Barnard Ends Suspensions for Most Scholar Protesters Who Had been Arrested

Barnard School will enable a lot of the 53 college students who have been arrested and suspended after collaborating in a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia College to return to its campus, directors stated in an announcement on Friday.

The faculty stated that it had “reached resolution with nearly all students” who have been arrested final week when Columbia requested the police to clear the encampment, a transfer that set off dozens of solidarity protests at campuses throughout the nation and dozens of further arrests at faculties together with Yale College, the College of Southern California and Emerson School.

Of the arrested college students at Columbia’s unique encampment, about half have been from Barnard, a girls’s school affiliated with the college that’s throughout the road in Higher Manhattan.

Barnard stated suspended college students who reached agreements with the faculty on Friday would have their entry to residence halls, eating amenities and lecture rooms instantly restored. Barnard was nonetheless engaged on agreements with another college students, it stated.

“Barnard is committed to educating and supporting students with wide-ranging backgrounds and diverse perspectives,” the assertion learn. “We continue to work closely with faculty, staff and students to ensure the college remains a safe and inclusive place for our community.”

Tensions on school campuses have been excessive for the reason that starting of the Israel-Hamas warfare, and Columbia and Barnard have each been the location of ongoing antiwar protests, together with efforts to clamp down on protest chants and different types of speech that many Jewish college students, college and others view as antisemitic.

Columbia’s encampment sprung up on April 17, the identical day that Nemat Shafik, the president of Columbia College, testified earlier than Congress about antisemitism on elite school campuses. Ms. Shafik ordered New York Metropolis police to arrest the roughly 100 college students concerned, together with these from Barnard.

Police officers stated the arrested college students had received summonses for trespassing. A number of the suspended Barnard college students stated that they acquired e mail warnings giving them quarter-hour to pack and go away. A number of stated they have been sleeping at mates’ homes.

Columbia College Apartheid Divest, the coed group organizing the encampment, stated in an announcement on Friday that Barnard’s choice to carry the suspensions wouldn’t have occurred with out “a mass movement of people inside and outside the Columbia community who mobilized to defend students’ basic right to housing.”

“We were evicted from our dorms, given fifteen minutes to collect our things, and left unable to access our prepaid meal plans,” the assertion learn. “We condemn Columbia and Barnard’s cowardly attempts to withhold food and housing from students to extract political concessions.”

Izzy Lapidus, a senior at Barnard who was amongst these suspended, stated that the administration had supplied college students a wide range of offers to carry their suspensions, however that the fundamental concept was that they might return to class and their dorms on the situation that they not break the principles once more.

Negotiations between legal professionals for the scholars and for the faculty went on for days, she stated. She agreed to the phrases, and had her suspension lifted Friday night time, she stated. She stated she thought most however not the entire college students would settle for the provide, significantly the seniors who wish to graduate.

Nonetheless, she remained upset a few punishment she felt had been unfair within the first place.

“We were peacefully protesting on our own campus lawns for Columbia University to divest and for a free Palestine,” she stated. “While I’m grateful that the suspensions are overturned, they were incredibly unjust.”

Katherine Franke, a Columbia Regulation Faculty professor who helped negotiate the settlement, stated that she had been concerned in negotiations on behalf of the Barnard college students. The method started with a letter to directors at Barnard and Columbia final Sunday arguing that the suspensions violated not simply school guidelines, however state regulation, Ms. Franke stated.

Columbia has not responded to the letter, Ms. Franke stated, however Barnard responded immediately.

“A lot of the students really were suffering severe mental health problems and physical health problems,” Ms. Franke stated. “It impressed on me that we had to figure out some way to get them back in the dorms. A lot of them were weeks away from graduation. They couldn’t submit their papers or take their exams.”

Whereas the settlement with Barnard instantly reinstated the scholars in query, these taking lessons at Columbia, that are supplied by their Barnard levels, are nonetheless barred from the Columbia campus, Ms. Franke stated.

Among the many protesters, whose calls for included that Columbia divest from corporations linked to Israel, was one significantly high-profile identify: Isra Hirsi, a Barnard pupil who’s the daughter of Consultant Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota. It was not clear on Friday night time whether or not Ms. Hirsi was one of many college students who had come to an settlement with Barnard.

Within the months main as much as the tent protest at Columbia, Barnard enacted strict rules to tamp down campus unrest, together with banning any dorm door decorations after college students started posting stickers and slogans supporting the Palestinian trigger.

“While many decorations and fixtures on doors serve as a means of helpful communication amongst peers, we are also aware that some may have the unintended effect of isolating those who have different views and beliefs,” Leslie Grinage, the dean of the faculty, wrote in an e mail to college students.

Barnard additionally limited the spaces the place college students and college might protest. The coverage modifications prompted a robust response at Barnard, a college with a popularity for valuing activism.

Because the preliminary arrests, the encampment at Columbia has regrown to be even bigger than earlier than, however the college has stated it’s negotiating with college students and has not referred to as again within the police.

Katherine Rosman, Stephanie Saul and Sharon Otterman contributed reporting.