CUAD attributes the recent acceleration of such punitive measures against pro-Palestine activists to the US Department of Justice’s Friday announcement that it will be visiting 10 college campuses that “experienced incidents of antisemitism since October 2023.” Columbia was informed that, pursuant to a Trump executive order , it would be one of the universities on the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism’s docket.

“Columbia and Barnard are cracking down on student protesters to appease the Department of Justice and billionaire donors because they are afraid of losing their funding,” said the CUAD spokesperson. “Barnard handed down an expulsion to one of the students just one day after the Justice Department announced it planned to visit campus as part of a sham investigation into pro-Palestine protest.”

After the university was briefed about the imminent DOJ visit, The Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration announced that the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism is also considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the federal government, while putting under review the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments.

Amid mounting student and government pressure, Barnard president Laura Ann Rosenbury wrote an op-ed for The Chronicle of Higher Education asserting that the sit-in was her “line in the sand” and pledged to remove “from our community those who refuse to share our values of respect, inclusion, and academic excellence.” The article said that student activists have “exploited the conflict in the Middle East to try to tear our campus community…apart.”

In response, CUAD said that Rosenbury’s op-ed was “whitewashing the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, financially cosigned by our University’s refusal to divest from weapons manufacturers and Israeli corporations.”

Additionally, “it is she who evicted dozens of students last spring,” CUAD noted—emphasizing the college president’s role in destabilizing the campus community by eliminating over 50 Barnard activists’ access to education, food, housing, and medical care via interim suspension. “Her willingness to demonize protesters whose demands were simple transparency in the disciplinary process, which resulted in the unprecedented removal of…their classmates…should concern current students and alumni alike.”

The Barnard expulsions have set, according to CUAD, a “dangerous precedent” and epitomize the “ Palestine exception ” to free speech. In light of Israel’s continued onslaughts on Gaza, which most recently include a fatal blockade of humanitarian aid into the besieged strip and violations of the purported ceasefire, CUAD says that “students still feel it is their duty to fight for a free Palestine, and have implemented various methods to dodge Columbia’s repression,” in order to continue the fight.