Just after more than 100 Columbia University students were arrested for rebuffing authorities’ pleas to vacate an on-campus tent city erected in support of Palestine, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) announced Thursday she was suspended from Barnard College for her involvement in the demonstration.
Isra Hirsi, 21, posted to X that she was one of three students “suspended for standing in solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide.”
Hisri said it’s the first time she’s been reprimanded in her three years at Barnard College, an undergraduate college in Manhattan that’s affiliated with Columbia but has independent admission, curriculum, and financials
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Hisri was among the 100-plus protesters who were placed in handcuffs by the NYPD and forcibly removed from Columbia’s campus, leaving behind scores of tents and trash that cleanup crews were dispatched to get rid of.
“Since you have refused to disperse, you will now be placed under arrest for trespassing,” the NYPD told protesters through a loudspeaker on Thursday. “If you resist arrest, you may face additional charges.”
Cops began taking protesters into custody at around 1:30 p.m., putting them in flex-cuffs and loading them onto buses parked nearby. “Shame! Shame!” some chanted as the arrests unfolded. Others broke out in their own chant of, “Columbia, Columbia you will see, Palestine will be free,” and “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, will not rest.”
Later, left-wing academic and fringe presidential candidate Cornel West appeared, announcing to protesters, “I stand here in solidarity with you. I stand in solidarity with human suffering.”
The anti-Israel student group Apartheid Divest announced that Maryam Iqbal and Soph Dinu were the other students suspended by Barnard. Neither the organization nor Hisri said how long the suspension is for, but the group did share an emailed statement sent to the suspended students from the college’s dean.
“This decision is based on information received from Columbia University Public Safety that you have been involved in an unauthorized encampment on the Columbia University campus and you have not ceased participation in this unauthorized encampment despite repeated requests from Barnard and Columbia on April 17, 2024 that you do so,” the dean’s email read, according to the student group.
The suspension appears to have only emboldened Hisri, who wrote Thursday, “We will stand resolute until our demands are met.”
“Our demands include divestment from companies complicit in genocide, transparency of @Columbia’s investments and FULL amnesty for all students facing repression,” she added.
On Wednesday, Columbia President Minouche Shafik and three top Columbia officials appeared before a congressional panel, promising to tamp down antisemitism among the student body. Shafik vowed to punish two Columbia professors who expressed support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,100 people, and agreed that antisemitism has been a major issue at the Ivy League school.
Shafik on Thursday sent a letter to the university community, saying that she authorized a request that the NYPD clear the protesters “[o]ut of an abundance of concern for the safety of Columbia’s campus.”
“I took this extraordinary step because these are extraordinary circumstances,” Shafik wrote. “The individuals who established the encampment violated a long list of rules and policies. Through direct conversations and in writing, the university provided multiple notices of these violations, including a written warning at 7:15 p.m. on Wednesday notifying students who remained in the encampment as of 9:00 p.m. that they would face suspension pending investigation. We also tried through a number of channels to engage with their concerns and offered to continue discussions if they agreed to disperse.”
Shafik said it is a point of “regret” that attempts to resolve the situation were unsuccessful. Protests, her letter went on, “have a storied history at Columbia and are an essential component of free speech in America and on our campus.”
“We work hard to balance the rights of students to express political views with the need to protect other students from rhetoric that amounts to harassment and discrimination,” Shafik continued. “We updated our protest policy to allow demonstrations on very short notice and in prime locations in the middle of campus while still allowing students to get to class, and labs and libraries to operate. The current encampment violates all of the new policies, severely disrupts campus life, and creates a harassing and intimidating environment for many of our students.”
She said Columbia is “committed to academic freedom and to the opportunity for students and faculty to engage in political expression,” but within the rules and “with respect for the safety of all.”
