Pro-Palestinian groups hold emergency rally on Low Steps a day after on-campus arrests
The rally comes after a tumultuous protest at the Milstein Center on Barnard’s campus Wednesday which resulted in the arrests of several pro-Palestinian protesters.
Photography by Abigail Rabbitt/The Barnard Bulletin
By Fiona Hu and Suhani Kapoor
March 8, 2025
On Thursday, March 6, several pro-Palestinian groups affiliated with Columbia University called for an emergency rally on Low Steps. In a joint Instagram post, the groups stressed the need to “stand against this latest wave of repression and criminalization as a united student body.” This statement followed the events of the day prior, in which nine demonstrators who had partaken in a sit-in to protest the recent expulsions of three students were arrested by NYPD amid a bomb threat.
Just after 1 p.m. on Thursday, dozens of protesters, most of whom donned keffiyehs or masks, congregated on Low Steps.
Following a series of chants, an anonymous masked student delivered a speech addressing Wednesday’s events at Barnard, calling them “the most recent series of horrifying, oppressive events on Barnard’s campus.” The speaker referred to the sit-in as “peaceful” and stated that while many protesters had “felt hopeful that the administration had learned the values of communication,” the announcement of a bomb threat — which the speaker alleges “served as a manufactured emergency [by Barnard’s administration] to allow NYPD on campus” — seemed to indicate otherwise.
The speaker also reflected on the moment they saw the NYPD enter campus: “It did not take long for [the police] to begin grabbing and throwing students…[and] making multiple arrests.” The protesters in the crowd began chanting “Shame!” in response. The speaker concluded by calling on Rosenbury directly, who was not present at the rally, demanding that she “be accountable to [the] community” and “listen to [her] students.”
Photography by Abigail Rabbitt/The Barnard Bulletin
After the speech, protesters continued their chants and handed out fliers, some of which displayed a QR code to a website that listed companies to boycott and others which had information about an International Women’s Day march.
Amidst the continuing chants, a second speaker called out Columbia and Barnard investments stating, “The University remains silent and maintains investment in companies like BlackRock, Google, and Microsoft.” They went on to discuss events from last spring, recounting that “the University asked NYPD for the first time since 1968 to arrest over 100 students, as they said, to ‘keep our community safe.’” The speaker continued, stating that “when IOF soldiers on campus sprayed our comrades with chemicals that hospitalized them, the University awarded [the two soldiers] 300,000 dollars.” In response, the crowd again repeatedly chanted, “Shame!”
A third representative then began recounting a personal experience from the night protesters were arrested after occupying Hamilton Hall last April: “The NYPD pushed me with a chainsaw, threw me on a metal table and then on the ground and had five officers hold me down as I screamed that I was not resisting.” They continued, “The University did not provide me any support after they invited my own brutalization in the name of my own safety.”
In the midst of the protest, an altercation occurred where two Columbia Public Safety officers asked to see the CUID of a student bystander witnessing the protest, but the student refused. In an interview with The Bulletin, the student expressed how “the security guard knows who I am, he knows I am an ally.” A small nearby group of protesters called the request to see ID another example of “Columbia targeting Palestinians.”
Photography by Abigail Rabbitt/The Barnard Bulletin
Around 2:40 p.m., the protesters began to march towards Barnard's gate at 117th Street “in solidarity and condemnation of the horrifying brutality” that had taken place the day prior. A series of metal fences along the sidewalk with pathways for students to enter, designated protest zones, and a press area had been set-up near the gates by the NYPD prior to the rally's migration from Columbia to outside Barnard.
The protesters were joined in front of the gates by pro-Palestinian groups unaffiliated with Columbia or Barnard, including Neturei Karta and Within Our Lifetime. The protestors, both students and unaffiliated groups, continue to call for “cops off our campus now and “end[ing] the occupation now” while holding signs calling for cops off campus, dropping all charges given to pro-Palestinian protesters, and to stop buying into “Zionist propaganda.”
Photography by Abigail Rabbitt/The Barnard Bulletin
In an interview with The Bulletin, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a member of the organization Neturei Karta, explained on behalf of the group that they “came as Jews, religious Jews from the religious communities in New York and some from Palestine… to clarify that the entire occupation, the creation of the state of Israel, and all the genocide, the horrific crimes, emanating from the state of Israel has nothing to do with my religion, Judaism.”
According to Weiss, Zionism is a “relatively new nationalist movement” that is “simply masquerading in the name of religion.” He claimed that Zionists are “intimidating and silencing anybody who wants to stand up for the rights of the people of Gaza, of Palestine, and accusing them of being antisemitic.”
“It has nothing to do with being against the Jew when you speak up for the rights of the downtrodden or the people of Palestine who are being senselessly murdered,” he said.
“How come they’re arresting and expelling students who are standing up for the innocent people of Palestine?” Weiss questioned. “We plead to the intelligent leaders of the universities [to stand] in front of this demonstration and other demonstrations to save the lives of Palestinians. …We want them to free Palestine.”
Two black vehicles pulled up in front of the Barnard gate just after Weiss finished his statement. The drivers then began making derogatory comments towards Weiss, calling him a “danger to the Jewish people,” before NYPD instructed the drivers to leave as to stop obstructing traffic.
Around 3 p.m., the protesters, including the unaffiliated organizations, dispersed with one final call to “buddy up and stay safe.”