Nine students were arrested Wednesday afternoon after Barnard College called police onto campus to break up a sit-in staged by pro-Palestine demonstrators.
The NYPD said it was responding to an alleged bomb threat at the Milstein Center, where the demonstration was held, forcing students out of the building and off campus. Several students were injured.
At 1:10 p.m. around 50 students, fully masked and wearing the keffiyeh scarf, flooded the Milstein Center in Barnard College chanting “Free Palestine.” They held the front doors open throughout the day as more students joined the demonstration.
Students sat in the lobby of the building, chanted slogans in support of Palestine, and banged on drums. “There is only one solution. Intifada revolution,” they chanted.
Protesters take over the Milstein Center on Barnard College’s campus, March 5. 2025. (Photo: Tamara Turki)
The sit-in demanded that the college administration reverse the expulsion of three student activists. Two students were expelled on February 21 for allegedly disrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class taught by Professor Avi Shilon on January 21. The third student was expelled on Friday for allegedly participating in the occupation of Hamilton Hall, famously renamed “Hind’s Hall”, in memory of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in January 2024 by Israeli forces while her family fled their home in Gaza City.
The students informally renamed the Milstein Center the “Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya Liberated Zone” to call attention to the plight of the Palestinian doctor and director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital who the Israeli army detained in December 2024. Abu Safiya has been subjected to various forms of torture at Sde Teiman military detention camp, his lawyers said.
“It’s important for me to fight the repression on our campuses only because of Palestine. Palestine is truly our compass and we have all learned so much from the steadfastness of the Palestinian people,” one protester who took place in the sit-in and asked to remain anonymous told Mondoweiss.
“The last year has been full of intimidation and brutality from the administration and zionist powers, and it worked for a long time. But the genocide hasn’t ended and Palestine isn’t liberated, so we have a duty to keep fighting. Palestine is still alive, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is still alive and we must do everything in our power to fight for their liberation right now,” they continued. “Through the last year of intense repression and fear, we’ve finally reopened our eyes to the immense collective power we’ve always had and we are ready to continue fighting for Palestine together no matter the brutality.”
Protesters rename Barnard College’s Milstein Center after Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, who is currently being held captive by Israel, on March 5, 2025. (Photo: Tamara Turki)
Although President Laura Rosenbury wasn’t on campus Wednesday, she spoke with students via phone at 2:00 p.m. The call was amplified through the protesters’ megaphone. Rosenbury offered to meet with three Barnard student representatives on Thursday, provided they removed their face coverings.
A September investigation by the Columbia Spectator revealed that Columbia University and Barnard had increased surveillance of student protesters using CCTV footage and ID swipes.
During the call Mondoweiss asked whether the representatives would be granted amnesty, to which Rosenbury responded: “The representatives do not need to have been present at today’s event and we will not be asking the representatives whether they were present.”
The discussion dissipated shortly after Rosenbury refused to give amnesty in writing and hung up the phone.
At 2:20 p.m., students received written notices to vacate the building but voted unanimously to stay, tearing up the notices in protest.
At 4:05 p.m., they received another round of notices giving them 15 minutes to leave. The students again voted to remain.
The following hours were calmer as students sang Rich Man’s House by the Resistance Revival Chorus, made art, and for those who were observing Ramadan, prayed Asr.
Protesters rally during a protest in the Milstein Center in Barnard College, on March 5, 2025. (Photo: Tamara Turki)
Shortly after, Barnard Vice President for Strategic Communications Robin Levine announced at 4:20 that Barnard had received a bomb threat. The administration gave no further details in announcing the threat but requested students evacuate the Milstein Center. The building activated its emergency sirens and flashing lights.
The students were unmoved by the announcement, accusing the administration of staging the threat in order to justify their removal. “Do we believe their lies?” students chanted.
Levine did not respond to requests for comment about the source of the bomb threat or whether students in neighboring buildings on campus were also being asked to leave.
NYPD orders protesters to disperse from the Milstein Center, March 5, 2025. (Photo: Tamara Turki)
At 4:55 p.m., dozens of officers from the NYPD Strategic Response Group, which handles civil disorder, swarmed onto campus and the Milstein Center, forcing students onto the front lawn. The NYPD Bomb Squad was not visibly present.
Police ordered people to “clear the courtyard for your safety”. “NYPD, KKK, IOF you’re all the same,” protestors chanted in response.
When protesters did not immediately comply, police forcefully pushed them toward the gate. In response, students pushed back, leading to multiple students being trampled.
Of the nine arrested, four were forced to the ground by police, who restrained them with zip ties. The experience left many students in tears as others watched from inside the gates.
“The NYPD response was completely horrifying, but unsurprising,” the protester who requested anonymity told Mondoweiss. “We have known for a long time that NYPD collude with the IOF to share tactics of surveillance and brutality. Some of the same violent tactics Palestinians have been subjected to for a century are being applied by Columbia University Deans and administration like former IOF Dean Keren Yahri Milo who orchestrated the NYPD raid of Hind’s Hall last year. At the sit-in yesterday, I saw multiple students slammed into the ground by swarms of NYPD office as we were already attempting to leave the lawns.”
They continued, “I was terrified. I was extremely afraid, I didn’t want any of our people taken and I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, but I have also never felt so held and so protected. The moment the NYPD began arresting people, everybody rose up to protect each other. Everybody was looking out for everyone else and it really reminded me of our strength and how much we can do together. This won’t stop us, even if we’re scared we know we can be brave together. We can be brave for Palestine.”
The Barnard Student Government condemned the presence of the NYPD on campus, stating, “We bear witness to our fellow students—our friends—brutalized and silenced for speaking up on our own campus.” In a letter, the student government noted that President Rosenbury had previously assured them that police would never be invited onto campus. They asserted that breaking this commitment “blatantly violates a precedent that was meant to protect students.”
NYPD confront protesters outside the Milstein Center, on March 5, 2025. (Photo: Tamara Turki)
This was the second sit-in this week. The previous Wednesday, students had staged a six-hour sit-in at Milbank Hall following the first two Barnard student expulsions. The students were initially suspended in January without due process and were the first university students to be expelled for campus protests.
On Tuesday, students staged another protest in response to Columbia University inviting former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to speak at the School of International and Public Affairs. In 2013, Bennett boasted, “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there’s no problem with that.”
Barnard is an affiliate of Columbia University, which became a focal point for the nationwide pro-Palestinian protests that erupted following Israel’s genocide in Gaza in October 2023.
Campus protests at Columbia and Barnard are still active but diminished in scale due to protest restrictions imposed following the student encampments last spring.
President Donald Trump and other right-wing politicians have called for a crackdown on student protests ostensibly aimed at combating antisemitism at U.S. colleges.
On Tuesday, Trump posted on Truth Social threatening to cut federal funding to colleges that allow “illegal protests” and warning that “agitators will be imprisoned and permanently sent back to the country where they came from.”
One of Trump’s executive orders directs agencies to explore deportation options for international students participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Tamara Turki
Tamara Turki a Palestinian student at Columbia Journalism School with two years of experience as a writer for Arab News’s London bureau.