NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Barnard College expelled two students last week for disrupting a class at Columbia University, “History of Modern Israel,” in the first apparent expulsion for pro-Palestinian activism on campus.
The two students have been suspended for the last month and barred from campus, including their dorms and dining hall. According to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)—the group that organized the pro-Palestinain encampment that made national headlines last spring—the students were informed of their expulsion on Friday.
Barnard College President Laura Rosenbury said in a statement that the school cannot comment on the academic or disciplinary records of students under federal law, but that “As a matter of principle and policy, Barnard will always take decisive action to protect our community as a place where learning thrives, individuals feel safe, and higher education is celebrated.”
“When rules are broken, when there is no remorse, no reflection, and no willingness to change, we must act,” Rosenbury continued. “Expulsion is always an extraordinary measure, but so too is our commitment to respect, inclusion, and the integrity of the academic experience.”
During the disruption on Jan. 21, the first day of the spring semester, multiple students entered the graduate course taught by Avi Shilon and distributed flyers. One depicted a storm trooper boot crushing a Star of David with the phrase “Crush Zionism,” and another illustrated the burning of an Israeli flag and read “Burn Zionism to the Ground,” according to photos and video posted to social media.
“We disrupted a zionist class, and you should too,” CUAD said in an Instagram post on Sunday. “It is our bare minimum duty as people of conscience to disrupt the production and dissemination of zionist propaganda,” the post read.
Shilon said in an interview with the Columbia Spectator after the incident that he offered the demonstrators a seat in his classroom, but they declined. He wrote an op-ed published in Forward on Monday about what the disruption taught him.
“For my Jewish students — and not all students in the class, it bears noting, are Jewish — that intrusion, and the wave of campus protests it symbolized, appeared to undermine their sense of home in the United States,” he wrote.
Executive director of the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life Brian Cohen praised Rosenbury’s decision and statement on social media Sunday.
“Strong action and words from @BarnardCollege President Laura Rosenbury,” Cohen said. “These individuals don't belong on campus - and now they won't be.”
According to a statement by Columbia released Monday, an investigation into the protest was initiated immediately after the disruption by the Office of the Rules Administrator and the Office of Institutional Equity. Within 48 hours, the university identified, suspended and barred from campus a Columbia participant whose disciplinary process is pending.
“We strongly condemn this disruption, as well as the fliers that included violent imagery that is unacceptable on our campus and in our community,” Columbia Interim President Katrina Armstrong said in a statement the day of the disruption. “No group of students has a right to disrupt another group of students in a Columbia classroom.”
Two additional participants from “an affiliated institution” were referred to their home institution for discipline and barred from campus, the statement noted. Barnard is the women’s college affiliated with Columbia.
The expulsion comes less than a month after the Education Department under President Donald Trump launched a civil rights probe into antisemitism at Columbia and five other universities.