Columbia University has reached a $395,000 settlement with a student who was suspended in January after spraying student protesters with a foul-smelling substance at one of several campus demonstrations in support of Palestine.
The Israeli student who received the payout had been suspended until May.
The case was first described as a possible chemical attack involving the use of skunk spray, an agent developed in Israel and used as a crowd-control weapon, most commonly in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. But Columbia has said the spray used was novelty, non-toxic fart spray, bought on Amazon for $26.11, and not a chemical agent.
A lawsuit that the student filed against Columbia in April had first asserted that he had deployed the fart spray in question on the demonstrators “as a harmless expression of his speech” relying on a product that is marketed as Liquid Ass – and is readily available for consumer purchase.
Several students targeted nonetheless reported symptoms such as nausea, abdominal pain, headaches and irritated eyes – and damage to their personal belongings, with some requiring medical treatment.
Shay, a Jewish undergraduate student at Columbia who prefers to use their first name, told the Guardian that they went to the emergency room at Mount Sinai Morningside for “appetite loss and severe nausea and a headache”.
In a medical visit summary seen by the Guardian, Shay’s official diagnosis was “chemical exposure”. They were put on an IV and given medication upon release.
The university and New York police launched an investigation into what they said appeared to be “possibly hate crimes” shortly after the fart-spray use.
In a letter to students and faculty sent in January after the incident, Columbia’s interim provost, Dennis Mitchell, wrote: “A deeply troubling incident occurred on the steps of Low Library on Friday. Numerous Columbia and Barnard students who attended a protest later reported being sprayed with a foul-smelling substance that required students to seek medical treatment.”
A report titled “Antisemitism on college campuses exposed”, written by Republican staff on the US House committee on education and workforce, called the punishment for the spraying “disproportionate discipline”.
The same committee’s members successfully called for a string of resignations of Ivy League presidents whose schools were grappling with pro-Palestine demonstrations and proposed withdrawing federal funding from universities that did not participate in plans to curb campus protests.
In the committee’s statement announcing the report, the far-right chairwoman, Virginia Foxx, said: “For over a year, the American people have watched antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities, but what was happening behind the scenes is arguably worse.”
The statement condemned the administrators who “put the wants of terrorist sympathizers over the safety of Jewish students, faculty, and staff”.
Shay called the settlement a “slap in the face”.
“Assault is assault,” they said. “If multiple people have to go to the hospital and get diagnosed with chemical exposure, then, ‘Oh, it was just fart spray’ is not really a defense to me.”
The makers of Liquid Ass caution that eye irritation, nausea, vomiting and occasionally diarrhea are possible side-effects. If inhaled, Liquid Ass’s makers say it may cause “respiratory tract irritation”.
Shay said it was “disgusting” that the committee characterized campus protests for Palestinians as antisemitic.
“I think it’s disgusting to try to weaponize something with a very real history,” she added. “My family has been very deeply impacted by antisemitism in this country and beyond, and it is just deeply offensive to reduce it to a political ploy to silence activism against the genocide, which is what this is.”
Columbia and New York police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
