Pro-Palestinian protestors forcibly enter building at Barnard, school employee hospitalized
Pro-Palestinian student protesters at Barnard College in New York stormed an academic building Wednesday evening and held an hours-long sit-in. One school employee was physically assaulted and hospitalized during the incident, according to a spokesperson for the college.
Demonstrators could be seen wearing masks and keffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarf, while banging drums, clapping their hands and chanting into megaphones, in a video posted to X by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine. Palestinian flags were taped on the wall beside colorful graffiti reading "FREE PALESTINE" and "F*** BARNARD / AMNESTY NOW."
The group claimed in a separate post that more than 50 students were present at one point in the halls of the administrative building.
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Students were warned if they did not vacate the building by 9:30 p.m., Barnard, an affiliate of Columbia University, would "be forced to consider additional, necessary measures to protect our campus," the school's Vice President for Strategic Communications Robin Levine said in a statement Wednesday evening.
The Columbia student coalition confirmed in a post shortly after midnight they had dispersed. The group also wrote that they had a meeting with administrators scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday.
Levine said in a statement Thursday morning, "No promises of amnesty were made, and no concessions were negotiated," when protesters left. The school did not immediately respond when asked for confirmation of a meeting this afternoon.
Among students' list of demands was amnesty for students disciplined for pro-Palestinian action, a public meeting with the school's dean and president, and the reversal of two student expulsions.
Two Barnard students, both in their last semester of undergraduate studies, were expelled last week for disrupting a session of the class "History of Modern Israel."
Columbia University has been an epicenter for pro-Palestinian demonstrations nationwide since last spring. More than 100 students were arrested on campus last April.
The sit-in at Barnard Wednesday garnered backlash from advocates for free speech and pro-Israel organizations.
"What happened at Barnard last night was, by all accounts, not peaceful protest," said Alex Morey, Vice President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. "Campuses need to draw a hard line: full support for peaceful student protest on even the most divisive political issues, and zero tolerance for misconduct, violence, or criminality."
Sacha Roytman Dratwa, CEO of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, called the protest at Barnard "a disturbing act of antisemitism."
"If the leaders of Barnard College succumb to these outrageous and violent threats, then it will show Jewish lives truly do not matter in their eyes, and this will provide a sense of legitimacy to those who call for violence and murder of Jews," Roytman Dratwa said in a statement.
Barnard President Laura Rosenbury said in a statement Tuesday evening, after demonstrators had left, that the student protesters had "attempted to undermine Barnard’s core values of respect, inclusion, and academic excellence."
"But let us be clear," Rosenbury said, "their disregard for the safety of our community remains completely unacceptable."