketball coach at DePaul University who had a protective order put against him by the athletics department. SpotterEDU tracks students' movements by connecting their smartphones to the campus WiFi.

Facial recognition: Although Columbia University has publicly denied that its Department of Public Safety uses facial recognition, documents obtained by BuzzFeed News indicate that Columbia had an account with Clearview AI and performed over 30 searches on Clearview's database. Similarly, BuzzFeed News' documents show that the NYPD, which frequently works with Public Safety, and which "previously denied it had any formal relationship with Clearview," has "run more than 11,000 searches, the most of any entity on the document. More than 30 officers have Clearview accounts, according to the logs."

News
Submitted by:
admin
2024-04-25

Dr. Carl Hart, a psychology professor at Columbia University, spoke to The Daily Beast about an “explosive interaction” he had with security personnel on Thursday, which he also briefly described on X.

Hart and his wife were entering campus on Thursday afternoon, when a security guard chased him down, claiming he hadn’t properly checked in.

...

“I was singled out because of who I am, because I’m a Black man, and I was not showing them the proper amount of deference because ‘I don’t know my place,’” he said. “These security guys have gotten the message that it’s OK to disrespect, disregard the rights of Black men.”

Hart said that this incident was a piece of a larger problem, one which threatens to grow as more universities send law enforcement after their own protesting students: police brutality against students of color.

“They did this to me, a tenured, full professor,” Hart wrote on X. “Imagine how they are treating our Black male students.”

Source:Link

News
Submitted by:
admin
2023-01-24

A Manhattan federal court jury returned its verdict after deliberating less than a day in the case against Robert Hadden, 64, who worked at two prestigious Manhattan hospitals - Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital - until complaints about his attacks shut down his career a decade ago.

More than 200 of his former patients have settled lawsuits against Columbia University, reaching agreements totaling more than $230 million — and the accusations against him were central to a campaign for the New York Adult Survivors Act, which in November opened a one-year window for survivors of sexual abuse to file lawsuits that would otherwise be barred by statutes of limitations.

Source:Link

News
Submitted by:
admin
2022-04-26

By the time I got on the phone with my DS coordinator again, I was told that I was placed on academic probation for not completing classes I was forced to drop—but which I had paid for—due to my condition. I had just about given up all hope of graduating. I explained to my coordinator that narcolepsy is chronic, that I cannot operate on a “case-by-case basis,” and that my narcolepsy will always be the case. I was told that per University policy, this was the best they could do. They weaponized language straight out of the Americans with Disabilities Act, saying that my request was “unreasonable” and that they could not “alter the fundamental nature” of a course. It took a glowing character reference from one of my professors and my mom threatening to get a lawyer who we, in all honesty, could not afford, to finally unlock access to the Disability Services “secret menu of accommodations,” where, lo and behold, the exact accommodation I was requesting existed.

What happened to me was wrong, and it should not ever happen again. Challenging ableism and improving accessibility on campus is not just adding ramps and elevators or including image descriptions at the end of an Instagram post. It’s also ensuring that every student has equal access to educational opportunities, regardless of disability status.

Source:Link

News
Submitted by:
admin
2022-02-23

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, the Lawrence C. Kolb professor at Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and a psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, has been suspended from his roles as chair of the psychiatry department and Psychiatrist-in-Chief of the hospital, senior administrators announced today in an email sent to the Columbia University Irving Medical Center community.

The suspension comes two days after Lieberman posted a racist tweet, though the email provides no mention of the tweet nor any explanation for the suspension. Senior administrators will meet today with the department of psychiatry and will soon announce an interim chair.

Source:Link

News
Submitted by:
admin
2019-04-12

According to McNab, who is black, officers first began to follow him into the Milstein Center when he declined to show his Columbia ID at Barnard’s main gates despite entering after 11 p.m., when students are required to show their IDs to Public Safety in order to enter campus. In an interview with Spectator, McNab said he was aware of the rule mandating students show their IDs, but expressed his frustration with what he cited as inconsistent enforcement of the rule, as he had noticed that white students were often not asked.

According to McNab’s account, after he entered the gates, an officer followed him into the Milstein Center, continuing to request his ID, and when McNab declined, more officers were called to the scene. Multiple videos taken by witnesses show that, after trying to compel McNab to leave the building, two officers physically pinned him down to the counter at Peet’s Coffee, after which he handed them his ID.

Source:Link

News
Submitted by:
admin
2018-12-10

A group of primarily black Columbia underclassmen were harassed outside Butler Library around 4 a.m. Sunday morning by a white student shouting, “White people are the best thing that happened to the world” and “We built modern civilization,” according to students present at the scene.

Julian von Abele, CC ’21, followed the students from outside Butler to JJ’s Place, where he continued to berate them with racist and white supremacist comments in an incident that was captured on video by students and has since gone viral on social media.

Source:Link