University committee due to report on campus access by mid-December
The Wall Street Journal reported that the city’s filing joins a lawsuit neighbors brought more than a year ago. In court documents, the city states that “The City supports reopening of the walkway through the Columbia University Campus to the public.” In a motion to dismiss, Columbia argued that the 1953 agreement did not create a public easement and that its only obligation under that pact is to allow city access for maintaining underground facilities and hydrants.
For decades, the main walkway through Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus was publicly accessible, giving families an open space to enjoy and allowing pedestrians a shortcut through the grounds. That changed when pro-Palestinian student demonstrations escalated in 2024. The Ivy League school closed the gates, citing safety concerns. The university has since acknowledged that closed gates can make Columbia feel less connected to the city.
Last year, the school was a target of the Trump administration’s campaign to wrest billions of research dollars from schools it accused of liberal excess and failing to protect Jewish students during protests over the Gaza war. Columbia eventually agreed to a more-than-$200 million settlement.
Those who want the gates reopened frame the issue as one of civic obligation to the surrounding neighborhood. Some also question the merits of a closed campus for learning. “We shouldn’t be a walled-off garden,” said Sebastian Javadpoor, a first-year law student at Columbia.
Jewish students who sued the university in 2024 over its handling of alleged campus antisemitism take a different view. Susan Chana Lask, the attorney representing them, said outsiders can pose additional security threats and that her clients still studying at Columbia would also like to see the gates remain closed. “Why make it any easier?” she said.
Columbia has not left the public entirely without a route. Students queue at one entrance to show their IDs, while eligible visitors present QR codes at a separate gate, with lines often forming during busy hours. Over the past year, the university has rolled out a special access application system to people living nearby, handing out more than 1,200 passes. Students and faculty can also apply for visitors to enter. A university official said opening the gates is “on the table” for consideration.
This fall, Columbia President Mnookin created a committee to explore increasing campus access and said she hopes it will deliver feedback to her before the end of the semester in mid-December. Since the student demonstrations, Columbia has ramped up safety personnel and services.
The Columbia Daily Spectator, the university’s student paper, reported in early 2025 that a university Senate poll found 62% of surveyed students would feel “very comfortable” if their Morningside campus were reopened with swipe access to buildings, while 16% felt “somewhat comfortable” and 11% were neutral. Student protests had subsided by then, but pro-Palestinian activism continued. On a recent day, a couple of students from Israel on campus said that the closed gates have helped them feel more secure and that the changing political circumstances warrant keeping them closed.
The neighborhood plaintiffs have been pushing in other ways, too. Dan McSweeney, program director of the Morningside Heights Community Coalition, said his advocacy group has protested five times outside Columbia’s gates and is planning another demonstration this October. The group has collected thousands of signatures on a petition to get the school to open its gates and is collaborating with students to potentially picket together. “It’s artificial and detrimental to believe there should be a separation between students and the neighborhood,” McSweeney said.
Thao Phan, owner of Hartley Pharmacy just east of Columbia’s campus, said the closed campus makes it inconvenient for elderly customers who now have to walk around the gates and as a result are more likely to switch to a big-chain pharmacy. Phan, who lives in Harlem, said she has not applied for the school’s access passes for nearby residents on principle. “The campus was iconic and beautiful,” she said, recalling the time when she could walk through it. “There was a strong sense of sharing,” she added. “We really should get everyone access.”
The question of whether the gates themselves will reopen now sits simultaneously with a pending motion to dismiss, a university committee expected to report by mid-December, and a neighborhood coalition planning another protest in October.