A third student was expelled from Barnard College on Friday for pro-Palestinian activism that took place on campus last year – ten months after disciplinary proceedings started against them.
The student was expelled for “allegedly protesting the University’s investments in genocide and for allegedly participating in the occupation of Hind’s Hall”, according to a statement released by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (Cuad) Defense Working Group. Barnard is part of Columbia.
This is the first Columbia student targeted for their alleged participation in the protests which erupted last spring. The expulsion comes a week after two other students were expelled for staging a protest during a class in January, making Barnard the first university to expel students over the Gaza war.
The surprise third expulsion came the day after the office of public affairs notified Columbia University that a federal taskforce would be visiting it, as well as nine other universities, because it was “aware of allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination, in potential violation of federal law”.
The taskforce was set up following President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism” on 29 January, and says its aim is to “eradicate antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”.
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The Cuad Defense Working Group says the student’s expulsion is related to the taskforce’s announcement that it would visit Columbia.
“Rather than engage with students or divest, Barnard has rushed to satisfy the US Department of Justice by sanctioning and expelling students,” they said in a statement seen by Middle East Eye.
Columbia’s Barnard College is first to expel students over Gaza war
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According to a spokesperson for Cuad, the student was interim suspended mid-April last year and then sent a second notice of interim suspension on 1 May for allegedly occupying Hind’s Hall.
The first interim suspension was “resolved” but the second one continued to be in effect last summer. A third disciplinary action was levelled against the student last fall for a private social media post, and the student was interim suspended again on 5 September 2024. The suspension was due to end on 16 May 2025.
Similarly to the first two expulsions, the third disciplinary proceeding was overseen by one employee at the Barnard office for student intervention and success. It involved no other faculty or staff who were familiar with the students.
There have been criticisms levelled at Columbia and other colleges for subjecting students to drawn out disciplinary proceedings for more than ten months rather than allowing students to get on with their lives.
Reaction to expulsions
The first two expulsions sparked a week of action by students. On 26 February, nearly 100 students from Barnard and Columbia staged a sit-in outside the Barnard dean’s office in Milbank Hall.
According to Cuad, Barnard leadership threatened sit-in participants with mass arrests. Around six hours after the students staged a sit-in, Barnard president Laura Rosenbury and Barnard vice president and dean Leslie Grinage said they would provide amnesty to protestors participating in the sit-ins and agreed to meet with students to discuss reversing the expulsions the next day.
Although both sides agreed on negotiation terms as a condition for protestors to leave the building, the Cuad Defense Working Group said that two faculty who were liaising between Grinage, Rosenbury and the students told the student negotiators shortly before the agreed meeting time that Barnard “had sabotaged negotiations by attempting to unilaterally change the entirety of the meeting terms”.
Negotiations are currently stalled.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 122,00 people had signed a letter asking for the students to be reinstated.
In response to a request for a statement on Monday, Barnard’s vice president issued the same statement as she did after the first two students were expelled, saying she could not comment on the “academic and disciplinary records of students” under federal law.
Her statement went on to say: “Expulsion is always an extraordinary measure, but so too is our commitment to respect, inclusion, and the integrity of the academic experience. At Barnard, we always fiercely defend our values. At Barnard, we always reject harassment and discrimination in all forms.”
Since Rosenbury took office in June 2023, she has presided over the suspension of 55 students related to the pro-Palestine protests.
