A Bomb Threat Targeted Student Protesters. So Why Did They Get Blamed for It?

When a bomb threat coincided with a pro-Palestine participant 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 Specific 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 genuinely the targets of the bomb threat This revelation has alarmed faculty and students who are now being interrogated by school officers about the threat during inquiries over alleged participant code of conduct violations Faculty and attorneys working with the protesters are also concerned that information from those interrogations could be shared with the regime as Barnard faces pressure to hand over information about students to Congress where Republicans have repeatedly painted trainee protesters as terrorists as part of its study into antisemitism on college campuses When questioned by The Intercept whether the school had made society 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 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 demanded about the threat what information it planned to share with Congress or why it had not made general that protesters were the target of the threat The fact that these students were targets does not seem to have been made clear stated Homa Zarghamee an economics professor at Barnard Zarghamee noted she has not seen the kind of aid for students who were the target of a threat of violence that she would have expected from the administration in this era of safety concerns What we have never heard from the administration this time or truthfully any time in the past is anything about the fact that this was a threat made to our students who we need to remember again and again are being disciplined for peaceful protest against the Israeli war on Gaza stated Thea Abu El-Haj a professor of coaching at Barnard The language from the administration seems to consistently be about the protesters as threatening Though the school itself never explicitly blamed the bomb threat on students Abu El-Haj noted everyone she has spoken with outside of Barnard had assumed that the protesters were responsible The language from the administration seems to consistently be about the protesters as threatening And it seems very much addressed to a broader citizens audience she explained I can say for myself but also for the students I teach they are really upset that no one is expressing concern for them and for the threats that have been brought against them According to a screenshot of the bomb threat obtained by The Intercept the sender emailed school administrators at p m on March saying they had placed a bomb in the Barnard College library The sender who used the email address pardonderek mail tor com wrote that they intended to attack the anti-white faggot terrorists communists that are protesting In an email sent that evening to the coalition of protesters Columbia University Apartheid Divest Barnard President Laura Ann Rosenbury revealed students faculty and staff had been ordered to clear the building so the NYPD and its bomb squad could assess the threat She added that the school had petitioned police not to arrest protesters An NYPD spokesperson informed The Intercept that it dispatched its Crisis Services and K- units The spokesperson did not respond to a question clarifying whether the NYPD Bomb Squad a separate unit had also been dispatched Later that night the college addressed the bomb threat in an email to the broader school society Rosenbury disclosed the bomb threat was no longer a danger and went on to describe the disturbing and unacceptable events that took place in Milstein prior to the threat She explained staff tried to get protesters to leave the building throughout the afternoon and that the unauthorized protest had disrupted classes and studies She blamed protesters for putting the entire school group at jeopardy by not following evacuation orders after the threat was received Our staff at pitfall to their own personal safety remained in the Milstein lobby urging the masked disruptors to take the threat seriously Rosebury wrote Even when the College activated the fire alarm the masked protesters put our entire campus at liability by refusing to leave At the time of the matter school administrators and the New York Police Department gave no indication that the threat had been made against pro-Palestine protesters That information was not shared by school administrators or police with the broader school public or the residents We heard news of a bomb threat and the lobby was evacuated very expeditiously thereafter but I do not recall being recounted the bomb threat was made toward those in the sit-in commented Barnard theatre professor Shayoni Mitra Various reports have introduced differing timelines of police response and different reasons the NYPD was called to the scene The day after the protest an NYPD spokesperson advised the Columbia Spectator that police had responded to the protest around p m to an unscheduled demonstration and mentioned it had no information about a bomb threat Three days later another NYPD spokesperson explained the Spectator something else that police had indeed responded to the protest because of the bomb threat The spokesperson also noted that students who were arrested on charges including governmental obstruction and trespass were taken into custody during the police evacuation in response to the threat Barnard narrated the Spectator that it called police in response to the threat not because the demonstration was unauthorized Mitra explained she taught a class on the first floor of the building that houses the library on the day of the sit-in and heard three shelter-in-place orders informed over the community address system between p m and p m A photo shared with The Intercept shows a handful of police officers standing on the street outside Milstein at p m minutes before the bomb threat email reviewed by The Intercept arrived in the school president s inbox A later message from Rosenbury mentioned threats via multiple email messages on March further muddying the timeline as to when police were first called to campus and why Barnard lied when it explained it called the police because of the bomb threat timestamps show the threat came after the call Barnard lied when it mentioned it called the police because of the bomb threat timestamps show the threat came after the call reported attorney Remy Green partner at the law firm Cohen Green and counsel for several students at Barnard Rather than address and protect its students from a violent racist misogynistic and homophobic person who threatened to murder them Barnard saw an opportunity to deceive the general into thinking the students were connected to the threat By doing this Barnard has made this campus less safe and less free According to three people who were in the library when police arrived dozens of NYPD officers from the Strategic Response Group a specialized crew often deployed to protests entered the library shortly after p m An NYPD spokesperson later described the Columbia Spectator that police responded at p m The NYPD did not respond to The Intercept s questions asking the department to clarify what time police first responded on campus that day Sources who spoke to The Intercept revealed that the NYPD kettled specific protesters on the lawn outside the building Photos reviewed by The Intercept show students who were arrested in zip-ties lined up against the outer wall of the building Police then escorted the people they arrested through the building that was the target of an operational bomb threat They took the students that they had arrested and put them up first up against the building that was ostensibly about to explode announced Abu El-Haj after reviewing footage and photos taken by students Specific members of the faculty learned that the threat was directed at scholar protesters the next day at a meeting of the Barnard and Columbia chapters of the American Association of University Professors According to sources with knowledge of the meeting faculty members read aloud the text of the bomb threat to colleagues shared with a sparse professors internally by an administrator In a joint message issued following the meeting Barnard and Columbia faculty condemned the arrests of students and blamed them on Rosenbury as the school had summoned police to campus They called for an independent examination into the circumstance and the school s response to another sit-in at Barnard s Milbank Hall on February Students themselves are now being interrogated about the threat Columbia s head of community safety ex-NYPD officer Gary Maroni is questioning candidate protesters about that threat in mandatory fact-finding meetings according to emails reviewed by The Intercept and accounts from faculty and attorneys working with pro-Palestine students on campus Faculty worry that these interrogations which students were originally informed they had to attend without any spectators or legal representation could be turned over to Congress I have deep concerns about students walking into those meetings without lawyers because of the way that Barnard is in the midst of a discovery process with Congress as I understand it announced Abu El-Haj I am worried about either congressional subpoenas or if there s any attempt on the part of the criminal justice system to bring any kind of criminal cases against students that those records might be subpoenable Read our complete coverage Chilling Dissent Barnard is one of several schools that put in place new disciplinary processes and campus speech policies as part of efforts to curb speech on campus since the height of Gaza protest encampments In an email to faculty last month Rosenbury outlined chosen of those changes including new rules governing the time place and manner of events and demonstrations She announced the school would make every effort to deescalate disruptions internally But if they persisted and prevented members of the school population from learning studying or working administrators would continue to rely on the NYPD when specialized skills are required as was the affair when the College received bomb threats Rosenbury wrote in the email that the school had paused disciplinary actions related to pursuits that occurred after February while enacting new disciplinary policies in response to the war on Gaza All candidate conduct processes for incidents prior to February the date of another campus demonstration had been completed by late March Rosenbury disclosed however that fact-finding related to disciplinary investigations would continue Part of the process she wrote could be an inquiry meeting that would not include observers or legal representation Faculty managed to push back on this stipulation and attended selected of the meetings If charges were recommended after inquiry Rosenbury wrote she would consult with administrators about whether the school was close enough to adopting its new policies to hear new cases At least students have been called into such inquiry meetings for protests last month One participant was called into a conduct meeting for two actions a Jews Say No to ICE protest last month and another action earlier this month They are being charged with disruptive behavior failure to comply failure to maintain populace order and obstruction of access It s not clear what if any information from the inquiry meetings the school plans to share with congressional bureaucrats Either way protesters must reckon with potentially life-altering charges from the school revealed Abu El-Haj Outside of the context of whether this gets subpoenaed anywhere or goes to Congress students are facing quite serious consequences she reported Expulsion and or suspension can carry essential financial consequences for students Related Trump Administration Texted College Professors Personal Phones to Ask If They re Jewish Barnard College was dropped last month from the lawsuit over the authorities s efforts to access disciplinary records for candidate protesters including those of latest Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order last month blocking Columbia and Barnard from turning over information to Congress Barnard is not now subject to the order after being dropped from the suit Earlier this month the judge ruled that Columbia must give Khalil and other students days notice before turning over additional information to Congress At least faculty members sent a letter to Barnard administrators on Thursday asking for an update on the new deadline and what information the school plans to share with Congress Faculty who spoke to The Intercept announced they have not yet received answers from the school In a meeting on April Rosenbury advised faculty that the school had received an extension on its deadline to turn over information to Congress but did not specify the new deadline The Trump administration has used the president s executive order on antisemitism to attack abduct and deport aspirant protesters that Trump and his Republican colleagues have repeatedly with no evidence conflated with terrorists The post A Bomb Threat Targeted Learner Protesters So Why Did They Get Blamed for It appeared first on The Intercept