‘Protest consultant’ stirs up pro-Palestine campus clashes
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When Eric Adams, the New York mayor, issued a warning about “outside agitators” infiltrating the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, his words were accompanied by video of students dutifully obeying orders from a grey-haired woman.
She was identified as Lisa Fithian, a New Yorker living in Texas, yet the 63-year-old would have needed no introduction to law enforcement officers involved with policing protests in the US for more than half a century.
Described by Mother Jones as “the nation’s best-known protest consultant”, Ms Fithian has supported a plethora of movements over the decades including opposing the Iraq war, fighting for Louisiana communities following Hurricane Katrina, Extinction Rebellion and Occupy Wall Street.
She has been arrested between 80 and 100 times yet unions and activist groups hold her rabble-rousing skills in such high regard they have paid her $300 (£240) a day to run demonstrations and teach them tactics for taking over the streets.
Video released by New York police at Mayor Adams’ briefing on Tuesday showed Ms Fithian instructing a mob of pro-Palestinian protesters as they took over an academic building at Columbia University.
In one clip, protesters were seen carrying a table, while in the background, Ms Fithian could be heard saying: “I can’t help with that. You guys can help with that.”
In another clip, protesters were seen attaching a piece of furniture to the door of a building, while Ms Fithian tells people with cameras to move back.
“What should have been a peaceful protest, it has basically been co-opted by professional outside agitators,” said Mr Adams.
At least half of the demonstrators at Columbia are not affiliated to the university, a law enforcement official told CNN.
Mr Adams claimed the agitators had caused “serious public safety issues” with tactics that included blocking doors, destroying cameras, building barricades and attacking an employee.
He added: “We have sounded the alarm several times before about external actors who attempted to hijack this private protest.”
Ms Fithian is unlikely to be intimidated, however, having been an outsider fighting battles with authority since her school days in Hawthorne, New York.
‘Teaching kids who want to be badass’
After attending Skidmore college in New York, she cut her teeth as a political activist with the Washington Peace Center campaign group in the 1980s, organising demonstrations locally and nationally with a focus on anti-racism issues.
By the time she took a key role in Occupy, a social justice movement that targeted leading financial institutions, she was a revered figure among fellow campaigners.
As Occupy took over the parks of New York and Los Angeles in 2012, she was reported to have been handing out advice to younger activists on tactics ranging from proper tear gas attire to long-term protest strategies.
“When there is some conflict, or things aren’t going the way that we want them to go, or people don’t have a good long-term plan,” a twenty-something protester told Mother Jones, “I have heard others and myself say, ‘Damn it, where is Lisa Fithian?’”
Max Berger, another Occupy campaigner, said: “Nobody is going to say that what Lisa does is not badass so she is in a very strategically important position of teaching kids who want to be badass to be smart.”
The leadership of Columbia University is more concerned with teaching its students to pass exams – and bringing an end to the protests. However, Ms Fithian’s presence on campus could make that task significantly harder.
