Barnard College finds itself at a turning point. The prestigious women’s liberal arts institution affiliated with Columbia University must decide what to do with the dozens of people—both students and outside agitators—who occupied a campus building on Wednesday, assaulting staff, defacing walls, forcing the cancellation of classes, and remaining inside until late at night.
The administration has finally taken a hard line against campus rulebreakers, expelling two students earlier this week for a prior disturbance. Now, the demonstrators are trying to call Barnard’s bluff and show who really makes the rules. Will campus leadership hold firm? Or cave?
The earlier incident occurred in January, when two Barnard students, among others, disrupted a Columbia class on modern Israel. Faces covered, the instigators entered a classroom, shouted anti-Israel slogans, flung around anti-Israel propaganda, and refused to let the class proceed.
Previously, such campus radicals have gotten off scot-free, at Columbia and elsewhere. Last year’s occupation of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall brought no repercussions. Neither did the student encampments.
But perhaps owing to the Trump administration’s threats to enforce civil rights law—or maybe because only two people were involved—Barnard expelled both students. “Barnard will always take decisive action to protect our community as a place where learning thrives, individuals feel safe, and higher education is celebrated,” Barnard’s president explained. “This means upholding the highest standards and acting when those standards are threatened.”
Decisive action? Always? We’ll see. Days after the expulsions, dozens of students gathered, faces covered, to restrict passage through Barnard’s Milbank Hall. Reports indicate that when security tried to intervene, a physical altercation ensued. One staff member was treated for his injuries at a nearby hospital. Students could not get around campus freely, leading professors to cancel classes. Not exactly “a place where learning thrives, individuals feel safe, and higher education is celebrated.”
The students want to force the administration’s hand by adopting a union mentality: “they can’t fire us all.” They doubt that Barnard has the guts to expel dozens of rebellious students.
Barnard can expel all students engaged in this conduct—and it should. Preserving norms of free speech and academic openness means enforcing rules and prohibiting actions that throw university operations into chaos. Mobs disrupting classes while hiding behind keffiyehs and violent threats isn’t free speech; it is the negation of free speech. If Barnard fails to banish these students, it will have forfeited its purpose as an academic institution.
If it does not expel them, Barnard also faces significant legal exposure under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Trump administration’s Department of Education should, and likely would, scrutinize Barnard’s handling of the situation. If the college fails to address mob protests, which exploit the unequal application of campus rules to create a hostile environment for Israeli students, its federal funding could be in jeopardy.
The White House has signaled its intent to enforce civil rights protections against national-origin discrimination—including against Jews—with renewed vigor. If it wants to inaugurate its efforts with an easy win, it could start by investigating Barnard, eventually recommending that the Justice Department bring suit.
In the investigation phase, the Department of Education can clarify why expulsion is the only appropriate response to Barnard’s extremism problem. Barnard and Columbia have suspended their bigots and terror-sympathizers, but the miscreants are clearly undeterred. Only expulsion, which becomes a permanent blot on one’s record, suffices as a deterrent. And only expulsion addresses the root of the problem: personnel is policy, and Barnard-Columbia’s policy appears to be breeding pro-Hamas radicals. You have to get rid of the people to get rid of the problem.
Barnard appears to have chosen backsliding and appeasement. Administrators are offering amnesty and meetings with demonstrators. Such cowardice is embarrassing, but it’s the least of Barnard’s problems. The college’s major error is validating the radicals’ core belief: that they control the institution. Policymakers and law enforcement will surely note the same.
Top Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
