Professional-Hamas protests have reignited on a significant faculty campus, and college students are calling for stronger motion from directors.
Barnard School freshman Shoshana Aufzien criticized the college’s dealing with of the incident, saying the administration’s response lacked urgency.
“The college condemned the incident. I believed their phrases have been somewhat lackluster,” Aufzien stated Friday on “America’s Newsroom.” “I’m not in search of lip service. I need motion.”
The protest erupted after a number of college students have been expelled for distributing anti-Israel pamphlets and disrupting an Israeli historical past class final month. Protesters stormed a constructing on Barnard’s campus, which is a part of Columbia College’s training system and situated subsequent to Columbia’s important campus
Aufzien stated she was caught off guard by the protest and didn’t initially understand how critical the scenario was.
“I had no concept that there was going to be a protest,” she stated. “Once I walked via the doorways and noticed an enormous ‘Free Palestine’ banner draped from the second-floor touchdown, I assumed it was only a sit-in. I didn’t understand how violent it will be.”
ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS AT BARNARD COLLEGE ARRESTED AFTER MOB TURNS VIOLENT
Anti-Israel protesters demonstrated at Barnard School in February 2025. (Getty; X)
The small group of protesters, a lot of whom lined their faces with masks or conventional Center Jap keffiyehs, occupied the constructing, stopping college students and workers from getting into. One college worker was reportedly despatched to the hospital after being bodily assaulted.
Whereas protesters accused Barnard staff of harassing and shoving college students, the college administration tried to barter with the demonstrators. Talks broke down when officers required the protesters to take away their face coverings as a situation of additional dialogue.
Aufzien expressed frustration with how the college dealt with the standoff.
“Barnard spent hours negotiating with protesters, however the phrases of the negotiations ought to’ve been both you disperse instantly and current identification, or we’re calling the cops,” she stated. “I’m actually disenchanted as a result of admin actually like handed protesters get-out-of-jail-free playing cards.”
STUDENTS AT ELITE NYC COLLEGE EXPELLED FOR DISRUPTING CLASS WITH THREATENING HAMAS PROPAGANDA
The demonstration is the most recent in a sequence of campus protests nationwide in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Columbia College beforehand struggled to interrupt up a pro-Palestine encampment on its property final yr, resulting in the mass arrest of greater than 100 college students and the resignation of the college’s president.
A gaggle of greater than 50 anti-Israel protesters took over a constructing at Barnard School and allegedly assaulted an worker Wednesday night. (X/@shoshanaaufzien)
Aufzien warned that with out critical penalties, the scenario might escalate like final yr’s protests.
“I actually simply need to go to class. It’s midterm season proper now,” she stated. “[My parents] are paying 95,000 {dollars} a yr for me to be educated and I can’t even entry that training. It’s pathetic.”
She additionally emphasised the severity of the protesters’ actions.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Protesters took a dean hostage. They refused to let her go to the lavatory. They usually impeded college students from accessing an training. That must be grounds for not simply condemnation, however actual change. And that’s what I need to see, and I haven’t seen it but.
Columbia College issued an announcement following the protest, distancing itself from Barnard however affirming that “the disruption of educational actions will not be acceptable conduct.”
