Writer Fatima Bhutto has made an appeal to Barnard College in light of the suspensions, expulsions and threats made to students for their participation in pro-Palestine protests on campus.
The columnist and activist recalled her own time at Barnard in a video shared on Instagram, recounting how she and other students were able to partake in protests on campus without facing disciplinary actions for exercising their rights.
Bhutto graduated from Barnard in 2004. She majored in Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures.
“When I was a student at Barnard the second Intifada had broken out and Israeli occupation forces then, as they are now, committed grave acts of violence,” she said in the video.
“I went to protests on the Barnard campus on the Columbia campus. I went to strikes, sit-ins, and teach-ins, and never once got expelled, suspended or threatened with disciplinary charges,” The New Kings of the World writer shared.
Bhutto said that Barnard students today are doing what they’re doing out of enormous moral courage and clarity. “They are standing up against the crime of the century. This is the crime of our lifetime. And all those students are acting, not out of just moral courage and clarity, but out of heart and a duty to social justice.”
She urged the college to pardon the students and drop all disciplinary actions against them in order to be on the right side of history.
“I’d like to ask Barnard, as a graduate myself, to grant amnesty to all student protesters, to drop the disciplinary charges, to reverse the suspensions, and to stop the expulsions. Barnard, if it wants to be on the right side of history has to protect its students and protect those students who are fighting for a just world for all people and all Palestinians,” she concluded.
In April, Bhutto shared a letter she wrote to the president of Barnard College after several Columbia University and Barnard College students were suspended for organising and participating in pro-Palestine protests on campus.
This also led to them being arrested for ‘trespassing’ after the Columbia University president issued a complaint to the NYPD.
The decision to suspend the students for exercising their right to peaceful protests, leading to many of them being locked out of their dorms and practically rendered homeless, garnered immense criticism online and from Columbia faculty, members of which walked out in solidarity.
The protests spread to other campuses, including Yale and MIT. Police arrested dozens of people at the demonstrations at Yale in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan as well.