When a bomb threat coincided with a pro-Palestine student protest at Barnard College last month, the New York City Police Department arrested nine demonstrators. By the next day, local and national media had picked up the story. Some outlets suggested that the protesters were responsible for the threat. “Several Barnard College protesters in custody after bomb threat made during sit-in,” read one headline.
That headline, as well as statements from Barnard College and the NYPD, overlooked a key fact: The Palestine solidarity protesters were actually the targets of the bomb threat.
This revelation has alarmed faculty and students, who are now being interrogated by school officials about the threat during inquiries over alleged student code of conduct violations. Faculty and attorneys working with the protesters are also concerned that information from those interrogations could be shared with the government, as Barnard faces pressure to hand over information about students to Congress — where Republicans have repeatedly painted student protesters as terrorists — as part of its investigation into antisemitism on college campuses.
When asked by The Intercept whether the school had made public that the bomb threat targeted pro-Palestine students, a Barnard spokesperson pointed to a tweet from the NYPD.
“The NYPD is responding to a bomb threat at the Milstein Center at Barnard College and is evacuating the building. Anyone who refuses to leave the location is subject to arrest. Please stay away from the area,” the post on X states.
“The fact that these students were targets does not seem to have been made clear.”#NYPD #StudentProtesters #BarnardCollegeClick to post on
Barnard, which is Columbia University’s affiliated women’s college, did not respond to detailed questions about the timeline of when it called police onto campus, why students were being asked about the threat, what information it planned to share with Congress, or why it had not made public that protesters were the target of the threat.
“The fact that these students were targets does not seem to have been made clear,” said Homa Zarghamee, an economics professor at Barnard.