Barnard Faculty Host Teach-In for “Community in Crisis”

Barnard faculty and alumna, including Cynthia Nixon ‘88 and Maria Hinojosa ‘84, spoke to the Barnard community at a teach-in on the steps of Barnard Hall. 

Photography by Lily Sones/The Barnard Bulletin

By Lily Sones

September 27, 2024

Barnard College faculty gathered on the steps of Barnard Hall behind a banner that read “Barnard Community in Crisis: A Faculty Teach-In” at 4pm on Monday, September 23 to speak to students in response to the Expectations for Community Conduct announced by President Laura Rosenbury 12 days prior, on Wednesday, September 12.

Current Barnard professors and senior lecturers Maria Hinojosa ‘84, Frederick Neuhouser, Najam Haider, Gale Kenny, Shayoni Mitra, Taylor Carman, and Elizabeth Bernstein spoke for an hour and a half to a crowd of Barnard and Columbia students on how the new expectations on community conduct have  stifled academic freedom on campus and lacked input from faculty and students on campus. 

Barnard alumna, actress, and activist Cynthia Nixon ‘88 also spoke alongside the faculty, reading a testimony from a currently suspended student and expressing her “sadness and anger” for the students at her alma mater. 

Barnard Professor of Africana Studies Celia Naylor and Barnard Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature Nancy Worman moderated the event. 

Approximately 30 faculty members, many donning their regalia, stood behind the banner in support of the speakers. Barnard Professor Rebecca Jordan-Young, dressed in a pink wig and clown make-up, stood with the faculty and identified themself as the “Both Sides Bozo.”

Throughout the teach-in, faculty passed out zines and informational fliers to the audience, including a fact sheet on Barnard student suspensions, a flier outlining the recent faculty resolutions in opposition to the new policies announced on September 12, a flier linking to articles on the Barnard College AAUP website, a flier linking to three articles on the Barnard College AAUP website, and a zine titled “A Parallel Univer(e)sity: Staff Repression at Columbia University.”

Faculty at the “Barnard Community in Crisis: A Faculty Teach-In” on Monday September 23 circulated fliers and zines to the crowd. Photography by Lily Sones/The Barnard Bulletin

Starting off the teach-in, Naylor criticized the “problematic nature” of the expectations, stating that their contents are a “threat to academic freedom,” and noted that the Barnard community was not given the opportunity to give input on the expectations before they were announced. 

Under the expectations, “we are becoming feckless, fractured, and fearful,” stated Naylor about the Barnard community. “Our community is in crisis.” 

However, Naylor did recognize that President Rosenbury emailed students earlier in the day to offer the Barnard community a platform to share their suggestions and concerns about the Expectations for Community Conduct, less than two hours before the teach-in. 

In the email to the Barnard community, Rosenbury clarified the expectations are “not policies themselves but instead are designed to spur reflection and discussion about the application of our existing policies and rules,” and stated that the administration had already refined eight examples of their expectations to emphasize that community members may speak as individuals, or groups of individuals, “so long as they are not perceived to be speaking on behalf of the College or an office, department, or center of the College.” 

The faculty at the teach-in noted this clarification from Rosenbury and the opportunity to give input as a step in the right direction, but still remained steadfast in their condemnation of the expectations as a whole, stating that the expectations created grounds for further disciplinary action.

Naylor, as well as other faculty who spoke later on, explained that these disciplinary threats extend to faculty as well as students under these guidelines. Many faculty who supported the teach-in did not feel comfortable participating for fear of disciplinary consequences under these expectations, Naylor explained on their behalf.

Barnard Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence Maria Hinojosa ‘84 spoke on “the problem of both sides,” or the expectation that faculty give equal weight to either perspective on an issue, and urged the administration to let students come to their own conclusions in dialogue, rather than force guidelines of communication upon them. 

“We have to be the brilliant minds that we are,” Hinojosa stated. “Turn to us, as a community, to discuss the guidelines. Do not force anything on Barnard because we won’t take it sitting down.”

The next speaker, Barnard Professor of Philosophy Frederick Neuhouser, discussed student discipline and “shared governance” by highlighting the similarities and differences between the 1968 Columbia protests and the protests on Columbia’s campus over the past year. He noted punishments from the former were “far milder” and “far less vindictive.” 

“We, in 2024 at Barnard, need uniform rules, made not one-sidedly by the president and her shadow cabinet, that mysterious body called the senior staff,” said Neuhouser, “but rules made with a meaningful participation of both faculty and students.”

Neuhouser ended his segment of the teach-in by suggesting four action items for the Barnard community to work towards. First, he recommended that the administration “revive the now defunct Judicial Council,” a disciplinary decision-making body that included administrator, faculty and student input. Second, the College should “invalidate all the recent policy changes” made without faculty and student input. Third, he advocated for full amnesty to all students disciplined according to recently changed policies” that excluded faculty and student consultation. Finally, Neuhouser called for a restoration of “normal campus access” and abolishment of “the new severe constraints on campus events.”

Barnard Religion Department Chair Najam Haider spoke next on freedom of expression at Barnard, and connected it to the greater trend towards the censoring of ideas in the United States.

“There are places [in this country] where diversity of opinion or difficult conversations are silent. We're told that you shouldn't articulate what you feel. You were told that diversity means that some of us have to remain silent, that we can't speak at all,” said Haider. “Now that is not what Barnard was. That is not what Barnard is. That's not the community that we want, because it cuts against the very idea of freedom of expression.”

He continued on, explaining that the “privilege to freedom of expression” is stratified across campus due to fears of retaliation from the College. “Staff can't talk. Students can't talk. Faculty depends on your privilege. I can, [because] I have tenure. So what we have is the siloing of opinions,” Haider said. 

Worman then introduced the next speakers, Barnard Professor of Religion Gale Kenny and Barnard Senior Lecturer of the Theatre Department Shayoni Mitra, to talk about the effects of the disciplinary process on Barnard students. 

Mitra shared specific details about the nature of the hearings. 

“All of the evidence we have received thus far is surveillance video shared by Columbia Public Safety with Barnard, [consisting of] swipe access data to Morningside Campus, and often blurry, obstructed, or group photos,” Mitra explained. “They do not prove disruptive behavior, disorderly conduct, failure to disperse, or any of the charges Barnard is bringing against them, and yet the College persists in sanctioning and suspending its students based on surveillance,” Mitra stated. 

She added that disciplinary hearings continued throughout the summer. Faculty helped students review charges, write appeals, drafting statements, and attended hearings scheduled by the College on short notice. One student, who Mitra quoted, was “suspended and evicted from housing [they] had already paid for, and barred from campus” only two days after starting the semester “under false pretenses that [they] would be able to finish.” 

Worman then introduced activist and actress Cynthia Nixon ‘88 to the megaphone to read a testimony from a currently suspended first-generation, low-income Barnard student who was arrested twice during the spring 2024 semester on April 19 and April 30, and faces twelve disciplinary charges from the College. 

The student, whose identity was kept anonymous, described the surveillance and disciplinary actions of the College, the police brutality they suffered during the second arrest, their eviction from campus, and the support they received from the Barnard community—support they accredit to being “the only reason they are okay right now.”

“They are a tool of the carceral state,” the student said of the College. “Instead of providing us with any resources, they took it upon themselves to work harder to exhaust us. Literally trying to divide us, and beat us while we are down, just like the cops.”

After she finished reading the statement, Nixon said, “It breaks my heart that students at Barnard, and more than just one, feel as though this is how their institution feels about them.”

“Barnard suspended students have done nothing wrong, what they have done is listen to their own consciences and act accordingly. What more can we ask from this generation of young leaders? We should be grateful for the impact they will surely make, by the impact they are already making in building a more just world,” said Nixon. “We should not punish them, we should be proud of them. I know I am.”

Barnard Professor of Philosophy Taylor Carman spoke next, making the argument that the events of the past ten months “are technically a constitutional crisis.”

Carman explained that the College “may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activity of the university,” but urged that “it is vitally important that these exceptions never be used in a manner that is inconsistent with the University’s commitment to a completely free and open discussion of ideas.” 

“In other words, yes, you can limit according to time, place, and manner,” Carman stated, “but only when you absolutely have to, to protect other people’s freedom of expression.”

Elizabeth Berstein, sharing on behalf of the Barnard American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter, was the final speaker of the event. 

Bernstein warned of the growing trend towards right-wing think-tanks and legislative attacks on higher education and how they have begun to affect Barnard. 

Their attacks “include the argument that campus crises can only be solved with stricter student discipline and the curtailment of academic freedom,” stated Bernstein, “an agenda that conveniently puts administrators, politicians, trustees, donors, and think-tanks in charge.”

Bernstein spoke of a recent Florida case study in which University of Florida’s Levin College of Law denied professors from the law school permission to serve as expert witnesses in a voting-rights lawsuit. When the professors filed suit, Bernstein explained that the judge in the case granted their preliminary injunction and described the school’s actions as a “preemptive subservience to political pressure from Florida’s right wing” in his opinion.

“The identity of that law school dean was none other than Laura Rosenbury,” Bernstein revealed. 

“Over and over again, we see how the same playbook used to restrict the speech of faculty and students has also served to weaken the systems in which we all rightly have a say in what gets said and what gets taught,” said Bernstein.

Bernstein concluded the event stating, “The work of the faculty also shows us how crucial our work and our voices are, and how important it is that we fight for the right to keep talking, just like we’re doing today at the teach-in.”

In an interview with The Bulletin after the teach-in concluded, Nixon said, “I have been really horrified by how students have been brutally treated and suspended, and kicked out of housing, and the loss of student jobs, and healthcare, you name it. I’ve also been alarmed by the curtailment of faculty speech, both of these things are disastrous and wrong.”

When asked about the role Barnard alumna play in this movement, Nixon stated, “Students and faculty are speaking out as loudly as they can about the very wrong track that Barnard is on, and I think it is the responsibility of alums to come and support, and speak out loudly and say: this is my institution. Don’t destroy it.”