Several state and local politicians and civil rights groups announced the formation of a coalition calling for a ban on masks at protests during a June 27 press conference in front of Columbia’s 116th Street and Broadway gates.

The creation of the coalition, which includes the Anti-Defamation League, the National Urban League, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, and other civil rights organizations, follows months of pro-Palestinian protests inside and outside of the Morningside campus, where many protesters have worn masks out of concern for doxxing and COVID-19. New York State Assembly member Jeffrey Dinowitz of Brooklyn District 81 and several other speakers at the press conference stated their support for resurrecting a New York state anti-mask law enacted in 1845, which Dinowitz incorrectly said was enacted to fight the Ku Klux Klan.

“They’re the same, their motives are the same, and they’re just as evil as each other,” Dinowitz said of masked pro-Palestinian protesters and the KKK at the conference. He later apologized for these remarks on X, clarifying that he took issue with “masked intimidation” and “absolutely did not equate the two [groups] in and of themselves.”

Multiple speakers at the conference, including Dinowitz, drew comparisons between pro-Palestinian protesters’ keffiyehs—traditional Palestinian scarves—and the distinctive white hoods worn by the KKK.

“These are KKK tactics,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to combating antisemitism, said of the protesters’ use of masks. Greenblatt has previously called for Columbia and other institutions to ban masks on their campuses due to pro-Palestinian demonstrators, stating that banning masks was not a “free speech issue” but a “public safety imperative.”

Continue reading here at the Columbia Spectator.