Darializa Avila Chevalier, a socialist Democrat backed by Mamdani and considered a leading contender to represent New York’s 13th Congressional District, has drawn attention for her past involvement in Columbia University’s 2024 campus protests and her role in a staunchly anti-Israel student movement.
Chevalier, 32, became involved with Students for Justice in Palestine in 2014 following a summer internship in Nablus, a city in the West Bank. She later co-founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest, known as CUAD, a campaign that pushed the Ivy League university to sever financial ties with Israel.
CUAD was among the groups at the center of the 2024 tent encampment demonstrations that disrupted activity on Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus.
Speaking to The Associated Press during the protests, Chevalier described the encampment as “beautiful.” At the time, she wore a keffiyeh over a T-shirt bearing the group’s name. CUAD was later permanently banned from campus following the takeover.
“I’ve done a lot of community organizing, but when students were asking for support, I’m still connected with the alumni network so I’m very happy to support anytime they need me,” the Columbia alumna told a reporter.
Chevalier also praised the organization behind the encampment, which lasted for several weeks in spring 2024 before police entered the campus and arrested protesters involved in the occupation.
“They really are prioritizing one another’s safety, ensuring all of their needs are met in terms of health and security and protecting one another from doxxing and all of those worries,” she said.
“On days like today where it’s very hot you see students walking around with electrolytes and water, and then in the evening when it starts to cool down, hand warmers, blankets, things of that nature. It’s been just a really beautiful thing to see.”
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The protests resulted in numerous injuries, damage to campus buildings and created a climate of fear among Jewish students and faculty. More than 70 students were hit with lengthy suspensions in the wake of the takeover, and a handful were expelled.
Chevalier mused “The administration, [then-president Minouche] Shafik, could end this today by meeting the students’ demands,” noting the university has divested from other interests in the past including those related to private prisons and South African apartheid.
“So I think it’s not am atter of if the university is going to divest, but rather when, and for them to continue to hold out in this way only hurts them,” she said blithely.
Shafik resigned from her post weeks after the protests ended, citing a “period of turmoil” that marred her tenure.
Other past members of CUAD include Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested by immigration agents in March 2025, and is now appealing to the Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to avoid deportation.
The anti-Israel group made its intentions clear in a long-since-deleted Instagram post outlining its mission.
“We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization. We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one — we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people,” the missive begins.
“We reject every genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized,” it continues.
“As the fascism ingrained in the American consciousness becomes ever more explicit and irrefutable, we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South, who have been on the frontlines in the fight against tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order.”
Chevalier’s office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
