Anti-Israel activists at Barnard College invade campus building

Anti-Israel protesters at Barnard College, an affiliate of New York’s Columbia University, invade a campus building to protest the expulsion of two students who disrupted an Israeli professor’s class at the start of the semester.

The protesters share footage showing dozens of activists, mostly masked by keffiyehs, chanting and beating a drum in a hallway beneath several Palestinian flags.

The demonstrators chant, “Every fascist state must fall,” and “Palestine is Arab,” according to the footage.

BREAKING: 50+ COLUMBIA STUDENTS FLOOD ADMIN OFFICE OF BARNARD COLLEGE DEMANDING

1. Immediate reversal of the two Barnard students’ expulsions.
2. Amnesty for all students disciplined for pro-Palestine action or thought. Drop all the charges now!
3. A public meeting with Dean… pic.twitter.com/QKSBQ6jIUg

— Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (@ColumbiaSJP) February 26, 2025

The students say they are outside the college dean’s office.

The campus coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest, led by Columbia’s branches of Students for Justice in Palestine and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, says in a statement that students are staging an “emergency sit-in” outside the dean’s office.

The group demands that the university reverse the expulsions, give amnesty to all students disciplined for anti-Israel protests, grant the activists a meeting with Barnard leadership, and abolish the college’s disciplinary system.

“When two students are expelled, hundreds more rise up,” the statement said. “The repression cannot stand! We will not rest until full amnesty.”

The protest group tells participants to wear a mask and avoid swiping their university ID.

Unity of Fields, an off-campus activist group, posts footage of activists shoving their way into a building and chanting “intifada revolution” and “free Palestine.”

BREAKING ????LONG LIVE HIND’S HALL! EVERY FASCIST STATE WILL FALL!

Students at Columbia University storm a building and sit-in to demand that the expulsions of the two Barnard Students are reversed. They’re calling for amnesty for all students disciplined during the Student… pic.twitter.com/bPThRuYsuI

— Unity of Fields (@unityoffields) February 26, 2025

Jewish students post online that they have been blocked from entering the building and attending classes.

The Columbia says in a statement that “the disruption of academic activities is not acceptable conduct.”

“Barnard College is a separate institution from Columbia University, although it is affiliated. Columbia is not responsible for security on Barnard’s campus. The disruption that is taking place at Barnard’s Milbank Hall is not on Columbia’s campus, and Barnard’s leadership and security team are addressing the current situation,” the statement says.

Anti-Israel protesters forcibly occupied a building on the Columbia campus last year, leading to a police raid to clear them out and dozens of arrests.