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Barnard Students Hoist Effigy of College President, Disseminate Hamas Pamphlets as They Occupy Library

A mob of Columbia University and Barnard College radicals stormed a campus library Wednesday afternoon, just one week after they took over another Barnard building and sent a security guard to the hospital.

Video footage shows droves of masked radicals clad in dark clothing storming Barnard’s Milstein Library through a back exit that an accomplice held open. Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)—the Ivy League institution’s most anti-Semitic student groups and the organizations that orchestrated last week’s incident—took credit for the storming on social media.

Once inside, the agitators handed out Hamas propaganda justifying the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack. They demanded the immediate reversal of “the three Barnard students’ expulsions,” “amnesty for all students disciplined for pro-Palestine action,” and a complete “abolition of the corrupt Barnard disciplinary process.” They also renamed the library after Hussam Abu Safiya, a Gaza hospital director the Israel Defense Forces accused of being a terrorist and holding a rank in Hamas. The agitators voted to stay overnight until Barnard president Laura Ann Rosenbury returned to campus in the morning.

The latest building storming comes as the Trump administration reviews Columbia’s federal funding over the university’s “apparent failure” to protect Jewish students. The Department of Health and Human Services, the General Services Administration, and the Department of Education jointly announced Monday they were probing the more than $5 billion in federal funding commitments and could issue stop orders impacting more than $51 million.

President Donald Trump posted to Truth Social a promise to end all federal funding for any university that allows illegal protests. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on [sic] the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!” Trump wrote Tuesday.

On Feb. 26, CUAD and Columbia SJP led a mob that stormed a campus building at Barnard, Columbia’s sister school. They clashed with security guards, sending one to the hospital, and caused $30,000 in damages—all in protest of Barnard’s decision to expel two students who interrupted an Israeli history class and targeted Jewish students with anti-Semitic flyers. The culprits got off scot-free after the administration vowed not to pursue disciplinary action, shielded them from police as they exited the building after occupying it for over six hours, and agreed to continue negotiations the next day in a private meeting.

Weeks earlier, members of CUAD dumped cement into a campus building’s sewage system.

Barnard announced a third expulsion on Monday, this time for a student’s involvement in the violent occupation of Hamilton Hall at Columbia last spring.

During Wednesday’s storming, activists posted a wanted poster in the library with the face of Barnard dean Leslie Grinage and the message, “Reward For Info Leading To A Meeting.” When radicals stormed a Barnard campus building last week, Grinage asked if she’d be allowed to use the bathroom, given that she had been sequestered in her office for hours. The student radicals jokingly told her no but eventually allowed it, booing her on the way to the restroom.

The student radicals on Wednesday were handed out orders to vacate the library, but instead ripped the orders up and threw them in the air. One held a wanted poster featuring the president’s face that read, “For the Complicity in genocide.” CUAD posted a photo of another masked agitator holding an effigy of Rosenbury. The caption calls her a “puppet” with “Zionist donors pulling the strings.”

“This notice is a final request from the College that you immediately cease your participation in this activity and leave Milstein,” the notice read. “If you do not comply with this request, we will take further action as necessary to clear the building. If you are not a Barnard student, you must immediately leave the Barnard campus. The College encourages you to take this notice seriously and immediately leave the building.”

At approximately 4:35 p.m., Barnard vice president for strategic communications Robin Levine announced that a bomb threat had been made in the Milstein Library. She told students, “You need to leave now, this is not a joke,” but the protesters refused to vacate the building, telling her, “you’re lying,” “prove it,” and voting unanimously to remain.

Just after 5:00 p.m., NYPD Strategic Response Group officers who were called to the scene entered the building. Unity of Fields, a self-described “militant front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of Imperialism,” shared live footage of the NYPD entering the occupied building and physically pushing the activists off campus at approximately 5:20 p.m., telling them there was an “active bomb threat.”

Police arrested several radicals as the agitators resisted NYPD’s efforts to push them away from the building.

“We are in touch with Barnard’s leadership and security team as they address the situation and will continue to monitor it closely,” Columbia wrote in a statement. “The disruption of academic activities is not acceptable conduct. We are committed to supporting our Columbia student body and our campus community during this challenging time.”

In a statement to the Barnard community, Rosenbury wrote, “Our academic mission is at the heart of what we do, and disruptions to that mission are an affront to the purpose of higher education and cannot be tolerated.

“When masked disruptors first entered Milstein, classes were taking place, facilities were cleaning classrooms, and dining staff were preparing meals. We must not allow the actions of a few interfere with our mission.”

The library occupation shortly follows a protest Tuesday night that CUAD and Columbia SJP organized in response to former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett speaking on campus. The protest featured a sign that read, “Stop support [sic] the evil terrorist. Zionists are not Jews and not humans! They are the evil of the world.”

Columbia issued a statement Wednesday morning reiterating its aim to enforce policies to “prevent discrimination or the targeting of community members in any form.” Two hours later, the Columbia anti-Semitic student groups took over the library at its sister school.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s task force to combat anti-Semitism announced Friday that Columbia was among 10 schools it would visit to meet with university leadership and impacted students to determine whether any disciplinary actions are justified for the schools’ failure to shield Jewish students and staff from illegal discrimination.

Update 5:53 p.m.: This post was updated to include additional information as the events unfolded.

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