UPDATE: Protestors Hold Six-hour Sit-in at Barnard in Morningside Heights Against Student Expulsions 

UPDATE 8 p.m. Thursday: The scheduled Thursday meeting between Barnard College administrators and student protestors was cancelled less than an hour before its start time. Students and administrators had agreed to the meeting after a six-hour sit-in at Barnard on Wednesday, held to demand that the college reinstate two students expelled for disrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class in January.

According to students, Barnard administrators initially agreed to a demand that the three students they would meet with could remain masked. But on Thursday, a student negotiator, who announced through the now-closed campus gates, said Barnard officials declined to  meet “unless they UNMASK and identify themselves—despite ongoing security, disciplinary, and doxxing risks.” Students said the college also declined to allow audio recording of the meeting.

Barnard was closed to non-students today, but in the early afternoon dozens of protestors – some pro-Palestine, some pro-Israel – gathered outside the campus, kept apart by NYPD barriers.

By Marco Postigo Storel

Dozens of student demonstrators, fully masked and wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, filled the hallway leading to Dean Leslie Grinage’s office at Barnard College’s Milbank Hall Wednesday afternoon to demand the “immediate reversal” of the school’s expulsion of two students.

Barnard said it had expelled the students for participating in a January 21 protest, disrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class. The students have not been publicly identified, but an online letter-writing campaign shows over 110,000 people have called for their reinstatement.

Columbia and Barnard protesters, led by the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, were initially met with resistance from campus security as they sought to enter Milbank Hall. Staff pushed back and tried to film students’ faces, but the demonstrators reached Dean Grinage’s office and remained there for six and a half hours. Grinage is a vice president and the senior student affairs officer at Barnard. While there, the protestors posted their demands on walls, tagged the walls with graffiti, chanted, and took votes every other hour on whether to remain or leave.

About an hour into the protest, Kristina Milnor, a professor from Barnard’s Classics and Ancient Studies Department, announced that the dean agreed to meet with up to three Barnard students, who would need to unmask and act as negotiators for the group. After some discussion, a meeting was scheduled for Thursday afternoon, and Barnard President Laura Rosenbury was scheduled to join.

Robin Levine, Barnard’s vice president for strategic communications, told the Columbia Spectator that one Barnard employee was taken to the hospital after being physically assaulted by students as they occupied the hallway.

Around 10 p.m. Wednesday, NYPD Strategic Response Group vans arrived at the Barnard campus, and campus security officers passed out written notices to the protestors, giving them until 10:30 to leave the protest or face disciplinary action. Shortly after, as demonstrators left campus, NYPD officers followed the students as they dispersed while holding signs expressing solidarity with Palestinians. 

In an email to the Barnard community, President Rosenbury condemned the protest and student treatment of Barnard staff. “Their disregard for the safety of our community and respect for our campus remains completely unacceptable,” she wrote. The same email announced that starting Thursday morning, access to campus would be limited to students with a Barnard ID, and the only entry would be through the gate at West 117th Street and Broadway.

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