Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) members occupying an administrative building on Feb. 26, 2025. Photo: Screenshot

The anti-Zionist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) has occupied the Milbank Hall administrative building at Barnard College in New York City to protest recent disciplinary sanctions imposed on student activists.

The highly anticipated action comes one day earlier than CUAD advertised on Monday, when it announced its intention to hold a demonstration on Thursday. In preparation for the event, which many feared would be disruptive of normal campus operations, college officials have spent the last several days tightening campus security — forbidding, for example, non-students from accessing campus, unmasking people who conceal their identities with masks or other garments, and performing random searches of “backpacks, purses, luggage,” and other effects.

Barnard College vice president of strategy Kelli Murray formally announced the measures, first reported by The Columbia Spectator, on Tuesday in an email to the campus community. However, by taking over Milbank Hall on Wednesday, when the college’s guard was down, CUAD has claimed an advantage in what could be a hotly contested struggle for control of the building.

Posting on Instagram during the late evening, CUAD said its members are “flooding the building despite Barnard shutting down campus. Barnard expelled two students and hundreds more rise up!”

Since then, a staff member has been assaulted, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

“We have made multiple good-faith efforts to de-escalate. Barnard leadership offered to meet with the protesters – just as we meet with all members of our community –  on one simple condition: remove their masks. They refused. We have also offered mediation,” Robin Lavine, Barnard College spokesperson told The Algemeiner in an exclusive statement on Wednesday evening. “At this time, masked protesters remain inside Milbank Hall. We do not know if all individuals involved are members of the Barnard community. If they do not agree to leave the building by 9:30 PM, Barnard will be forced to consider additional, necessary measures to protect our campus.”

CUAD’s demonstration gives expression to its fury over Barnard’s expelling two students who last month stormed Columbia professor Avi Shilon’s course on modern Israeli history and proceeded to distribute antisemitic literature and spew pro-Hamas propaganda.

This week, it resorted to promoting antisemitic tropes to mobilize its supporters for the event, alleging that “Zionist billionaires” influenced the administration’s decision to expel the students.

“This is the first official expulsion of a Columbia affiliate over a protest against the ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and occupation of Palestine by israel [sic],” CUAD said on Monday in an Instagram post. “Barnard’s decision to expel two students marks a serious escalation in the crackdown against students advocating for divestment from the israeli war machine…Barnard’s arbitrary timing and level of punishment is heavily influenced by external pressures from billionaires, donors, and government officials.”

Spinning conspiracies of Jewish control, it continued, “Numerous articles have exposed how billionaires have pressured Columbia administrators to suppress campus activism for Palestine. Zionist networks have specifically targeted the Palestine class disruption activists for harassment, doxxing, and school discipline as part of a coordinated wave of repression against Palestinian activism.”

Commenting on the group’s behavior, Brian Cohen, executive director of the Hillel International chapter shared by Barnard College and Columbia University, said: “I am appalled that students once again stormed an academic building, prevented classes from taking place, and according to reports, violently assaulted a staff member. This is a direct infringement on students’ right to enjoy an education without fear of harassment.”

Columbia University has struggled to contain CUAD — which just last month committed an act of infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete — and plug the stream of negative publicity and scrutiny it draws. In September, during the university’s convocation ceremony, the group distributed a pamphlet which called on students to join the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s movement to destroy Israel. Several sections of the document were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.

In April 2024, CUAD members commandeered a section of campus and, after declaring it a “liberated zone,” lit flares and chanted pro-Hamas and anti-American slogans. When the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrived to disperse the unauthorized gathering, hundreds of CUAD members and their affiliates reportedly amassed around them to prevent the restoration of order. During the ensuing clashes with law enforcement, one student screamed “Yes, we’re all Hamas, pig!” while others shouted “Long live Hamas!” and filmed themselves praising the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

CUAD demonstrated again the challenge it poses to the university’s security apparatus when it attacked SIPA. Numerous reports indicate the action was the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia were shared with students. However, security officials were unable to amass any intelligence on the group’s plan before it unfolded.

Barnard College has said that it will not tolerate CUAD’s behavior, a statement it reinforced by suspending the protesters who invaded Professor Shilon’s class.

“Barnard will always take decisive action to protect our community as a place where learning thrives, individuals feel sage, and higher education is celebrated,” college president Laura Rosenbury said in a statement shared with The Algemeiner on Monday. “This means upholding the highest standards and acting when those standards are threatened.”

She continued, “When rules are broken, when there is no remorse, no reflection, and no willingness to change, we must act. Expulsion is always an extraordinary measure, but so too is our commitment to respect, inclusion, and the integrity of the academic experience. At Barnard we fiercely defend our values. At Barnard, we always reject harassment and discrimination in all forms. At Barnard, we always do what is right, not what is easy.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.