A Pro-Palestine protest was developed at the Barnard College in New York City on Wednesday, where a small group “forcibly entered” in a campus room and allegedly physically assaulted a school employee, university officials said.
A demonstration sitting on Wednesday was organized at the Office of the Deans of Barnard to protest the expulsion of two Barnard students last week for “interrupting” a class from Columbia University about Israeli history a month earlier, according to the Columbia University Apartheid Invest protest group. Barnard College is an independent university of women affiliated with Columbia in which students can take courses in both schools.
During the protest, a small group of masked protesters “forcibly entered Milbank Hall” and “physically assaulted a Barnard employee, sending them to the hospital,” said Robin Levine, vice president of strategic communications by Barnard College, in a statement on Wednesday night.
Until Thursday morning, it is not clear what the nature of the injury was or in which the condition of that employee is.
“They encouraged others to enter the without identification campus, showing shameless contempt for the security of our community,” Levine said. “Violence and intimidation do not take place here.”
However, the Columbia Students For Justice group in Palestine had published in X: “We did not need external support for the sitting.” Instead, anyone who would like to support a rally in Bay Ridge was asked.
Levine said the protesters had until 9:30 pm to leave the building or otherwise the university “would be forced to consider additional and necessary measures to protect our campus.”
The president of Barnard, Laura Rosenbury, said in a statement later on Wednesday night that the protesters had unemployed the Milbank Hall.
“Tonight, a small group of masked protesters tried to undermine the central values of respect, inclusion and academic excellence of Barnard,” Rosenbury said. “Thanks to the efforts of our staff and faculty, the protesters have now left Milbank Hall without more incidents, but we make ourselves clear: their lack of security of our community remains completely unacceptable.”
Group of Students Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine shared videos about X of the progress of the protest.
A video showed the participants with Keffiyehs, a traditional Arab headdress and a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, and masks that cover their mouth singing and applauding to the rhythm of a drum while sitting in the living room of a building. Another video shared at 5 pm on Wednesday showed a protest organizer who updated participants in conversations with school leaders.
The Columbia spectator reported that the group met outside the Barnard Dean Leslie Grinage office in Milbank Hall, where they remained for more than six hours.
The protest interrupted the classes in Milbank, according to the student’s article. Barnard told the members of the Faculty with classes there after 5 pm on Wednesday to relocate or cancel.
Later at night, the student protest group published in X that Barnard’s protesters had dispersed “after successfully forcing the administrators to the negotiating table” at a meeting scheduled for the 1 PM on Thursday.
Almost 100 students from Barnard and Columbia participated in the initial protest of the deans office, said the disinvestment of the apartheid of Columbia University in a press release.
They demanded that the two expulsions be reversed last week, the amnesty for disciplined students for pro-palestinian opinions and a public meeting with Barnard Dean Leslie Grinage and President Laura Rosenbury.
The group said Barnard had already suspended more than 50 students for the pro-palestine protest. The expulsions last Friday marked the first in Columbia or Barnard for the pro-palestine protest, and the first expulsions for protest on the campus since 1968.
Last year, Columbia University was the site of tense protests led by students who denounce the Israel-Gaza War and demanded the disinversion of the University of the companies that support Israel. Tents camps were erected in the quad of Campus and the protesters took care of the Campus buildings in protests that saw the call of the school in the Police Department of New York City.
