Columbia professor slams university leadership as anti-Israel agitators wreak havoc at Barnard

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Anti-Israel protests broke out at Barnard College last week, and Columbia associate professor Shai Davidai is calling out students and faculty members.

"These protests that we saw two days ago, the violent taking over of a hall at Barnard, it's one of the same protests that started on Oct. 12, 2023," Davidai told Fox News Digital. "Hate doesn't go away on its own. Extremism doesn't go away on its own. If you don't deal with it, it stays around."

The most recent protests were in response to the expulsion of two students who allegedly barged into a Columbia University classroom in January and threw flyers filled with hateful and antisemitic rhetoric. 

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The professor teaching the course, Avi Shilon, told the Times of Israel that he invited the protesters to join the class, but they refused and continued shouting instead. 

Following the Barnard students' expulsion, more than 50 anti-Israel agitators took over a building on Barnard's campus, echoing last year's takeover of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. 

When speaking to Fox News Digital, Davidai alleged that while the protests were physically taking place at Barnard, they were organized by a Columbia-sanctioned and funded organization. However, Columbia University disputes this claim and says the group was not university-sanctioned.

"This is the consequence of 20 years of indoctrination," Davidai told Fox News Digital. "We have indoctrinated students and they are not the problem. The problem has always been the professors who have been indoctrinating them."

However, Davidai says he has heard from Jewish and non-Jewish students alike that they are fed up with the protests.

"They see no accountability, and they're just sick of it," Davidai said. "I got emails from parents saying, 'What are we paying $90,000 for? So, then Barnard can go and clean up the mess of the students who got to walk scot-free?' It doesn't make any sense."

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Davidai says he has tried to engage with other faculty on the issues, but that in one case, a student intervened and pulled the other faculty member out of the conversation. He says there are "radical students" who are telling faculty "what to do and what to say."

In addition to the faculty, Davidai sees a problem with Columbia's leadership. He says that former Columbia University President Minouche Shafik "did not know what she was going into" and "was a coward." He places heavier blame on Interim President Katrina Armstrong, who he says is "incompetent."

Davidai does not think all hope is lost for Columbia and believes there is a way for the university to turn things around.

"You kick out the indoctrinaters, you kick out the professors [who] openly support Hamas and other U.S.-designated terror organizations. You kick out the students that blatantly support massacres of Jews and Israelis, and you make room for professors who want to teach and for students who want to learn."

 Barnard College did not immediately responded to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.

Barnard College and Columbia University have a storied history. Initially, Columbia was an all-male university and Barnard, an all-female school, became part of the Columbia system in 1900. The two still share academic resources and both institutions have classes that are available to Columbia and Barnard students.

On Feb. 26, Columbia tweeted out a statement saying that "the disruption of academic activities is not acceptable conduct."

Immediately following the class disruption in January, interim President Armstrong condemned the incident in a statement, saying that the agitators' actions went against the university's rules. Additionally, Columbia suspended an alleged participant with ties to the university and launched an investigation.

Barnard President Laura Ann Rosenbury published an op-ed on the situation on Monday in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, "When Student Protest Goes Too Far." 

"This disruption was not designed to expand thinking or advance civil discourse. Instead, it was a calculated act of intimidation, with the disruptors taunting and loudly speaking over the professor, distributing antisemitic flyers, and refusing to join the discussion even when the professor graciously invited them to sit in on the class," Rosenbury writes. She went on to say the protesters actions were "utterly at odds with our mission."