The College Fix

Protesters kept staff from leaving during bomb threat, congressman says

New York lawmakers are calling for more pro-Palestinian protesters to be disciplined after police arrested nine Wednesday during a takeover of the Barnard College library.

Congressman Ritchie Torres said the private college should expel student protesters after some tried to keep administrators from leaving the building during a bomb threat.

“The pro-Hamas agitators … not only orchestrated a hostile takeover of Barnard College but also subsequently kept the administrators from evacuating the building in the midst of a bomb threat,” Torres wrote on X. He also posted two videos of the incident.

The pro-Hamas agitators, who were proudly distributing pro-Hamas propaganda in defense of October 7th, not only orchestrated a hostile takeover of Barnard College but also subsequently kept the administrators from evacuating the building in the midst of a bomb threat.

Barnard… pic.twitter.com/i0TmcQZSE7

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) March 6, 2025

New York City Council Member Julie Menin also condemned the protesters’ “lawlessness” on X.

What is happening @BarnardCollege is reprehensible. Classes cancelled amid a bomb threat, intimidation and lawlessness. As a former board member of @Columbia University, I call on Barnard and Columbia to put an end to this unacceptable situation. Consequences must happen. pic.twitter.com/1cVhkpgWz4

— Julie Menin (@JulieMenin) March 6, 2025

According to the Columbia Spectator:

New York Police Department officers with helmets and zip ties entered Barnard’s campus at roughly 4:50 p.m. on Wednesday, nearly four hours after pro-Palestinian protesters began a sit-in at the Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning, and began detaining protesters.

As NYPD officers—including officers from the Strategic Response Group—approached Milstein, protesters exited the building as officers conducted a walkthrough. NYPD officers told protesters through a megaphone that they needed to “exit the courtyard” due to an “active bomb threat.”

The arrests followed an announcement from Barnard Vice President for Strategic Communications Robin Levine in the Milstein lobby that there was a “bomb threat” at around 4:15 p.m. She and several CARES officers urged everyone in the building to leave. Many protesters decided to stay.

Protesters organized the demonstration to demand the college reverse the expulsion of three pro-Palestinian students, according to the report.

Elisha Baker, a Jewish student at Columbia University, which is affiliated with Barnard, wrote on X that some protesters also were handing out pro-Hamas materials and photos of a Hezbollah terrorist.

On Wednesday evening, the Student Government Association sent a campus-wide email accusing police of using “disproportionate force against students engaging in nonviolent protest,” the Spectator reports.

The student government leaders also criticized administrators for calling the police, according to the report:

“Barnard College has broken a long-standing promise,” SGA wrote in the statement, which it sent in an email to Barnard students at 9:24 p.m. on Wednesday. “SGA has been explicitly told by President Rosenbury, in the presence of other senior staff, that the College would never invite the NYPD onto campus.”

A Barnard spokesperson directed Spectator to a Wednesday statement from Barnard President Laura Rosenbury, which Rosenbury sent to the Barnard community minutes before SGA’s statement.

“The moment we received the bomb threat, we had to clear the Milstein Center and inform the authorities,” Rosenbury wrote, adding that protesters were “immediately notified” by Barnard administrators about the threat and that many refused to evacuate.

“At that point, for the safety of our entire community – including the safety of the masked disrupters – Barnard made the necessary decision to request NYPD assistance so they could evacuate the building to reduce the risk of harm,” Rosenbury wrote in her email. “The NYPD were then able to search for the bomb and assess the threat, ultimately determining that the campus was not at risk.”

In videos posted on X, some protesters decried the bomb threat as a hoax and a manipulation tactic to get them to leave the building.

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IMAGE: Elisha Baker/X, Eliana Goldin/X

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