JTA — Barnard College in New York City has expelled two seniors who disrupted an Israeli history course last month by banging on drums, shouting “Free Palestine,” and distributing fliers showing a boot stomping on a Star of David.
The incident drew widespread attention when it took place on the first day of classes for the semester. Four people wearing keffiyehs as masks entered a Columbia University course titled “History of Modern Israel,” interrupting instruction, as captured on videos that circulated on social media in the aftermath.
Columbia — whose president condemned the protest and said in a statement that “any act of antisemitism” was “unacceptable” — suspended one protester who was enrolled there and referred another two for discipline at an “affiliated institution.”
Part of Columbia University, Barnard College is adjacent to Columbia College in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Students at the two schools may share classes.
Now, two protesters who were Barnard students have been expelled, according to reports in Jewish Insider and the Columbia Spectator student newspaper.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest said in a statement that the punishment “marks a serious escalation in the crackdown against students advocating for divestment against the Israeli war machine.”
BREAKING: Two Pro-Palestine Barnard College (of Columbia University) Students have been EXPELLED. The more they try to silence us, the louder we will be. “We fight for amnesty to fight for Palestine.”
The Barnard College administration are and have historically been hostile… https://t.co/TL7HfFXboE
— Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (@ColumbiaSJP) February 24, 2025
The student alliance has been at the forefront of anti-Israel protests on campus, following the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, when thousands of terrorists invaded Israel, killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
It said the expulsions were issued on Friday and were the first in connection to protests against Israel. The group called for a week of heightened protest activity on campus, and posted a video from the initial incident to Instagram.
In its caption to the footage, the group wrote: “Every academic paper, course, interview, or book that legitimizes the zionist entity necessarily cosigns the genocide and occupation of Palestinians and necessitates disruption. They are the grease that keeps the war machine killing.
“We disrupted a zionist class, and you should too,” the group said.
Barnard president: When there’s no remorse, we must act
Barnard President Laura Rosenbury said in a statement first reported by Jewish Insider that the school could not comment on students’ disciplinary records, but “will always take decisive action to protect our community as a place where learning thrives.”
She continued: “When rules are broken, when there is no remorse, no reflection, and no willingness to change, we must act. Expulsion is always an extraordinary measure, but so too is our commitment to respect, inclusion, and the integrity of the academic experience.”
Anti-Israel activists protest outside Columbia University, January 21, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
Students have five days to appeal punishments meted out by Barnard’s “conduct administrator,” according to the Spectator. It was unclear whether the expulsions followed an appeals process.
Brian Cohen, the director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, praised Rosenbury’s “strong action and words” in a post on social media on Sunday. “These former students disrupted a class, handed out antisemitic flyers, and harassed students who only wanted to learn,” he wrote. “These individuals don’t belong on campus — and now they won’t be.”
In entering a classroom, the protest marked an escalation from the protests that rocked Columbia and Barnard last year and resulted in dozens of arrests and suspensions, as well as the closure of Columbia’s campus to outsiders.
Those demonstrations included a weeks-long encampment on the college lawn that spurred copycats at dozens of schools, as well as the break-in and occupation of an administrative building, but did not include the disruption of individual classes.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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