Educational institutions have but one purpose: To produce young adults with marketable skills. The students who attend those institutions have only one gainful reason for doing so: To obtain capabilities that will make them valuable in the employment marketplace.

It's a little baffling how protesting the Middle East's only democratic nation taking steps to prevent the kind of savage attacks it suffered on October 7th, 2023 furthers either of those things. Still, on Friday, at New York's Columbia University, a crowd of (presumably) students has once again gathered to do just that.

Unfazed by Thursday’s mass arrests, protests are continuing at Columbia University on Friday and a large police presence — with officers in riot gear — is being reported.

Demonstrators — said to include activist actress Susan Sarandon — are currently marching through the streets and have made it to the university, chanting with signs and flags.

Protesters could be heard chanting: "NYPD KKK. NYPD we know you. You're Israeli trained too!" and "Palestine will be free!" 

Jewish students on campus have had their safety overtly threatened, and are complaining about seeming inaction by the University.

"[Columbia University President] Minouche Shafik has failed time and again to protect Jewish students on campus and hold antisemitic students and faculty accountable," Accuracy in Media's President Adam Guillette told Fox News Digital Friday. "During Wednesday’s hearing, Shafik made a number of empty promises and insincere statements about the state of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus. Just one day later, radical antisemites continued to terrorize Jewish students on campus and spew their hateful ideology. The last 48 hours have made it abundantly clear that Shafik is not fit to serve as Columbia President."

These protests follow equally virulent events on Wednesday and Thursday. In Friday's protests, agitators were joined by actress and left-wing activist Susan Sarandon, of all people.

Previously on RedState: Columbia Campus Chaos: Pro-Hamas Protests Turn Violent Resulting in Multiple Arrests 

NYPD Shuts Down Columbia Pro-Hamas 'Encampment,' and the Hysterical Crying Has Begun

The proper response from the university in this matter is simple: Order students back to class, expel any who refuse, fire any faculty members or administrators who are involved, and have anyone in the crowd who has no business on campus arrested for trespassing. And by all means, there should be no rescinding of the expulsions or re-hiring of the dismissed under any circumstances.

Columbia University Board of Directors members were grilled Wednesday by the United States House of Representatives on the rise of antisemitism on that campus, with many of the Board's answers, at best, unsatisfactory.

Previously on RedState: Columbia University Board Grilled by House of Representatives on Antisemitic Professor 

WATCH: Jim Banks Grills Columbia President on Students Learning Strange Words in Antisemitism Hearing

The great irony of all this is the fact that in Gaza - or Lebanon, or Iran, or any of the other Islamist-run nations these useful idiots claim to be supporting, many of them would be treated, at best, as second or third-class citizens. Of particular irony is the photo of a protestor holding a sign proclaiming "Free Speech," which is unknown in Gaza.

The arrests on Thursday were the first such mass arrests at Columbia since the Vietnam War.

The police operation was the first mass arrests to be made on the Columbia campus since 1968, when hundreds of students occupied Hamilton Hall in protest of the Vietnam War and the planned construction of a gymnasium in Morningside Park were detained, the Columbia Spector reported.

There is, of course, a difference; one could make a case for opposing the Vietnam War, where American troops were fighting and dying for a nation that didn't represent a vital American interest. In this case, the protestors at Columbia are protesting in favor of a group that carried out one of the most heinous, barbaric attacks in modern history. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior by pampered American students.

Note: The total cost of attendance for the 2023-2024 year at Columbia University is $89,587.