For two years, my soft voice was drowned out at Columbia University, smothered by deafening roars outside our windows. I was spoken over, screamed past, pushed aside by mobs whose chants turned threats into anthems.

I live with a rare form of muscular dystrophy. My predicted lifespan was four years. While I defied the odds, never has my voice been more silenced.

Throughout my life I have faced immense adversity, yet I have prevailed by becoming the first person with my condition to walk the New York Fashion Week runway (February, 2023), the first person with my condition to climb a mountain (Camelback Mountain in Arizona 2022) — producing an internationally awarded documentary combating disability stereotypes — and most recently setting a Guinness World Record for the fastest swim time in my category.

My limited energy is normally invested in advocating for others, but for the first time, my very means of advocacy was heartlessly stolen from me.

For two years, my faint tones were consumed by a campus that refused to listen, dismissed by an administration that chose appeasement over accountability, ignored by a culture that demanded my silence in the name of supposed progress.

For two years, voices chanted for the destruction of my people, fists raised in protest not merely for justice, but for erasure, all while those in power stood by in cowardice. Mobs that disregarded our accessibility and our right to belong stormed our campus walk as I scooted in search of a single accessible entrance. While I fought for a space to exist, countless others with disabilities, some bound to their wheelchairs, were left navigating a campus that refused to see us, let alone accommodate our basic needs. Our identities became a debate, and our safety an afterthought.

Yet my purpose is not to debate the hostility, prove our right to exist, or even to justify our presence at this university. Rather, my purpose is to emphasize one simple truth: now, at last, my soft voice can be heard. Unfortunately, the silence that once suffocated me, was only exhaled in response to intensified government intervention. This government intervention is nothing new and has brought forth three harsh realities: (a) The freedom of a Jew comes at a troubling cost (b) History is repeating itself and (c) Columbia’s cowardly silence has perpetuated further hostility and segregation – their indifference must end now.

At an unfortunate cost, the world is now witnessing what it takes for Jewish students to experience basic campus safety and dignity. The Trump administration’s cancellation of $400 million in funding, along with the detainment of a former student protest leader with alleged ties to Hamas, has widened the nation’s eyes to one chilling truth: Columbia’s failure to uphold the rights of Jewish students was not appropriately corrected by institutional conscience but rather it required external force, exposing the depths of negligence.

Columbia’s government funding was revoked in direct response to “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” This is a profound failure of humanity, that restoring safety required government intervention at the expense of fundamental freedoms. The price of inaction was paid through imposed financial costs, an obligation that should have been paid through moral courage. It was not.

For a Jew to attend class freely, must a child with cancer lose access to life-saving research?

For a Jew to walk through campus freely, must an international student fear detainment?

For a Jew to learn without threats, must a groundbreaking cure remain locked away due to defunded research?

For a Jew to simply exist, must a first-generation student lose access to financial aid?

Have we truly arrived at another moment in time where, for a Jew to express their identity openly, the future of innovation, education, and opportunity must be compromised? Where an engineering breakthrough must be halted and countless other students must suffer collateral damage simply because Columbia University refused to act until it was forced?

The university administration’s cowardly silence is screaming! While government intervention has never been more necessary, agony pulses through my veins at the realization that this is where campus life has arrived. The university administration had every opportunity to protect its students, yet chose to allow the escalation of intolerance and violence against their Jewish students. And now, that silence has been replaced with an even louder reckoning, one that should never have come at such a cost.

Now, the campus is silent. But this silence has not emerged from understanding or reflection. Campus silence exists only because the cost of inaction became too great — the silence is screaming!

History has proven – that government mandates do not equate to inherent justice. Canceling government funding for needed research and resources is truly an unfortunate crossroads between morality and human equality. Throughout history, intensified government intervention, though imperative, has proven to deepen divisions, inflame resentment, and fuel further segregation.

In 1954, reluctance to properly integrate black children into the school system, following the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling against racial segregation (1954), persisted. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to integrate Little Rock Central High School or to protect Black students from violent mobs, making federal intervention essential. In September of 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to forcibly escort nine Black students, known as “The Little Rock Nine,” into the school. While governmental mandates undoubtedly served as one necessary step towards respect for all, one consequence was generational racial strife.

Columbia’s suffocating silence is the true culprit, forcing external action where institutional courage should have prevailed. The silence on campus will be temporary if Columbia’s leadership refuses to take meaningful action.

Columbia’s administration must summon the courage to acknowledge the undeniable truth, only then will we cultivate true respect for all. One can be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, tall, short, in a wheelchair or running freely. One can come from any faith, culture, or any physical ability but at Columbia one principle must consistently hold true: that all academic thinkers can and should be safely welcomed. When policies are upheld, order will follow.

We must not allow the tides of academic accountability to shift along with the ever changing waves of podcast trends, political climate, public opinion, or what funding is or is not received.

True racial, cultural and ability equality will not persist if Columbia University does not speak up and clearly condemn the open disrespect of students. The current silence is deafening.

Dear Columbia University leadership: dig deep and draw from the depths of your hearts and souls to shatter your indifference and proclaim that respect for all will no longer be up for debate. I urge you to speak out online, in print, and, most critically, stand in person at the Columbia Sundial, a historic gathering place at the heart of campus. The institution’s declaration of justice and respect for all is crucial for both the present and future. Please, replace your silence with a bold message to our diverse, complex world, memorializing it for those not yet born.

Take it from me, someone whose soft voice speaks against the odds – our campus’s silence is screaming.

* * *

Lilian Brasch is an undergraduate student and ability activist at Columbia University, class of 2025.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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At Columbia University, The Silence Is Screaming