Columbia students compare protest scenes on campus to 'The Shining' on 'Fox & Friends'

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Jessica Schwalb and Jonas Du, students at Columbia University, joined co-hosts Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence Jones to discuss the early Tuesday morning scenes on their campus when the ongoing anti-Israel protest took a chaotic turn, on the April 30 episode of 'Fox & Friends'.

Demonstrators, many of whom were allegedly not associated with the University, reportedly smashed windows and infiltrated Hamilton Hall, and the lax security left non-participating students feeling abandoned and alone, they claimed.

Jessica Schwalb's take on protest

Schwalb, who posted clips of the protestors smashing through glass windows with a hammer to gain access to the academic building on X, drew parallels of the situation with scenes from the 1980 horror film 'The Shining'. 

"I also saw a student who was trying to prevent them from barricading the doors and then he was essentially corralled by (a) human chain of pro-Palestinian protesters and basically lifted up and shoved out and called a Zionist," she told the co-hosts.

"He was physically assaulted, and again, there's utter silence from public safety, from NYPD. So, we feel alone on this campus."

A Jewish student herself, Schwalb shared that she did not "feel safe because there are so many reports ... and I have talked to people who've confessed on camera ... that they're getting IDs from students and they're not student(s) and then they just swipe in."

Jonas Du's view about protests

The editor-in-chief of the monthly school magazine Columbia Sundial, Du said that he was studying for finals when the chaos began.

"It was a very surreal scene. I was in Butler Library, our main library, getting ready for finals... I walk out, the encampment is alive, everyone's marching around and everyone's saying they're going to occupy Hamilton Hall," he recalled.

"And instantly I knew that this was an escalation because, back in 1968, this was the big event that put Columbia on the map in terms of being a very activist school, and it really did a lot of harm to the university’s reputation."

"They occupied Hamilton Hall back in 1968 to protest the Vietnam War, and now they're doing the same thing because they see this as a continuation of the same movement," continued Du. "This is a very important building… this is where the dean of Columbia Colleges is, it's where the center for the core curriculum is and that's the centerpiece of every student's academic experience."

"We learned tonight, (and) there's video of this that we've posted on Twitter where people are climbing through the windows from the street. People who are presumably not affiliated climbing into the windows of a dormitory building, coming onto campus and presumably joining the protest. So Columbia has completely lost control of its gates," he later added.