Pro-Palestinian protestors demonstrate against Barnard, Columbia University trustees
On Monday afternoon, a protest organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) rallied against Barnard College’s trustees outside of the college’s main gates.
Photography by Merielen Espino/The Barnard Bulletin
By Sunaya Mueller and Roxy Rassooly
December 10, 2024
On Monday, December 9, at 2 p.m., Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) held a “Rally for Palestine” in front of Barnard College’s front gates. The rally, organized to hold Barnard and Columbia trustees “accountable for the genocide of Palestinians,” amassed over a hundred keffiyeh-clad protestors on Barnard’s final day of classes for the fall semester.
As rain poured, the pro-Palestinian student protestors, accompanied by Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and pro-Palestinian Haredi Jewish protesters, marched around the perimeter of the Barnard campus — from 116th to 118th Street — three times during the approximately two hour long rally. Some protestors put up black and white posters of Barnard and Columbia trustees onto the walls of Barnard Hall and the Milstein Center as they marched. One poster pictured Barnard trustee Francine Le Frak in a police uniform with the description, “all trustees are bastards.” Other posters accused trustees of “arming a genocide.”
Photography by Merielen Espino/The Barnard Bulletin
Photography by Merielen Espino/The Barnard Bulletin
“Barnard College relies almost entirely on these imperial feminist trustees (read: murderers),” a social media post on CUAD’s Instagram page wrote, criticizing Barnard trustees like Francine LeFrak, Cheryl Milstein, and Diana and Roy Vagelos for pushing for student arrests, ignoring a student vote to “divest the college from Israel,” extending administrative control, and endorsing “institutional neutrality.” “We’ll make it impossible for these trustees to continue their genocidal reigns,” the social media post continued. “If Barnard will only listen to its trustees, it is our duty to target its trustees.”
Amongst chants like “long live Hind’s Hall, every fascist state will fall,” and “brick by brick, wall by wall, Zionism will fall,” the pro-Palestinian protestors specifically targeted Barnard’s position as a historically women’s college. “Barnard isn’t training us to dismantle systems of oppression,” protestors shouted in a call-and-response in front of Barnard’s gates, using drums, whistles, and megaphones. “Barnard, Barnard, won’t you listen, feminism means resistance,” the protestors chanted.
Photography by Merielen Espino/The Barnard Bulletin
The protest neared its conclusion around 4 p.m., with participants joining hands in a moment of prayer. One speaker led a chant using a quote from Assta Shakur, a member of Black Liberation Army: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom! It is our duty to win! We must love and support one another! We have nothing to lose but our chains!” The chant was repeated in unison by the pro-Palestinian protestors.
With the rally’s chants growing louder, NYPD officers intervened, instructing protestors to stop using sound devices. Protest organizers then called for Muslim participants to remain for prayer, while others were urged to disperse quickly and remove their masks only once they had cleared the demonstration area.
As the rally began to disperse, protestors yelled “we’ll be back” and “I believe that we will win.”
Photography by Merielen Espino/The Barnard Bulletin
The “Rally for Palestine” was first publicized in a post on CUAD’s Instagram account, which deemed Monday’s protest as “the first of many actions as we rally against Barnard College, the weak link of Columbia University.” “Barnard will be the first domino to fall,” the Instagram post wrote. CUAD’s account was suspended early on Monday morning before the protest began.
In response to the CUAD social media post, President Laura Rosenbury emailed Barnard students just after 9 p.m. on December 8, characterizing the group’s “inflammatory posts with violent imagery and specific calls for action against the Barnard College community” as a violation of the College’s code of conduct and “antithetical to the core principles and mission of Barnard.”
“In the days leading up to today’s protest on Broadway, calls for action across social media featured violent, disturbing imagery, including a molotov cocktail aimed directly at a Barnard building,” Robin Levine, Barnard Vice President for Strategic Communications, wrote in a statement to The Bulletin. “The College has zero tolerance for any behavior that jeopardizes the safety and well-being of our campus community.”
In her email, Rosenbury announced “temporary safety protocols” on Barnard’s campus on December 9 “due to active concerns of violence” on campus. These regulations included mandatory unmasking requests and potential searches of “backpacks, purses, luggage, or other bags” during campus entry. The protocols also limited campus entry to the College’s main gate on West 117th Street, and restricted access to Barnard ID holders, Columbia faculty and staff with valid IDs, students registered for Kosher meal plans, and Columbia undergraduate students who were registered for courses that met on Monday.
“The measures we took today protected our students, faculty and staff and avoided the disruption of academic activities on the last day of classes,” Levine wrote.
Photography by Merielen Espino/The Barnard Bulletin
Although the December 9 protest was initially planned to occur on Barnard’s Futter Field, Rosenbury’s email prompted organizers to shift the demonstration to Broadway.
Members of Barnard’s administration, including Kelli Murray, Barnard’s Executive Vice President for Strategy and Chief Administrative Officer, and Provost and Dean of Faculty Rebecca Walkowitz, were present as the pro-Palestinian protest ensued, standing silently with umbrellas in hand, watching the rally against Barnard’s main gates.
“Barnard is weak and afraid,” Columbia’s Palestine Solidarity Coalition (CPSC) wrote in a December 9 Instagram post. “Barnard College’s fascist shutdown following the launch of our campaign targeting its trustees speaks louder than any statement it could release.”
This article has been updated to include a December 11 statement from Robin Levine, Vice President of Strategic Communications at Barnard.