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Who is Cooper Union Alumni Association's president? Ex-students threaten to cut funds over NYC college's stance on anti-Israel protest

Cooper Union, a private college, is seeing it former students demand a formal investigation into the Oct 25 pro-Palestine protest

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: The president of the Cooper Union Alumni Association, Ron Vogel, and the president of The Cooper Union, Laura Sparks, had previously addressed the October 25 protest on the campus in a letter dated October 31 that left several alumni dissatisfied.

In a letter dated November 2, over 300 alumni of the prestigious private institution condemned the college’s response in a strongly worded letter dated November 2.

In the letter addressed to the college, the alumni criticized the institution for being “more concerned with avoiding a scandal than protecting its Jewish students,” and threatened to stop donating

The Cooper Union is an all-honors private college, one of very few American institutions of higher learning that awards a half-tuition scholarship to every admitted undergraduate student. This means donations are important to how the insititution is funded and run.

What did Cooper Union Alumni Association's letter say?

A heated protest took place inside the campus of The Cooper Union on October 25 that left several Jewish students cooped up inside the library as anti-Israel protesters banged at the door and yelled anti-Israeli chants. 

The letter alleged that NYPD officials were asked by the authorities not to enter the library. This despite how the students locked up inside feared for their safety and made several 911 calls.

The letter accuses the college for being concerned about their reputation and read, “It’s unbelievable that a rowdy mob intimidating Jews was not the scandal you feared, nor took action against.”

The alumni continued in the letter, “Instead, you put students in harm’s way to prevent the PR nightmare of uniformed officers escorting the protesters away from the building,” per the New York Post.

The footage from the incident showed the protest started on the sidewalk outside the library. As the demonstrators entered the building while chanting anti-Israeli slogans, the security guards locked the metal doors of the library.

The alumni wrote in the letter, “If it was truly peaceful, campus security would not have deemed it necessary to secure the students inside.”

The alumni also criticized college president Laura Sparks’s response to the incident, angry that she “merely announced that antisemitism is bad.”

They wrote, “Please try to imagine for a moment that it was any other minority group placed in the position of your Jewish students on October 25th. Your condemnation would have rang clear as a bell.”

Close to 300 alumni who signed the letter demanded the institution to condemn the protest and admit that their response was inadequate.

“You can rest assured that alumni through the years will hear of your reaction to this letter. And should we deem it insubstantial, we shall speak even louder,” wrote the signers.

They also threatened, “We shall stop donating funds to the school. And we shall stop encouraging the application of young Jews to Cooper.”

The letter concluded while saying, “We know what happened the last time good people stayed silent. It is not too late to do the right thing.”

College deemed pro-Palestine protest 'peaceful'

In a letter dated October 25, President Sparks addressed the issue and described the protest as a “planned student walk-out outside of the Foundation Building, part of a larger effort across New York City and nationally,” and that “it was a peaceful protest.”

She, nevertheless, made it clear that “language displayed on the protest signs may have suggested that the students were speaking on behalf of the college,” while in reality, “they were not.”

She wrote, “To maintain a safe space, the library was closed for approximately 20 minutes while some student protestors moved through the building, some chanting protest slogans and banging on the library doors and windows”

She said many students who were there in the library were accompanied by library staff until the protest was over.

In their October 31 letter, President Sparks and the Alumni Association President Vogel quoted NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell and said that police were present throughout the protest.

Quoting Chell’s report, they wrote, “There was no direct threat, there was no damage and there was no danger to any students in the school. The students were not barricaded; a school administrator thought it was prudent to close the doors.”

They also added, "Cooper Union has increased security on campus in collaboration with external security partners and the NYPD."

Pro-Palestinian students of Cooper Union slam school's 'one-sided stance'

In a letter by the Pro-Palestinian students of Cooper Union, as obtained by CBS New York, the students wrote, "We, students of Cooper Union, planned a peaceful protest to demand our institutions acknowledgement of the Israeli apartheid."

They protest of October 25 happened after a pro-Israel rally that took place earlier that day in Cooper Plaza.

The Pro-Palestinian students wrote, "This was in response to the school's one-sided stance and participation in the occupation of Palestine. We planned to peacefully protest outside the building before walking in and continuing our protest outside the president's office."

They continued, "We concluded our protest by calling out our demands through the hallways of the entire foundation building. When we reached the library, we were told that it was closed so we continued chanting outside the glass window of the library."

"Many different students of all backgrounds were in the library at the time. We would like to make it clear that our protest was not targeting any individual students or faculty, but the institution itself," explained the students.

"We would like to reiterate that we DO NOT under any circumstance condone antisemitism and many members of the protest were Jewish," concluded the protesters.