Can We Talk About the Genocide Question?

An inside account of the bureaucratic nightmare Columbia's BridgeUSA chapter faced attempting to host a discussion about Israel-Palestine.

Protesters gathered outside the 116th and Broadway gates on October 7, 2025 (Sebastian Galbenus/Columbia Sundial)

1. Is it Genocide?

2. How Should Columbia Engage with the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

3. New Potential Deal Between Israel and Hamas

4. Jimmy Kimmel

5. The Woke Right

6. Ukraine

I sent this poll to Columbia’s BridgeUSA group chat on October 1, inquiring about the topic for our next discussion event. Option number one, “Is it Genocide?”, referencing the ongoing accusations against Israel, received the most votes by far. Our members spoke. They wanted to talk about the war in Gaza. The bureaucratic nightmare that ensued in attempting to plan the event showed me that the Columbia administration does not.

For context, I am the vice president and co-founder of Columbia’s BridgeUSA chapter, an organization dedicated to fostering civil political discourse on campus. We host weekly discussions on Tuesday nights, and in the lead-up to each one, our board proposes discussion topics. We were excited to have this difficult but needed conversation on October 7, viewing it as an opportunity to honor grief and provide needed debate in one space. But then we got an email from a dean.

In the past, we’ve hosted conversations on feminism, the rise of “red-pilled” men, immigration, and transgender athletes. None of these events elicited a reaction from the administration. However, within days of circulating the flyer for the Israel-Palestine event, we received an unnerving email. The dean wrote that he was concerned by our poster and wanted to talk. I was shocked.

As a club devoted to engaging with controversial topics, we are not fazed by strong reactions to our events. In fact, we’ve even had conversations about Israel and Palestine before that have been received well by the administration. What made this event different?

Scanning the dean’s email on my phone outside the Law School, I felt like I had done something wrong. But I didn’t know what. When I spoke to this dean a few days later on the phone, he told me that our event required a “rebranding.” Complying with his requests, Bridge modified the poster design and begrudgingly renamed the event to “What Does October 7th Mean to You?”

Nevertheless, this new question atop the poster felt like a betrayal of our members. They wanted to talk about the atrocities unfolding in Gaza, and whether they constituted genocide. But here we were, publishing a tepid flyer that felt more sterile than a hospital room, about a conversation that would conceivably have very little to do with the question of genocide.

This reframing was approved, and at the time, we thought we were in the clear. That was until yet another faculty member raised further apprehensions, ones even more nebulous than before. This professor, a longtime ally of our organization, relayed to us a concern from the administration that we had not undergone the appropriate booking protocols. As with every other event this year, Bridge followed the standard event booking protocols. Nevertheless, we were still given vague reasons why our event could not take place.

We suspected perhaps our event triggered a security concern, meriting a more extensive review process. But no one laid out such concerns explicitly. In our history of hosting and marketing polarizing events, we had never confronted an obstacle as indeterminate as this one.

Over email, I asked this dean if any discussion on October 7 triggered the concern. Was there any possible reframing that could have allayed this administrative anxiety? This professor then explained this sentiment to the President’s Office. The next day, he informed us that the event was now postponed. At the time of writing this, we still know nothing more about the situation than what I have just explained.

The sanitized discussion was postponed to the following week. However, on the day of the rescheduled event, October 14, another dean notified us that he had heard the status of our event was now “uncertain.” A few hours later, we were officially notified that the event was canceled. Moreover, we were told that complaints had been filed against our club and that we would no longer be able to have public events until we were officially recognized.

This entire saga left me with one simple question: What line did Bridge cross?

I was devastated. What started as a sincere attempt to discuss an issue at the forefront of our members’ minds had turned into a broader effort to undermine our club’s existence, constraining our ability to promote civic discourse.

Who filed the complaints? What process should we have gone through to respond to them? Despite this fog of confusion, one fact was clear: Vague administrative overreach stifled organized speech on campus.

It then became clear to me that, for the administration, there exists an all-consuming fear of talking about the question of genocide in Gaza. This anxiety manifests in a perplexing, gargantuan bureaucracy that weaponizes confusion to shut conversations down.

Fortunately, Bridge has since been officially recognized by the Student Governing Board, and we have been able to resume our normal programming, discussing the politics each week over pizza and soda.

For that, I am grateful. However, this gratitude is accompanied by a deep anxiety about the administration’s position on free speech. Their actions towards Bridge extend beyond our club. This debacle will have implications for other student organizations looking to host desperately needed discussions on campus.

So long as it’s harder for students to talk about what’s going on in the Middle East, our community—and the character of this university—will suffer.

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Mr. Gill is a 2L at Columbia Law School and a 2022 graduate of Columbia College. He is a staff writer for Sundial.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sundial editorial board as a whole or any other members of the staff.