About two dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Barnard College in Manhattan occupied the lobby of the school’s main library on Wednesday, escalating a confrontation with school administrators and leading to several protesters being taken into custody, the police said.
Chanting “Free Palestine” and wearing masks and kaffiyeh over their faces, the protesters began their sit-in inside the Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning about 1 p.m. The school blocked access to the building shortly afterward, and classes were disrupted.
The protest came at a moment when pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses is a subject of intense interest to the Trump administration. In executive orders, President Trump has threatened to revoke federal funding to universities that allow what he and his administration regard as antisemitic activity, and he has made clear that pro-Palestinian protests, particularly those that appear to support Hamas, can qualify as such in his view.
Hours after the protest began on Wednesday afternoon, the situation remained fluid as Police Department vans and officers with zip ties began gathering near Barnard’s campus at 116th Street and Broadway. Shortly afterward, Barnard administrators announced to protesters that they had received a bomb threat, and police and security began evacuating the building.
The protesters initially decided to remain, chanting over the sound of alarms, according to a witness and social media reports.
At 5 p.m., Police Department officers walked through the lobby inspecting the building as chanting continued, according to a video shot on site. About 10 minutes later, the police began pushing the protesters out of the building.
As the police became more aggressive, there appeared to be resistance from some protesters. The police responded by taking at least several students into custody and placing their wrists in zip ties. By 5:20 p.m., all the protesters appeared to have been removed from the building. Those not detained were permitted to leave the campus.
According to a Police Department spokesman, the police received a 911 call about a bomb threat to the building at 4:22 p.m. Officers responded to clear the building, and those who resisted police orders were taken into custody. Charges were still pending as of Wednesday evening.
Columbia, and Barnard, its affiliated women’s college, are already under scrutiny for their students’ pro-Palestinian activism. On Monday, the Trump administration announced a comprehensive review of Columbia University’s federal contracts and grants, and three investigations into allegations of antisemitism at Columbia are underway.
The protesters who gathered on Wednesday were demanding the reversal of the expulsions of two Barnard students who were punished for interrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class on Jan. 21 and distributing fliers, including one that showed a jackboot squashing a Jewish star. They also called for the reinstatement of a student expelled for participating in the takeover of Hamilton Hall on the Columbia campus last spring, according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student protest group.
This is the second such sit-in to take place at Barnard over the issue. A week ago, dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged a sit-in at Milbank Hall. According to the Barnard administration, those protesters injured a security officer when they pushed into the building and graffitied the walls, causing about $30,000 of damage.
That sit-in ended without arrests after about seven hours, and protesters were promised in writing on Barnard letterhead that they would not face disciplinary action for their “presence in the building” if they left by 10:30 p.m.
But on Monday, President Laura Rosenbury of Barnard appeared to counter that, publishing an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education that said that Barnard would “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.”
Anvee Bhutani, Chelsia Rose Marcius and Marco Postigo Storel contributed reporting.
