Mamdani threatens Columbia University with lawsuit if NYC school wont open gates to public

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is threatening to sue Columbia University to open their campus gates — which have been locked for three years since the anti-Israel campus protests of 2023.The Mamdani administration warned it’ll take “prompt” legal action if College Walk — a once bustling footpath on West 116th Street that allows pedestrians to cut across the school’s Morningside Heights campus — isn’t reopened immediately, according to court documents filed Tuesday.“When it comes to the specifics of this lawsuit, I want to just lay out very clearly that what we stated is that unlike the past administration, we do support the reopening of the walkway,” Mamdani said at an unrelated press conference in Greenpoint, Brooklyn Thursday.The city previously argued that College Walk did not require pedestrian access under Mamdani’s predecessor Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.Fuming neighborhood residents sued the school and the city in January 2025, arguing that the stretch of quad space was intended to remain public after the Big Apple sold it to the private Ivy League institution decades ago.Mamdani said the city reached an agreement with the plaintiffs, “which makes clear what the original purpose was of College Walk, as well as commits us to taking prompt legal action if Columbia does not immediately reopen the walkway.”The mayor, who isn’t shy about his anti-Israel views, said the decision didn’t have to do with his support of the student protests over the Israel-Gaza war.“The reason this is a priority is that decades ago the city reached an agreement with Columbia University on the basis that College Walk was supposed to remain open for public access,” he told reporters.“This is something that I know personally, also as someone who grew up on Riverside Drive, right next to Columbia University, whose father is a Columbia University faculty member,” he continued.Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.

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