Barnard College was finally showing signs of responsible leadership when it expelled two students for participating in an egregious, anti-Semitic disruption of a class on modern Israel at Columbia earlier this semester.
But after almost two years of anti-Semitic chaos on campus, the college’s leaders have evidently still not learned their lesson. When protesters who were upset about the expulsions occupied a campus building to demand they be reversed, faculty and administrators negotiated with them for hours and eventually let them go without consequence.
College staff should have taken down the protesters’ names for discipline and told them to get out quickly before the police arrived to arrest anyone who refused to leave.
That is what responsible leaders would have done, but weak and unserious people lead Barnard.
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The protesters assaulted a staff member, sending him to the hospital. They disrupted and forced professors to cancel classes. They blocked students from entering the building and getting to their classes. They trapped a dean in her office and humiliated her when she had to ask permission to use the restroom. After chanting shame as she walked past them, they posted to social media, “Dean Leslie Grinage of @BarnardCollege just asked for our permission to use the bathroom. Guess who has the upper hand now?”
Dean Leslie Grinage of @BarnardCollege just asked for our permission to use the bathroom. Guess who has the upper hand now? pic.twitter.com/TwwtX811me
— Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (@ColumbiaSJP) February 27, 2025
All this, and then a spokesperson for Barnard admitted that college leadership did not know whether all the protesters were members of the Barnard community.
The failure to react swiftly and decisively demonstrates a shocking inability to take dangerous situations seriously. Barnard President Laura Rosenbury stated that the protestors’ “disregard for the safety of our community remains completely unacceptable,” but the actions of the college said otherwise.
After a series of soft deadlines and with the NYPD outside, a college dean finally appeased the mob by capitulating to it. Agreeing to a future meeting with representatives of the protesters, Barnard has taught them that these tactics work.
And not only did Barnard agree to a future meeting, but it promised that anyone who left would not face discipline—a jaw-dropping concession considering the extent of the disruption and the fact that a staff member was sent to the hospital.
But the protesters freely left and marched through the streets proudly calling for an intifada, leaving Barnard behind, conquered and humiliated.
The college’s response is an unconscionable abdication of its duty to provide other members of the Barnard community a safe environment in which to teach and learn.
Why does Barnard not take stronger action to restore order to its campus? Why can it not see what everyone else does—that the only way to stop this behavior is to take a hard line against it and expel those who insist on violating campus rules?
The answer is that this is what Barnard wants to be. It has carefully selected these students through a fine-tuned admissions process. It would be ideal if they could draw a little less attention, but Barnard does not have a problem with them in principle.
Expelling these students would be to admit failure. It would require the faculty and administration to recognize that their vision for Barnard is misguided; that they have been given responsibility for stewarding an elite institution of higher learning and they have botched it, badly.
This is what the adults at Barnard cannot or will not admit to themselves. The most reasonable expectation is that, absent significant external pressure, they will continue to tolerate this kind of behavior and do the bare minimum in response to it.
The board of trustees should take swift and decisive action to ensure that the college has leaders who will maintain campus order. Otherwise, Barnard will be a poster child for the feckless governance that has shattered the public’s confidence in American higher education.
In the meantime, anyone who does not want to be a part of this nonsense should look for an exit.
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Image of Barnard College by Billie Grace Ward on Wikipedia; edited by Jared Gould.
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“, “Dean Leslie Grinage of @BarnardCollege just asked for our permission to use the bathroom. Guess who has the upper hand now?”
That strikes me as Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment.
Humiliating a female employee on the basis of her bodily functions — yes, that’s about as “textbook” as I can think of, and the EEOC says that an “employer will be liable for harassment by … non-employees over whom it has control”
But what really bothers me is that every one of those little darlings considers himself, herself, or itself to be a “socially just” person. They can tell you what sexual harassment is and that it is wrong (I’m not so sure how they would do on the “why” but at least they know it is).
If Andrew Cuomo were to run for NYC Mayor, every one of those little darlings will be out protesting him because he allegedly harassed someone fail to realize that they’re doing the same damn thing… And it’s one thing to brag about it at the time, but to post it on the internet afterwards? For *none* of them to say “ummm, maybe, ummm…” and not do that?!?