Jewish students reveal what really happened at Cooper Union protest
Cooper Union sophomore Taylor Roslyn Lent is reassessing reality Thursday, a day after she and other Jewish students were locked inside the East Village university library as pro-Palą²estinian protesters pounded on doors and windows.Lent, 20, said she and roughly 50 other students were barricaded inside the library after a staffer atš§ø the private college locked a door as protesters stormed past security.
āI can say that I felt unsafe and unprotected,ā Lent, a chemical engineering major, told The Post Thursday. āI would like the university to admit what went on and not avoid the topic. I was shšocked that I was experiencing this at my private university ā in America ā in 2023.ā
Lent said she and other Jewish students inside the library feared for their safety as protestš²ersā¦ ā including some carrying Palestinian flags and signs reading āZionism Hands Off Our Universitiesā ā descended on the building.
Police said on Thursday that around 20 of the 70 pro-Palestine protestors, āall są¶£tudents,ā bypassed the point where entrants are supposed to scšan their IDs.
An unidentified Cooper Union staffer then locked the door as demonstrators entered the builšding, according to Lent, who was āhanging outā at the library, she said.
Of the 50 students inside, a small group were Jews, and they āwere full of fear, some crying,ā Lent recalled Thursday.The Postą² reporź¦¦ted Wednesday there was a group of 11 Jewish students in the library.
A senior at Cooper Union who asked not to be identified šaccused demonstrators of yelling āantisemitic rhetoricā as they pounded on a large library windāow.
āWhen they started banging on the door, my heart started pounding,ā the student told The Post Wednesday. āI was crying. I thinź©µk if the doors werenāt locked ā I donāt know what would have happened.ā
Aš °s a young Jewish woman at the university of less than 1,000 students, Lent said she now questions her welfare on campus.
āI mainly šfear for my safety on campus and in my school buildings,ā shš§e said.
Messages seeking comment from Cooper Uį©į©į©į©į©į©ā¤ā¤ā¤ā¤į©ā¤ā¤ā¤ā¤į©ā¤ā¤ā¤ā¤į©š±į©į©į©nion officials were not returned Thursday. University president Laura Sparks addressed the āpeaceful protestā in a message, saying demonstrators moved inside the building at about 3:45 p.m Wednesday.
āTo maintain a safe space, the library was closed for approximatšely 20 minutes while some student protestors moved through the buiālding, some chanting protest slogans and banging on the library doors and windows,ā Sparks said.
Some have called the NYPD to make arrests, but Chief of Patrol John Chell told reporāteź¦rs, āThere was no direct threats.ā
Plainclothes officers were with the protesters at the libraršy, Chšell said.
āStudents were not barricaded,ā Chell said. āThe doors were open but closed. A school administrator thought it was prudenšt to close the doors and place private security as the protesters were coming down the stairs . . .āFor about roughly 10 minutes . . . [protestors] were banging on the doors of the library and banging on some transparešnt windows that you could see into the library,ā Chell added.
Representatives for a group of Jewish students at Cooper Union now want the universityās president fired for what they claim was her failure to protect them.āShe failed in her duty,ā attorney Gerard Filitti said Laura Sparks at a Thursday press conference. āAll of these schools have a duty to keep students safe ā and these students are not safe.”
Filitti also said he wants to press criminal charges against the demonstrators, claimed heād sue the school and called for an inquiry into why šthe NYPD was allegedly slow tš½o respond ā he said students were trapped in the room for at least 40 minutes despite repeated 911 calls.
Solomon Rosenzweig, an alumnus of Cooper Union, said his 22-year-oź¦ld daughter ā a senior at the university whom he requested not be identified due to safety fears ā was also inside the library as dozens of demonstrators chanted āPalestine will be free.ā
Rosenzweig, 48, of Brooklyn, said his daughter was āupset and shakenā following Wednesdayās harrowing incident. The civil engineering major was unavailable for comment ąµ©Thursday while waiting to consult with an attorney.
āIāve gone and donated money back to the school because I appreciated the education and I thought thāat my daughter was going to wind up with the same. Only instead, the school allowed my daughter tāo be at risk.
āI know she has a midterm sheās been trying to work on,ā he saidź§. āAndš her ability to process has been severely degraded.ā
The fatherā šÆsaid his continued support of the school is now in question.
āMy future donations depend on how the school responds and deals with this,ā he said. ā[My daughtešr] was looking forward to going for her masterās degree there and at this point, Iām not sure sheās going to do that.ā
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton and Steven Janowski