Mamdani-backed socialist Dem Darializa Avila Chevalier, the doubtless subsequent congresswoman from New York’s thirteenth District, was a part of the 2024 campus takeover at Columbia College and a key participant in a radical anti-Israel group that when declared it was “combating for the whole eradication of Western civilization.”
Chevalier, 32, who joined College students for Justice in Palestine in 2014 after a summer season internship within the West Financial institution metropolis of Nablus, co-founded Columbia College Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a marketing campaign aimed toward coercing the Ivy League college to chop monetary ties with Israel.
CUAD led the cost within the disruptive tent encampment protests that took over the college’s Morningside Heights campus in 2024.
She advised the Related Press on the time that they have been “lovely,” sporting a keffiyeh scarf draped over a t-shirt bearing the title of the group, which was completely barred from campus after the takeover.
“I’ve carried out plenty of neighborhood organizing, however when college students have been asking for assist, I’m nonetheless related with the alumni community so I’m very joyful to assist anytime they want me,” the Columbia alumna advised a reporter.
She talked up the group of the encampment, which stretched for weeks within the spring of 2024 earlier than police lastly stormed the campus and arrested members of a pro-terror mob.
“They are surely prioritizing each other’s security, guaranteeing all of their wants are met by way of well being and safety and defending each other from doxxing and all of these worries,” she mentioned.
“On days like at this time the place it’s highly regarded you see college students strolling round with electrolytes and water, after which within the night when it begins to chill down, hand heaters, blankets, issues of that nature. It’s been only a actually lovely factor to see.”
The protests resulted in quite a few accidents, injury to campus buildings and created a local weather of worry amongst Jewish college students and school. Greater than 70 college students have been hit with prolonged suspensions within the wake of the takeover, and a handful have been expelled.
Chevalier mused “The administration, [then-president Minouche] Shafik, may finish this at this time by assembly the scholars’ calls for,” noting the college has divested from different pursuits previously together with these associated to non-public prisons and South African apartheid.
“So I feel it’s not am atter of if the college goes to divest, however quite when, and for them to proceed to carry out on this method solely hurts them,” she mentioned blithely.
Shafik resigned from her submit weeks after the protests ended, citing a “interval of turmoil” that marred her tenure.
Different previous members of CUAD embody Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested by immigration brokers in March 2025, and is now interesting to the Supreme Courtroom in a last-ditch effort to keep away from deportation.
The anti-Israel group made its intentions clear in a long-since-deleted Instagram submit outlining its mission.
“We’re Westerners combating for the whole eradication of Western civilization. We stand in full solidarity with each motion for liberation within the International South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one — we’re combating for nothing lower than the liberation of all folks,” the missive begins.
“We reject each genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized,” it continues.
“Because the fascism ingrained within the American consciousness turns into ever extra express and irrefutable, we search neighborhood and instruction from militants within the International South, who’ve been on the frontlines within the combat towards tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order.”
Chevalier’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to The Put up’s request for remark.
