ELHS Alumna’s Educational Future Uncertain After Participating In Columbia University Protests

As American campuses blossomed into spring and college students prepared for exams, Marie Adele Grosso was among the hundreds arrested at Columbia University in New York City for protesting Israeli military actions against Palestinians.

Her educational future at Columbia now hangs in the balance as she awaits a disciplinary ruling from the school. 

Grosso was a member of the 2022 East Lansing High School graduating class and is the daughter of Michigan State University faculty members Catherine Grosso and Stephen Gasteyer. She is a sophomore at NYC’s Barnard College which is one of Columbia’s undergraduate colleges. Grosso was arrested twice and suspended from the college.

Locally, Grosso’s actions have been praised by the East Lansing Islamic Center and referenced by pro-ceasefire activists who have asked City Council to pass a ceasefire resolution. In January, council voted against a ceasefire resolution but some residents continue to ask for a resolution during the public comment portion of meetings.

“Palestine has always been something that’s really important to me and something I really care about,” Grosso said in an interview with ELi. “We’ve lived in Palestine and from a very human level what’s happening in Palestine right now is a genocide; it is a human rights violation. We’re watching it unfold. I would hope that most people’s reaction would be to be extremely passionate about it because we’re watching the people in power do nothing. We’re watching the leaders of our university and country support a genocide.”

According to Gasteyer, Grosso was 10 years old when the family relocated to Ramallah in Palestine’s West Bank while Gasteyer completed a yearlong Fulbright Fellowship. During that time, Grosso said she was greeted with daily reminders about the segregation between Palestinians and Israelis.

“It’s impossible not to [see the separation],” she said. “The thing is that apartheid and discrimination is baked into every part of life. For example, there are separate roads you can go on, depending on what your passport is. Palestinians can’t leave their city without getting a pass and then going through a checkpoint that is very scary and intensive. Palestinians aren’t allowed to drive through these checkpoints, they have to walk through. It’s just a very intense process. When you’re in the areas outside of Ramallah, there’s a huge settler-colonial presence and a huge Israeli military presence. If you’re to walk into the old city of Jerusalem, at least when I lived there, there was always a sniper above the wall, just sitting there.

“Sometimes water gets cut off in Ramallah because Israel gets mad and they just cut off all the water. Sometimes they cut off electricity because they are mad. Sometimes they just won’t let food in, won’t let packages in. Sometimes soldiers decide arbitrarily to throw tear gas. When you’re walking in Ramallah which is very much PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization)-controlled, or has been historically where we’re seeing a lot more of a settler presence in Ramallah which is alarming, you see the wall which is a symbol of apartheid. You can’t leave without going through the checkpoint. Most people can’t leave regularly at all. The streets are completely plastered with images of children and young adults mostly who have been murdered by Israel. The streets – I feared walking down the streets – all the lampposts and walls are completely covered with the faces of dead children and young adults, or imprisoned children and young adults, as young as 12 originally.”

Student unrest at the Columbia campuses began shortly after the renewed Israeli-Palestinian fighting started in October 2023, Grosso said. She said school administration ignored the needs of Palestinian students and communications from the university were “really awful.”

Grosso laid out what she and other protesters hoped to achieve with the demonstrations.

“We would like disclosures,” she said, “so we would like transparency on their finances, where our money is going, who is invested in them, why they are invested in. We want them to divest in Israel. We want amnesty for professors, amnesty for students, [and] local support for Palestinian students. We did get them to give some more disclosure which was really wonderful and does show that there is some power there.”

Grosso was first arrested on April 18.

“I was sitting on the lawn of my college campus,” she said. “That’s the simplest way to put it. It was an encampment. I had an ID and I was arrested on the charge of trespassing. The campus even has a system of flags, so if it’s a green flag, you can be on the lawn. The lawn was on a green flag the entire time.”

She was one of 108 protesters arrested by NYC police.

“Honestly, there was an immense amount of privilege in our first arrest; it was the nicest arrest the NYPD could have done,” she said. “They came up to me, and while this was still a violent reaction to a nonviolent protest, there was, in comparison to how they instantly treated CUNY [City University of New York], they came up to us and said, ‘Can you please stand? You’re under arrest,’ and they went through all of the protocol. And while It was completely unjustified, the NYPD came out and said afterwards that they didn’t know why they were there. 

“We were chanting, singing. We had hundreds of students surrounding the encampment, trying to be part of it in any way they could. During our arrest, we had planned not to be compliant. We were singing and chanting throughout the entire arrest, from the beginning to the end of it. 

It really doesn’t fit anyone’s narrative of what we were doing.”

Grosso said she was arrested shortly after noon and was released before midnight with a citation for trespassing that was later dropped.

The second arrest came less than two weeks later and was more violent and chaotic, according to Grosso. She and approximately 60 others were protesting outside of Hamilton Hall on the Columbia campus when they were surrounded by the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group.

“They were in full riot gear coming in,” she said. “They were absolutely ready for goodness knows what. They came in with batons out…they rammed into me and pushed me down a ramp. I was fine. Someone near me was unconscious because [law enforcement] started taking metal tables and chairs and pushing people down concrete stairs. Someone was knocked unconscious so I went to check on them. A police officer took my phone out of my hand and threw it, then came up and pushed me to the ground. I stood back up because I was worried the person was going to get trampled because there were hundreds of police and 60 of us total…It was very scary and the police were not in a moment where they felt they could stop, deescalate.

“Not a single officer checked on anyone, the person who was fully unconscious. I was advocating for them to call EMS and then I got arrested. That time, they were running low on arrest vans so they started using city buses.”

Grosso sometimes uses a cane and was using one at this particular protest.

“I had it in my hand [and] the police officer took it out of my hand,” she said. “By that time, I had memorized the NYPD code of conduct and arrest protocols because, I don’t know, that felt logical because this time the protest was going to be more intense. [I said] I’m being arrested on nonviolent charges and he responded, the officer arresting me responded, ‘If you’re disabled then you shouldn’t get arrested.’ I was also asking to be cuffed in front and he wasn’t willing to cuff me so he was holding my hands twisted behind my back [and] my shoulder dislocated from that. It was like several things were happening at once. I ended up getting cuffed in front when I got to the bus and I believe his supervisor told him to. They forgot to seatbelt us the second time, which is illegal, and they also weren’t allowing us to have female officers pat us down.”

Grosso received another trespassing citation which was also eventually dropped. The disciplinary action she received from her college has been harder to shake off.

“I haven’t been allowed to complete my school work [from spring semester],” she said. “[After the first arrest] I was put on probation, ended up getting disciplinary probation and having to show up to a 60-minute meeting about rules and [the] code of conduct and then write a reflection on my actions.

“The second time they’ve been a lot more intense with me but also a lot more random in terms of their punishments. I’m still interim suspended, meaning they believe you pose a physical threat to campus.”

Grosso was scheduled for a June 26 disciplinary hearing, but was informed on Monday (June 24) that all hearings have been postponed indefinitely. She has yet to find out if she can finish her spring classes or will be allowed to enroll for fall courses.

“My spouse and I were quite worried about what the consequences might be,” Gasteyer said about his daughter. “We were, of course, worried that there could be disciplinary implications but also violence by those who disagreed. This is an issue that on U.S. campuses people feel strongly about supporting Israel. We had a number of concerns at that time. We were even more concerned at the time of the second arrest because we knew that there were likely to be additional consequences to that action.

“On one hand, I’m nervous about what the consequences are going to be but I am very proud of her. I have to say, it’s not just her. The hope for our world is that young people across the country and across the world are standing up and saying that when they have live streamed images of a genocide, they have to stand up. They have to put themselves on the line.”

“We have exposed her to lots of things,” he said. “Honestly, I think we have tried to help her be a good person but she came out that way. Taking her to the Middle East as a young person exposed her to the culture of respecting human rights and being able to mobilize around human rights. She came out as somebody who is engaged with the world, interested in trying to make the world a better place, and she is someone who will make the world a better place.”

Gasteyer remarked that both he and his wife protested against South African apartheid while in college.

Grosso credits her parents and the East Lansing schools for inspiring her activism.

“I think East Lansing High School really does have a large community of students who care about the world around us,” she said. “ELHS definitely has a large community of students who put a large emphasis on caring for others in a very macro way. I also went to Stepping Stones Elementary School so I was raised with montessori [teachings] and a lot of that is respecting your surroundings, respecting people around you. It’s been ingrained in from a lot of directions.”

While Grosso’s educational future at Columbia faces uncertainties for protesting Israeli military actions, her former school district has taken a stance on the conflict. At the June 10 East Lansing Board of Education meeting, the board unanimously passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire. 

Grosso offered advice to her peers who might consider protesting themselves.

“Keep yourself safe [and] know your limits,” she said, “but you absolutely should participate in this because even one person can make a difference. Every step is a win so pay attention to those wins, don’t just gloss them over.”