Students and faculty rally at Sundial against Marc Rowan, protesting Trump administration and billionaire ties

The rally was followed by a larger picket at 57th Street where Rowan, the CEO of Apollo Global Management, was expected to speak at the firm’s New York City headquarters.

Photo by Sophia Arango/The Barnard Bulletin

By Megan Morey, Sitara Reganti, and Kimberly Wing

November 7, 2025

On Friday, November 7, a rally at the Sundial was organized by around 40 Columbia students and faculty, calling on the University to “not comply with Trump’s violence.” The demonstration, which was followed by a picket in Midtown at 11 a.m., denounced Columbia, the Trump administration, and Marc Rowan — the billionaire CEO of Apollo Global Management, an investment firm with an active portfolio worth more than $100 billion in assets.

Rowan, chair of the board of advisors for the Wharton School of Business, assisted the Trump administration with developing the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” Universities that agreed to comply with the compact would receive preferential federal funding crucial to their academic programs. Although Columbia was not offered this deal, the administration recently reached their own resolution with the Trump administration after having $400 million of federal funding pulled. 

Two years ago, Rowan led efforts to remove the University of Pennsylvania’s president, Liz Magill, and its Board of Trustees chair, Scott Bok, for their handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and “tolerating” of antisemitism on campus. He was also considered for the Treasury Secretary pick in Trump’s cabinet.

According to the rally organizers, Rowan was expected to speak at Apollo’s New York City headquarters on 57th Street later that afternoon.

Photo by Sophia Arango/The Barnard Bulletin

Participants began gathering at the Sundial at 9:45 a.m. with the rally officially beginning at 10:05 a.m., bringing handmade signs with phrases such as “BILLIONAIRES: HANDS OFF EDUCATION” and “NO LOYALTY OATH.” Leel Dias (CC ’27) gave a brief opening to the rally and introduced the four speakers. Throughout the rally, attendees chanted slogans that directly criticized Columbia’s leadership and their treatment of students, such as “Columbia, your hands are red, you sent your students to the feds.”

Attendees’ statements echoed the rally’s focus on free expression and the growing unease among the Columbia community. The general atmosphere among the attendees reflected a shared call for accountability and transparency from the administration. 

Cameron Jones (CC ’26), a member of Columbia’s Sunrise chapter, was the first to speak at the rally. 

Photo by Sophia Arango/The Barnard Bulletin

“We’re gathered here to protest Marc Rowan,” Jones stated. “He has used his influence at UPenn to censor and defame events centered on Palestine. Marc Rowan is also a major funder of the Canary Mission, a website that targets and doxes anyone who dares to speak out against Zionism and its genocidal actions.” 

Jones claimed that many Columbia students have utilized Canary Mission to “harass and defame their own peers” and that the University has only “encouraged” these actions. He also alleged that Rowan was one of the “key architects behind the Trump era deal for American universities — a plan designed to target trans students, students of color, and anyone who dares not only to protest but even to speak in support of a free Palestine.” 

“Such deals embolden universities to clamp down on organizing in violent ways through the use of campus police forces to arrest and brutalize their own students. We know about this all too well on our own college campus.” Jones said, referring to Columbia’s use of the NYPD to disperse protests, resulting in student arrests and suspensions. 

“We cannot give up. We cannot bow to the sword of oppression and of authoritarianism. It is a privilege to stand here and advocate for a free Palestine,” Jones concluded his speech.

The second speaker, a Columbia student who identified themself as “A,” touched on the justice system at the University.  

Photo by Sophia Arango/The Barnard Bulletin

“In dealing with a rogue administration, special attention must be given to the processes by which these charges were brought about, presided upon, and enforced,” A said. “Here, within the kangaroo courts of this magnificent university, the basic and necessary due processes have been hijacked by the little Napoleons who do not simply pile on these charges but also play judge, jury, and executioner.”

Emphasizing that there are “hundreds that have had to endure this atrocity this year alone,” A urged the audience “to start thinking about it as a systematic and coordinated flattening of our lives.” They added that, “regardless of our politics,” members of the community can “collectively agree that what is happening here should not happen anywhere in the world but least of all in our beloved university.” 

“It renders us obsolete sitting quietly, studying, pontificating about the abuses in someone else’s society and to excuse the same practices on our own,” A concluded.

Michael Thaddeus, professor of mathematics and Vice President of Columbia’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter, was introduced as the third speaker and a faculty member with a “history of showing Columbia what they’re doing wrong.” 

Photo by Sophia Arango/The Barnard Bulletin

In 2022, Thaddeus was the whistleblower who reported Columbia’s “inaccurate, dubious, or highly misleading” data that was submitted to the U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges Ranking. Columbia acknowledged that some of its figures were inaccurate and was subsequently removed from U.S. News’ ranking. The following year, Columbia refrained from submitting data for the ranking survey, causing it to be demoted from second to 18th place.

Thaddeus noted that the rally was the first time that Columbia AAUP had hosted an event “where students and faculty are speaking side-by-side on an equal footing.”

“AAUP advocates for the welfare of colleges and universities and for their faculty and students. We don’t promote any geopolitical cause. We don’t take any partisan position on manners unrelated to academic life,” Thaddeus stated. “But we do advocate vigorously for the rights of students and faculty to promote those causes and to engage in those debates.”

Thaddeus criticized the government — as well as some Columbia students, faculty, administrators, donors, and trustees — for wanting to implement “something akin to a new McCarthyism” where students and faculty can be disciplined “by an arbitrary, draconian system of discipline” for expressing “even mildly dissenting views.”

“Don’t let anyone take your freedoms away — no one in the government, no one at Columbia,” Thaddeus concluded. “Let’s advocate for free expression at Columbia, at UPenn, across America, and around the world.”

In a statement to The Bulletin, Thaddeus noted that November 7 is the AAUP’s National Day of Action, and Columbia’s AAUP chapter contributed to organizing the Midtown rally to “encourage universities to reject the compact.”

“Columbia made a deal with the federal government, which has frankly been disastrous. The worst effects remain to be seen, but there are so many provisions in Columbia’s deal that are extremely dangerous. [Trump’s] compact replicates a lot of those dangerous features,” Thaddeus told The Bulletin. “We’re pleased that other universities are declining to sign the compact and the tides seem to be turning.”

The final speaker, whose identity was undisclosed but who wore a Contingent Faculty of Columbia University shirt, criticized Rowan’s billionaire status and Apollo Global Management’s acquisitions.

Photo by Sophia Arango/The Barnard Bulletin

According to the speaker, “[Rowan] is worth about $10.5 billion. Apollo Global Management turns a net profit of about $4 billion every year on revenues of about $75 billion for managing over $900 billion of assets.”

“All of that wealth and the control of all of that wealth gives Rowan an enormous amount of influence,” the speaker said. “He has used that influence to attack the autonomy of higher [education] and to try to impose ideological control from Washington over [...] what students are allowed to protest and how people get hired and fired from universities.”

“Marc Rowan is not the problem, he is the symptom of a massive problem of billionaires controlling our healthcare, our educations, our institutions,” they continued.

Photo by Sophia Arango/The Barnard Bulletin

Several attendees at the rally shared their concerns about the compact and Columbia’s recent agreement with the Trump administration. Dias said that they themselves were motivated by “anger at seeing my colleagues and peers being suspended and deported and arrested.”

Melanie Wall, professor of biostatistics at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, said she attended because she was “troubled by the lack of transparency” from administration and that the University “should not be deporting students for their right to free speech,” referring to Mahmoud Khalil and other students who have been arrested and pursued by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement for deportation.

“With the [Trump] administration’s agreement with Columbia University, it’s making it even harder to have free speech,” she said.

At the end of the rally, participants headed to the 116th station to participate in a picket near Apollo’s Midtown headquarters on West 57th Street.