[🚨EMERGENCY SIT-IN] DISRUPTION UNTIL DIVESTMENT AND REVERSAL OF EXPULSIONS - NO BUSINESS AS USUAL AT GENOCIDAL AND REPRESSIVE INSTITUTIONS!!!

follow @cuapartheiddivest for live updates on the sit-in JOIN THE SIT-IN AT MILSTEIN LIBRARY RIGHT NOW, RECLAIMED AS THE DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA LIBERATED ZONE. DEMAND BARNARD'S ADMINS TO REVERSE EXPUL

Last week, after a 7-hour sit-in, we left Milbank only after Barnard agreed to negotiate over expulsions, with administrators guaranteeing that a neutral third party could audio record the meeting to produce a verifiable transcript, the attendance of both Dean Grinage and President Rosenbury, and that student negotiators could remain masked for their protection. Barnard reneged on these terms 25 minutes before negotiations were set to begin the next day. We were left with no choice but to resume the sit-in because Barnard has shown they will sabotage negotiations unless we hold them accountable. Until administrators concede to our demands, we in our hundreds will continue to disrupt their business as usual.

President Laura Rosenbury demanded that we unmask so she can "know who is at the table." If Barnard's administration expects transparency from us, it must be willing to meet that demand itself. Our student negotiators will comply with the request to unmask under one condition: Barnard College must publicly disclose its financial assets. 90% of the Barnard student body voted to divest from israel, yet the administration continues to conceal its investments. We refuse to negotiate in the dark while Barnard shields its ties to genocide.

Immediately following the liberation of Hind’s Hall last spring, Hind Rajab’s mother shared her wishes that such efforts had been made while her daughter still had a chance—that the world had fought for her while she was still alive. Today, we reclaimed Barnard College's library as the Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya Liberated Zone to bring pressure against the imprisonment of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and thousands of Palestinian prisoners under the zionist occupation. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is currently being held captive by the IOF after being kidnapped for refusing to abandon his patients as the IOF seiged Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last functioning hospital in north Gaza.

In the Dr. Husam Abu Safiya Liberated Zone, we commit to a revolutionary education in which students are not expelled, repressed, or brutalized for their celebration and action for Palestinian liberation. Columbia and Barnard can lie all they want about "academic freedom" and expel students under the guise of protecting it, but there is no academic freedom when these institutions are paying for the murder of Palestinian students. Columbia University has disrupted the academic functioning of every university in Gaza. It has destroyed every university building in Gaza, but Columbia cannot destroy the spirit of the Palestinian people. As Palestinian students and scholars like Basel Al-Araj and Shaban Al-Dalou pursued their own liberatory education in the midst of zionist genocide, we must continue to fight and learn from lessons narrated by Palestinians. ​​​​​​

Within the last two weeks, Barnard has expelled three students by circumventing Columbia’s anti-corruption measures installed after the 1968 campus protests. All three students were expelled for protesting the U.S.-israeli genocide of the Palestinian people – two for allegedly disrupting a Columbia class called “History of Modern Israel” and a third for allegedly liberating Hind’s Hall last spring. These expulsions follow the firing of two transgender Barnard staff members, a librarian and a medical receptionist, who spoke out against the college’s repressive, authoritarian approach to anyone discussing Palestinian liberation.​​​​​​​ News of the third expulsion came just one day after the U.S. Department of Justice informed Columbia they planned to visit the campus as part of a McCarthyite crackdown on protests against the zionist regime. Columbia could lose federal funding if the investigation is unfavorable, and university admins are scrambling to keep their riches by unleashing unprecedented repression onto its students.

As a way to prevent student discipline from being wielded as a political cudgel, protective measures were installed at Columbia after the mass arrests and suspensions in the 1968 student protests. Now under pressure from billionaire donors and the U.S. Department of Justice, Barnard has circumvented these measures by creating a new disciplinary office that has no faculty oversight and is made up of one administrator - Ange Concepcion - responsible for singlehandedly issuing disciplinary sanctions.

We demand divestment, academic boycott, stopping the displacement in both Harlem and Palestine, and no policing on campus. As waves of repression continue to be deployed by the university, we will also continue to demand amnesty for any students, faculty, or staff involved in pro-Palestine protests or organizing on campus. Currently, the zionist entity has engaged in several ceasefire violations in Gaza and increased their genocidal attacks across the West Bank. During the month of Ramadan, the zionist entity has displaced 90% of Jenin refugee camp and thousands more in the West Bank. Columbia and Barnard are complicit in genocide and the normalization of zionist aggression. Repression breeds resistance, and we will not rest until every single demand is met.

The university’s current wave of expulsions echoes its history of removing students for protesting Columbia’s financial ties to fascist regimes — the first expulsion being in 1936 when a student led pickets against Columbia’s ties to Nazi Germany. A second round of expulsions for protest followed in 1968, when two students were expelled for their roles in the mass protests against U.S. imperialist aggression in Vietnam and the building of a segregated gym in Morningside Park. Discipline at Barnard has already far exceeded the standard set by 1968, with nearly 50 Barnard students receiving suspensions and losing access to their housing, medical care, and meal plans for protesting the U.S.-israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.

THE STUDENTS, FACULTY, STAFF, AND WORKERS OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY AND ALL PEOPLE OF CONSCIENCE DEMAND:

1. Immediate reversal of the three 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 Leslie Grinage and President Laura Rosenbury.

4. Abolition of the corrupt Barnard disciplinary process and complete transparency for current, past, and future disciplinary proceedings.

DISRUPTION UNTIL DIVESTMENT, RESISTANCE UNTIL RETURN, AGITATION UNTIL AMNESTY.

WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET. FREE PALESTINE.