Today in Labor History April 23, 1968: Students took over the administration buildings at Columbia University, in New York, and shut down the university. They were protesting the Vietnam war. Today, as in right now, students have been occupying parts of campus, in protest of the Israeli war on Gaza, and in support of a free Palestine. One of their demands is university divestment from Israeli businesses. Over a hundred students have already been arrested already. Yesterday they ordered all classes to be taught online. Arrested and suspended protesters included the daughter of Congressional representative Ilhan Omar, who claims she is now homeless, as a result. In response to the arrests, dozens more encampments and occupations sprung up on college campuses across the U.S. Yale locked its gates to the public. Police arrested faculty at NYU. Meanwhile, the ADL and rightwing Trump supporters Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton have been calling for the National Guard to be deployed to college campuses. And rightwing Zionist union leader, Randi Weingarten (of the American Federation of Teachers), who shook hands with admirers of the Ukrainian fascist and antisemite Stepan Bandera in Ukraine in 2022, denounced the Columbia protesters as “antisemites.”