Barnard College calls in NYPD, nine arrested at pro-Palestine protest
Police bring detained students into building where bomb threat was made
Shortly after 1pm on Wednesday, March 5th, around 50 pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the first floor of Barnard College’s Milstein Center. After directing protesters to leave and receiving an alleged bomb threat, Barnard officials called the NYPD onto campus. The police arrested nine demonstrators, throwing several on the ground.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the group at the center of pro-Palestininian protests at Columbia University and its undergraduate women’s affiliate, Barnard, called for “the immediate reversal” of three students’ expulsions for prior disruptions. CUAD also demanded amnesty for disciplined students, closure of the office enforcing those sanctions, and a public meeting with President Laura Rosenbury and Dean Leslie Grinage.
Barnard had expelled two students for allegedly disrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class earlier this semester, and a third for allegedly participating in the occupation of Hamilton Hall on Columbia’s campus in April. Last week, dozens of demonstrators occupied the hallway leading to Dean Grinage’s office with similar demands. Barnard’s disciplinary process has come under fire from protesters and speech advocates alike.
Then, after hours of negotiations, Barnard agreed to a meeting between three Barnard students, Rosenbury, and Grinage the following afternoon; with that understanding, CUAD voted to leave. But Barnard reneged on that agreement, conveying via a faculty mediator a new requirement that the students be unmasked. Fearing disciplinary action, CUAD did not attend.
On Wednesday, Barnard’s VP for Strategy and Chief Administrative Officer Kelli Murray, shortly after directing protesters in Milstein to leave, brought in a phone with President Rosenbury on the line. Rosenbury repeated offers to meet with unmasked students at a later time.
Around 4:10pm, Murray, head of security Gary Maroni, and others again handed out sheets of paper ordering students to leave and notified City Newsroom that “things could escalate.”
Minutes later, she and Barnard’s VP for communications, Robin Levine, announced to the protesters that the school had received a bomb threat against the building. They ordered everyone, including the press, to evacuate. CUAD distrusted the claim and elected to stay in the building.
NYPD, which had been gathering outside of the campus and shut down much of the road, entered campus shortly after. Among them were the Strategic Response Group, an NYPD unit often used to respond to protests and with a record of violating demonstrators’ rights.
CUAD exited the building, chanting “NYPD, KKK, IOF [Israel Occupation Forces], they’re all the same!”
The police pushed them across the lawn and out toward the gate, throwing several protesters on the ground as they went. Despite the alleged bomb threat against Milstein, NYPD brought detainees back into the building. NYPD posted to X that the threat was cleared hours later.
Barnard’s student government condemned the use of NYPD on campus. Protesters also gathered the following day.
Barnard did not respond to City Newsroom’s several requests for comment before publication. The NYPD did not answer questions regarding its bringing detainees back into Milstein.
Eric Santomauro-Stenzel is a reporter from Long Island, NY and covers politics for City Newsroom. His prior coverage has included social movements, discrimination, education, and more. He is a recent graduate of Hamilton College outside of Utica, NY.