Inside the Milbank sit-in: CUAD protests student expulsions, agrees to meeting with Rosenbury, Grinage

A comprehensive timeline of CUAD’s sit-in at Milbank Hall from Bulletin reporters on the scene.

Photography by Sherry Chen/The Barnard Bulletin

By Serena DiDio and Kimberly Wing

February 27, 2025

On February 26 at 4 p.m., approximately 60 students in keffiyehs flooded the first floor of Barnard College’s Milbank Hall for a sit-in in front of the Office of the Dean of the College. A group entered from the 120th Street entrance, while others were already present in the building. According to a statement The Bulletin received from a Barnard spokesperson later that evening, a College employee had been “physically assaulted” by protesters as they “forcibly entered” the building and was sent to the hospital. Shortly after entering Milbank, protesters hung a banner with the words “FREE PALESTINE” over the staircase overlooking the first floor of the building.

The sit-in, organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), was held to protest the disciplinary processes and expulsions of two Barnard students that occurred last Friday for their disruption of a “History of Modern Israel” course at Columbia, and to reemphasize calls for Barnard and Columbia to divest from Israel over its war on Gaza. Multiple Barnard faculty members, including Kristina Milnor, Nara Milanich, and Severin Fowles, were in the building at the time of the sit-in, and acted as mediators between CUAD and the Barnard administration.

Barnard CARES took swift action, blocking entry to Milbank and preventing anyone from going above the first floor. One officer attempted to shut the doors to the occupied hallway, but was barred by protesters and bystanders standing in front of the entrance. 

Photography by Kimberly Wing/The Barnard Bulletin

While chants such as “Barnard, Barnard you can’t hide, we will never let this slide,” and “Four hundred thousand dead, you’re expelling us instead,” echoed throughout Milbank, protesters distributed flyers that listed their demands, addressed directly to Barnard College President Laura Rosenbury and Vice President and Dean Leslie Grinage. CUAD’s demands at the sit-in were to immediately reverse the two students’ expulsions, to drop all disciplinary charges against students for pro-Palestinian activism, to have a public meeting with Rosenbury and Grinage, and to have the administration abolish Barnard’s current disciplinary process.

Protesters taped these flyers around Milbank’s lobby and CARES officers immediately tore them down. In the occupied hallway, the flyers were taped on a glass panel to face the inside of the Dean's office. Protesters left a walkway down the hallway’s center, allowing administrators and public safety to move in and out of the office throughout the sit-in.

Several CUAD members delivered speeches, expressing their concerns about the normalization of colonial history in education at the expense of colonized groups, the destruction of Palestinian universities, and Barnard and Columbia’s disciplinary actions against students involved in pro-Palestinian activism. 

“[The expelled students] were interrogated and harassed with no opportunity to defend themselves. They were assumed guilty before they were able to speak,” a CUAD member said in their speech. “After suspending and evicting the students, ex-NYPD officer Gary Maroni and Barnard Vice President Leslie Grinage attempted to coerce the students into private interrogations with just a few hours' notice with no support. They were officially expelled by one person without being provided any evidence of wrongdoing.” 

The CUAD member continued to criticize the “punitive, opaque disciplinary process that allows Barnard to target students on a whim,” referring to the College’s newly-established Office for Student Success and Intervention that oversaw the recent expulsions.

Around 5 p.m., CUAD negotiators announced that Barnard administrators were drafting negotiation parameters. Throughout the sit-in, CUAD took hourly votes on whether they would stay in Milbank for the next hour, and at this vote the protesters held a simple majority and decided on staying until 6 p.m.

Twenty minutes later, Professor of Classics Kristina Milnor returned with Grinage’s negotiation proposals. Milnor stated that Grinage was willing to offer a “listening ear,” but did not have power to grant the demands. Some CUAD members insisted that Grinage, as Dean of the College, was the only person at Barnard who could grant CUAD’s demands to reinstate the two expelled students. 

Milnor further communicated that Grinage was offering to meet with three Barnard students on the conditions that the students be unmasked and have valid ID, that a CARES officer would be present, and that no videos or recording of negotiations be taken or posted. She also reported that President Rosenbury was unavailable because she was in Florida.

Professor Kristina Milnor, on behalf of Dean Grinage, speaking to CUAD protesters about the Dean’s agreements to a meeting. Photography by Kimberly Wing/The Barnard Bulletin

Protesters began discussing how to respond to the Dean’s message and negotiation parameters. During discussions, protesters raised their hands to present ideas one by one and were passed a megaphone. Other members of the group would snap their fingers to indicate if they agreed with the ideas being said. 

At 6 p.m, protesters voted to stay another hour.

By 6:07 p.m., CUAD notetakers drew from the discussion to develop a counteroffer: four Barnard students, instead of three, would speak with Dean Grinage and be allowed to wear masks and withhold identification. Further, a CARES officer could attend the meeting only if those who were recording the sit-in deleted any footage of it, and if the officer would not physically touch or report the identities of the negotiators. Legal observers and sit-in participants would be allowed to observe the meeting, and administration would allow both audio recording and the publicizing of transcripts of the negotiations and testimonials from observers. CUAD also demanded that administration not call the NYPD, and that neither Barnard nor Columbia would pursue disciplinary action against sit-in participants. The circumstances of the sit-in ending would be agreed upon during, and not before negotiations.

Due to President Rosenbury’s absence from campus, the protesters shifted to demanding a meeting with only Grinage, but that meeting would need to come with an agreement from both Grinage and Rosenbury to later hold a public negotiation meeting that would be open to the general student body.

At approximately 6:45 p.m., administration liaisons reemerged from the Dean’s office to speak with CUAD spokespeople. One CUAD negotiator then announced that Grinage was “too afraid to come out and speak to [protesters] right now.” Faculty clarified that she was still deliberating on demands with other staff present. With this update, protesters began discussing next steps, including conditions under which they would agree to leave the building and how a public meeting with Grinage and Rosenbury should proceed. 

During idle time between announcements, protesters hung up Palestinian flags, created cardboard signage, and wrote phrases such as “Free Palestine, Gaza Rises,” “Long Live Resistance,” and “Barnard expels students, Barnard funds genocide,” on the walls.

Photography by Serena DiDio/The Barnard Bulletin

At 7:08 p.m., Grinage emerged from her office for the first time since the sit-in began, guided by a CARES officer, to use the restroom. This prompted boos and chants of “Free, free Palestine,” “Un-expel our students now,” and “Whose campus? Our campus!” Chants continued after she reentered her office. 

Protesters voted at 7:30 p.m. to stay for another hour. Around 8:10 p.m., professors Milanich and Fowles emerged from the office to present an updated offer. Milanich, who is on the executive committee of Barnard’s AAUP chapter, and Fowles clarified that they were not “deputized by any formal body to be here,” but were acting as liaisons because they had been nearby when the sit-in began. 

Grinage offered to speak to three Barnard students in front of the group for one hour. She agreed that protesters could keep masks on, under the condition that all people present have their IDs checked to be confirmed as current Barnard and Columbia students. Fowles clarified that the professors insisted that it be faculty, rather than CARES officers, that would check students’ IDs. 

Under this offer, anyone present who was not a current student would be asked to leave through the 120th Street exit with no record of their presence. The offer included that there would be no disciplinary consequences associated with the proposed conversation, but Grinage would not guarantee that there would not be disciplinary consequences for the sit-in overall. Finally, Grinage asked that there be no recordings and that non-student press exit, citing threats to her safety. She also confirmed that the NYPD would not come for at least an hour. Milanich and Fowles encouraged CUAD members to take the offer to “model what a dialogue looks like so there can be other dialogues moving forward.”

Protesters asked Milanich and Fowles follow-up questions and decided to break into small groups to discuss the offer and come up with a collective response. Protesters wanted a written transcript if there were to be no recordings. A sticking point for the group was the administration’s demand to check IDs, as protesters were concerned Barnard might use identification to take disciplinary action under the “punitive, opaque” process they were protesting. They also saw the demand as a concession to the “outside agitator narrative,” or the claim that some of the protesters might not be University affiliates, which protesters have asserted the administration used to justify police presence both that evening and at previous protests. Some argued that they should agree to Grinage’s offer to get negotiations started, but a majority voted to reject it due to the condition of ID checks, arguing it would establish a harmful precedent and damage solidarity. 

At around 8:30 p.m., Barnard College's Vice President for Strategic Communication Robin Levine wrote in a statement to The Bulletin, “At this time, masked protesters remain inside Milbank Hall. We do not know if all individuals involved are members of the Barnard community. If they do not agree to leave the building by 9:30 p.m., Barnard will be forced to consider additional, necessary measures to protect our campus.” 

“Barnard is a place of learning. Respect, inclusivity, and safety are non-negotiable. Violence and intimidation have no place here,” the statement continued. “We have made multiple good-faith efforts to de-escalate. Barnard leadership offered to meet with the protesters - just as we meet with all members of our community - on one simple condition: remove their masks. They refused. We have also offered mediation.”

There was no indication that protesters were aware of the 9:30 p.m. deadline to leave the building during their discussions about Grinage’s offer.

At 9:20 p.m., Milanich and Fowles returned to speak to protesters, clarifying that, in the last offer, Grinage had offered the “next hour” for a meeting, rather than one hour that would begin once mutual negotiation terms were agreed upon. Grinage was now offering just 20 minutes, eliciting frustration from protesters — who had spent the last hour democratically deliberating — as it was not clear in the initial announcement that the hour began directly after the offer was given. Faculty apologized for the miscommunication. Throughout negotiations, Grinage never spoke directly with protesters.

Photography by Serena DiDio/The Barnard Bulletin

Around 9:30 p.m., protesters received outside reports that NYPD vans had emerged at the 120th Street entrance to Milbank, with some officers holding zipties. Members encouraged each other not to feel intimidated and began to discuss three options for moving forward: 1) Agree to a 20-minute conversation between Grinage and three designated Barnard student protesters who would have their IDs checked, 2) Demand that the three negotiators speak to Grinage for the 20 minutes in a closed-door meeting without having their IDs checked, or 3) Take a vote on whether to stay or disperse. If they voted to stay, they would hold another assembly to discuss how to proceed. 

Protesters came to a tie between options one and three, prompting a revote. At 9:45 p.m., option three received a majority vote. 

The assembly’s atmosphere was intense as the sit-in approached its sixth hour. Protesters distributed food and water throughout the action, some of which they had brought in during the initial occupation. Additional essential resources were passed in by supporters on campus through the windows, but the hallway’s temperature remained uncomfortably warm. Struggling to come to a group agreement, one CUAD member led a breathing exercise at 10 p.m. Another stated that “urgency is a tool of the oppressor, but we should not make our decisions with urgency.” 

At this point, protesters had come up with three more options to vote on. The options were similar to the last vote, but this time, they had largely agreed that their present goal was to secure a future meeting with administration to discuss amending the College judicial process. The options were: 1) They would not concede to having IDs checked and would continue the sit-in, 2) Three anonymous Barnard student negotiators would speak to Grinage in a closed-door meeting to set a date, place, and time for a future meeting, or 3) They would concede to ID checks if Grinage would come speak in front of the group. 52 protesters voted, choosing the second option.

Milanich and Fowles came back out to clarify that Grinage’s understanding was that, if a closed-door meeting were to take place, the protesters would disperse thereafter. The professors added that they were “optimistic” that a future meeting would be agreed upon.

Protesters then began to discuss how the three student negotiators should proceed in the meeting. Some wanted the future meeting to be on Zoom, advertised to the entire university community with options for spectators, to encourage transparency from the administration and model the possibilities of student activism. 

The remaining protesters reached a collective agreement at 10:25 p.m., and the three negotiators prepared to meet with Grinage.

Photography by Sherry Chen/The Barnard Bulletin

At 10:28 p.m., a Barnard staff member distributed paper notices throughout the lobby communicating a “final request” from the administration: that those present, including bystanders and press, leave campus by 10:30 p.m., and if they complied, they would not be subject to disciplinary action. Protesters were surprised and frustrated, having just reached agreement on the goals the representatives would be negotiating for.

As the protesters read the “final request” notices, Milanich announced that President Rosenbury and Dean Grinage agreed to meet with three Barnard students the following afternoon, and that professors would meet them at 1 p.m. in front of Milstein to escort them to the meeting. The representatives would be allowed to be masked and would not need to present their IDs. 

Directly after this, the protesters voted to leave Milbank — after more than six and a half hours since they began the sit-in. The only exit from Milbank permitted by public safety officers, who remained around the building, was at 120th Street, where outside press had positioned flash cameras. Some protesters exited quickly after the vote, while others gathered their things and began a chant as they left and began marching toward Riverside Drive. They then dispersed.

At 12:42 a.m. on Thursday, February 27, President Rosenbury sent an email to the Barnard community, condemning the protesters for their “disregard for the safety of our community and respect for our campus,” and their attempts to “undermine Barnard’s core values of respect, inclusion, and academic excellence” by “[engaging] in disruptive conduct.” 

Rosenbury also announced that Barnard's campus access would transition to Level C as of February 27, with the only point of entry being the main gate entrance at 117th Street and Broadway and no guest access permitted. Access is still restricted to only BC/CU ID holders.

At around 10:30 a.m., Robin Levine issued another statement to The Bulletin on behalf of the College, saying that “no promises of amnesty were made” during the sit-in, and that “no concessions were negotiated.” 

In an Instagram post made around 12 p.m., CUAD accused Grinage of avoiding meeting with protesters “in good faith” by demanding a private meeting, that students identify themselves amidst disciplinary risks, and that there be no witnesses or legal observers. They further accused the University of threatening arrest through NYPD presence Wednesday night despite having “explicitly agreed to no arrests.” 

CUAD also stated that CARES “harassed and physically assaulted students, blocked legal observers from witnessing Public Safety interactions, blocked students from using the restroom, and permitted the NYPD and SRG to circle campus.” SRG refers to the NYPD’s controversial Strategic Response Group. In contrast to Levine’s statement, CUAD’s post claimed that they had succeeded in “pressuring the University to agree to negotiations and amnesty.”