NYPD clears Barnard College after bomb threat; several in custody amid Pro-Palestinian protest
Josh Einiger has details on the day of protests at Barnard College.
MANHATTAN, New York (WABC) — Tensions boiled over on the Barnard College campus Wednesday as police drove out an encampment of protesters after a bomb threat was called in at the building they were occupying.
The college confirmed in a statement that in the midst of de-escalation efforts, Barnard received a specific threat of a bomb in the Milstein Center.
Police arrested at least nine protesters who allegedly refused to leave.
Barnard College, the affiliate of Columbia across the street, has been besieged by protests for weeks after the school expelled two students it says invaded a Modern Israel History class handing out fliers containing antisemitic imagery.
That led to demands for their reinstatement.
Last week a group took over a classroom building and Wednesday it was the school’s library, where college officials pleaded with protesters to talk.
“We’ve asked you please identify yourselves,” an administrator said.
Only to be drowned out, and in many cases, by masked anonymous demonstrators.
Even the college president got on the phone with them, but the call went nowhere.
“The Dean Grinage and I are happy to meet tomorrow or Friday morning with three unmasked representative and two of our Barnard students and we can talk about this issue and others,” Laura Ann Rosenbury said.
One protester said, “Our demand is to reinstate the expelled students because of how unjust this process has been and that we don’t intend on leaving until that happens.”
In a statement, the school suggested patience is wearing thin.
“Our academic mission is at the heart of what we do, disruptions to that mission are an affront to the purpose of higher education and cannot be tolerated,” the statement said.
Police determined there was no bomb threat in the building and they left, but not before arresting at least nine people.
Despite that, protesters say they are undeterred and likely to come back.
The Barnard Student Government Association released a statement Wednesday night, strongly condemning the presence of the NYPD on campus and calling it an “act of cowardice.”
“Rather than engage in honest dialogue with our ‘community of care,’ you have chosen to betray your community,” the statement said. “In othering students who dissent, Barnard has found itself on the wrong side of their ‘line in the sand.'”
Classes will resume Thursday.
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The New York Police Department made nine arrests on Wednesday in connection with an anti-Israel protest at Barnard College, where participants took over the school library and refused to leave the premises after administrators warned them of an active bomb threat.
The protesters stayed inside the Milstein Center for almost four hours before police officers arrived to the scene and started detaining students with zip ties. Less than an hour earlier, protesters were told to leave the building due to a bomb threat. Many decided to stay because they thought it was a joke, according to video footage.
Nine people were arrested and charged with obstructing governmental administration, trespassing, and disorderly conduct, the NYPD told National Review. Multiple news outlets reported about ten arrests.
Activists organized the demonstration to protest the expulsion of three Barnard students who expressed anti-Israel views and to call for their reinstatement.
The first two who were expelled disrupted a class about the history of the Jewish state by handing out Hamas propaganda at the start of the spring semester. The episode was caught on camera. The third was expelled for their involvement in Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall occupation last spring.
Last week, anti-Israel protesters seized another academic building to demand the return of the first two expelled students. The third faced expulsion after that protest. No arrests were made at the time, although one employee was injured.
Columbia, which is affiliated with Barnard, called the latest protest unacceptable.
“We are in touch with Barnard’s leadership and security team as they address the situation and will continue to monitor it closely,” Columbia said in a statement on Wednesday. “The disruption of academic activities is not acceptable conduct. We are committed to supporting our Columbia student body and our campus community during this challenging time.”
Representative Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.), an outspoken pro-Israel progressive, issued a more forceful statement in response to this week’s incident.
“The pro-Hamas agitators, who were proudly distributing pro-Hamas propaganda in defense of October 7th, not only orchestrated a hostile takeover of Barnard College but also subsequently kept the administrators from evacuating the building in the midst of a bomb threat,” Torres posted on X.
“Barnard College should expel every single one of these students for endangering the safety of the campus.”
Columbia was the site of a similar anti-Israel protest, in which students forcibly seized Hamilton Hall for 17 hours before police moved in. The sit-in last April led to dozens of arrests, although most of those charges were later dropped.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump vowed to crack down on “agitators” by making arrests and deporting foreign students to their home countries. He also threatened to pull federal funding from any school that enables “illegal” protests. Pro-Hamas sympathizers have been causing turmoil on college and university campuses since the terrorist group’s attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Trump administration is currently investigating antisemitism at elite American universities. The Department of Justice’s antisemitism task force recently said it would visit ten universities, including Columbia, to address the problem. Earlier this week, the DOJ opened a civil rights investigation into allegations of antisemitism across the University of California education system.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect a statement from the NYPD on the number of arrests and associated charges.
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