US: Nine Barnard students arrested in campus sweep after second sit-in
The leadership of Columbia University's Barnard College in New York City called law enforcement on their students after they staged a library sit-in on Wednesday, the second such sit-in in a week.
A group of students congregated outside the Milstein Center at Barnard around 1pm on Wednesday local time and renamed it the "Dr Hussam Abu Safiya liberated zone". They campaigned for the reinstatement of three recently expelled peers, amnesty for all protestors, divestment from Israel, and justice for Gaza's Dr Hussam Abu Safiya as well as all Palestinians.
Pediatrician Dr Abu Safiya was the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital and is currently detained by Israel. It is the last surviving major medical facility in northern Gaza, which was bombed and destroyed by Israeli army forces two days after Christmas in 2024.
Around three hours after the sit-in began, just after 4pm, Barnard vice president for strategic communications Robin Levine told protesters in the Milstein Center that there was a bomb threat and urged everyone to leave. Some protestors refused to go, and Barnard leadership called in the New York Police Department.
Police - including the counterterrorism unit, the Strategic Response Group - swept the building and arrested nine students.
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Officers took zip-tied students back into the Milstein Center that they had just evacuated, leading students to believe the bomb threat had been manufactured by leadership.
This is the second sit-in in a week after around 100 students staged one outside the dean's office last Thursday. Faculty members successfully de-escalated the situation and organised a meeting between students and leadership the next morning. However, faculty negotiators said leadership reneged on some terms and the conversations stalled.
Protesters renamed the Milstein Center to honour Dr Abu Safiya who risked his life to keep the Kamal Adwan hospital functioning, as it was besieged by Israeli shelling and drones and its staff were targeted by Israeli snipers.
In a photo that subsequently went viral, he can be seen in a white lab coat amidst the rubble of the bombed-out hospital walking towards two tanks with gun barrels pointed at him. He gave himself up after soldiers announced on a loudspeaker to hand himself over.
Since then, he has been imprisoned, subjected to solitary confinement and tortured. No charges have been filed against him, yet soldiers are said to have meted out severe physical abuse, including beatings and electric shock until he lost consciousness.
Neither the Manhattan DA nor Barnard College had responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Columbia to be investigated for antisemitism
Earlier this week, on Monday, the Trump administration announced it would be reviewing Columbia University's federal contracts and grants over allegations of antisemitism at the Ivy League university.
The US Justice Department has formed a task force to fight antisemitism along with the General Services Department and the US Department of Health.
"The Federal Government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government," the joint statement said, but no freeze had yet been initiated at the time of writing.
"The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University."
Protests against Israel's war on Gaza swept through university campuses soon after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have sought to characterise anti-Israel and anti-Zionist protests as "antisemitic", leading to congressional hearings grilling university administrators and law enforcement forcefully shutting down protests on campuses.
In the wake of the political backlash, universities like New York University and Harvard have scrambled to adopt the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism as they come under federal scrutiny.
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