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As the president of Barnard College, a vibrant liberal-arts college for women in New York City, I’ve had countless opportunities to reflect on — and defend — the goals of our intimate academic community as they are increasingly under attack. Like other places of higher learning, Barnard seeks to provide students with tools to understand and critically examine the world around them. But Barnard isn’t just a place of learning. Barnard is also our home. We are a community of individuals driven by intellectual curiosity who have chosen to study, teach, and work together. The college was founded in 1889 after Columbia University refused to admit women, and we continue to value rigorous learning that is unabashedly committed to the empowerment of women.
On the first day of classes this January, four masked individuals threatened both our educational mission and our community by disrupting a History of Modern Israel course at Columbia in which several Barnard students were enrolled. This disruption was not designed to expand thinking or advance civil discourse. Instead, it was a calculated act of intimidation, with the disruptors taunting and loudly speaking over the professor, distributing antisemitic flyers, and refusing to join the discussion even when the professor graciously invited them to sit in on the class.
This wasn’t an isolated incident but an escalation of an ongoing threat to our community. Over the last year and a half, an unauthorized group of anonymous individuals calling themselves Columbia University Apartheid Divest have exploited the conflict in the Middle East to try to tear our campus community — our Barnard home — apart.
They operate in the shadows, hiding behind masks and Instagram posts with Molotov cocktails aimed at Barnard buildings, antisemitic tropes about wealth, influence, and “Zionist billionaires,” and calls for violence and disruption at any cost. They claim Columbia University’s name, but the truth is, because their members wear masks, no one really knows whose interests they serve. Columbia has disavowed the group.
This group seized the moment when they learned about the expulsions of the two Barnard students who participated in the classroom disruption. “We disrupted a Zionist class, and you should too,” they announced in a widely circulated post. And on the afternoon of February 26, they forced their way through a fire exit at Barnard’s Milbank Hall, knocking down a community-safety employee in the process.
The disruptors continued to engage in activity utterly at odds with our mission. They broke into our Access Barnard offices, where first-generation, low-income, and international students come for academic and social support, food pantry access, and supplemental funding. They berated the dean of the college — who spent hours working in good faith to de-escalate — for simply seeking access to a bathroom. They caused $30,000 in damages to a building that houses not just the offices of the president and the dean of the college, but also multiple classrooms and the offices that seek to further diversity, equity, and inclusion at Barnard.
Barnard successfully de-escalated the situation without further violence, fully clearing Milbank Hall by 10:40 p.m. that night — without NYPD intervention, without making concessions, without granting amnesty, and without allowing an overnight occupation. By doing so, we ensured that classes could resume in the morning.
Disrupting classes and defacing buildings is not academic exploration. It is a betrayal of the goals and sanctity of higher education.
Even though all of the disruptors wore masks, we now know the identity of many of them and are continuing to identify the rest. We will vigorously pursue discipline and other remedies against those who forcibly and illegitimately entered the building, damaged or destroyed property, disregarded our community expectations, and violated many policies and rules.
To those who hide behind masks, we invite you to step forward, not in anonymity but in dialogue. We welcome respectful conversation in a space of shared learning and accountability. That requires knowing who is at the table.
Last week was a test, set in motion by Barnard’s decision to act decisively after the classroom disruption. Expulsion is always an extraordinary measure, but we did what needed to be done, and we will continue to do so.
That means removing from our community those who refuse to share our values of respect, inclusion, and academic excellence. That means a disciplinary process that is fair, with an appeals process that does not include taking a building hostage.
Even when under enormous pressure from outside groups, we will ensure our community is safe and free from discrimination and intimidation, while also supporting students as they grow, learn, and make mistakes. We will stand strong and act thoughtfully, even while being criticized for being both too punitive and not punitive enough.
Disrupting classes and defacing buildings to intimidate and divide our community is not academic exploration. It is a betrayal of the goals and sanctity of higher education.
Barnard had the courage to take a stand. To protect and defend higher education, others must do the same.
