A third Barnard College anti-Israel student activist was allegedly expelled for actions at Columbia University on Friday, according to a Monday Columbia University Apartheid Divest statement, which comes days after a Barnard administrative building was occupied by protesters demanding that two previous activist expulsions be revoked.
The activist was allegedly expelled for their involvement in the April occupation of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, with CUAD asserting that the decision on the several-months-long disciplinary process was both an act of intimidation against participants of the Wednesday protest and an attempt to placate a recently announced Justice Department antisemitism task force probe of Columbia.
CUAD said on Monday that negotiations with the Barnard administration – allegedly agreed to as a condition for the dissolution of the Wednesday occupation – had stalled due to the academic institution changing meeting terms. The group said threats of mass arrest and promises of amnesty for participating in the “sit-in” also influenced their decision to conclude the demonstration.
Barnard President Laura Ann Rosenbury said in a Monday Chronicle of Higher Education opinion article that the administration had deescalated the protest without the intervention of the New York Police Department but had not granted amnesty or made concessions.
“To those who hide behind masks, we invite you to step forward, not in anonymity but in dialogue. We welcome respectful conversation in a space of shared learning and accountability. That requires knowing who is at the table,” Rosenbury wrote in the Chronicle.
“Last week was a test, set in motion by Barnard’s decision to act decisively after the classroom disruption. Expulsion is always an extraordinary measure, but we did what needed to be done, and we will continue to do so.”
Rosenbury warned in the op-ed that despite protesters wearing masks, the administration was aware of many of their identities and would pursue disciplinary action against those who forcibly entered the building, knocking down a security guard and hospitalizing them in the process.
CUAD said on X/Twitter on Monday that the administration was lying about the assault of a staff member and asserted that it was their activists who had been harmed, presenting photographs of bruised students.
The Wednesday protests, which saw walls graffitied, caused $30,000 in damages to offices and classrooms, according to the Chronicle op-ed.
Rosenbury wrote that the incident was part of a 16-month campaign by CUAD to tear apart the campus community by exploiting the Israel-Hamas War.
"Operating in the shadows"
“They operate in the shadows, hiding behind masks and Instagram posts with Molotov cocktails aimed at Barnard buildings, antisemitic tropes about wealth, influence, and ‘Zionist billionaires,’ and calls for violence and disruption at any cost,” Rosenbury wrote. “They claim Columbia University’s name, but the truth is, because their members wear masks, no one really knows whose interests they serve. “
Former US Antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt praised Rosenbury on social media on Monday in response to the strong statement against disruptive activism in the Chronicle article. Lipstadt, in a Sunday op-ed of her own, told The Free Press readership that she retracted her name from consideration of a Columbia teaching role in because she would have served “as a prop or a fig leaf” to the school’s handling of antisemitism.
Columbia said on Sunday that Lipstadt had been informally offered a faculty position at Columbia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, part of “efforts to invite experts in antisemitism to teach on campus as part of Columbia’s ongoing effort to interrogate antisemitism and expand and deepen students’ understanding of this hatred.”
In the wake of the Barnard incident, New York Rep. Ritchie Torres renewed calls to New York Governor Kathy Hochul to legislate mask bans to counter activists concealing their identities.
“The State of New York can no longer stand by idly and allow masked mobs to orchestrate hostile takeovers of college campuses,” the Democrat congressman said on social media on Friday. “There should be zero tolerance for the kind of violence and vandalism we saw at Barnard College.”
The US Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced on Friday that it would visit 10 American campuses, including Columbia, to investigate allegations that the institutions failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from discrimination.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.