Who is Lisa Fithian, the 'Professional Agitator' Seen at NYC Pro-Palestine Protests?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
On Tuesday, the New York City Police Department confirmed that a well-known "professional agitator," also known as a protest consultant, has been identified at the Columbia University pro-Palestine protests.
Key Details: Lisa Fithian, 63, is an American professional protester and author of Shut It Down. She has had ties to anti-Israel groups and was among those at Columbia University who broke into Hamilton Hall and occupied it earlier this week. Fithian was not at Columbia, however, on Tuesday night when police arrived and made dozens of arrests.
Key Quote: “It is long past time for this violent Israeli Occupation to end,” Fithian said in a 2018 profile for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
For Context: On Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams told reporters that many of the protesters at Columbia were not students, and were there "to serve their own agenda."
How the Media Covered it: The New York Post (Lean Right bias) reported that Fithian was making $300 a day in the mid-2010s for training activist groups and unions on the basics of disruption and demonstration. The New York Times (Lean Left) reported that Fithian said photos and videos of her on the Columbia campus were misinterpreted by "right-wing" critics and the police.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Center
Professional Agitator Idenfitied at Columbia Protest by New York City Police
The New York City Police Department confirmed tonight that a well known professional agitator, also known as a protest consultant has been identified at Columbia University.
Amidst a sea of youg college students at the protest, breaking into a building and denying Jewish students access to the campus, was an eldery woman taunting the protesters and inciting them.
Police identified the woman as Lisa Fithian. She credits herself with ‘shutting down the CIA’, occupying Wall Street, and other major protests in recent American history.
She brags in her book, Shut it Down that she is ‘living...
From the Left
The 63-Year-Old Career Activist Among the Protesters at Columbia
Among the throng of Columbia University student protesters gathered outside Hamilton Hall on campus early Tuesday morning was a gray-haired woman in her 60s.
In a video captured by The New York Times, the protesters can be seen trying to push their way toward the building as the woman — decades older than the crowd — pleads with two young counterprotesters trying to block them from barricading the occupied building.
“This is ridiculous,” the woman says, as the men stand with their backs against the doors, apparently trying to keep...
From the Right
Notorious anti-Israel protester Lisa Fithian, paid $300 a day to teach activists, spotted among Columbia rioters
A notorious professional protester with past ties to multiple controversial anti-Israel efforts was spotted among the rioters who broke into a Columbia University building and occupied it this week, according to police.
Lisa Fithian, 63, was captured in footage taken outside Hamilton Hall — an academic building on the Ivy League’s Morningside Heights campus that protesters, some of them masked, stormed the around 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
A lifelong agitator, Fithian in the mid-2010s was raking in $300 per day training unions and other activist groups in the basics of...
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