Please consider signing the following letter, which we have made public, with existing signatures here. 

We invite Barnard and Columbia faculty signatures, as well as signatures of students, staff, and alumni, and their organizations. We are updating signatures daily.

Response to Barnard President Laura Rosenbury’s 10/26 Email “A Time for Action”

As faculty of Barnard and Columbia we are deeply troubled by Barnard College’s recent actions and communication, which undercut academic freedom and free speech. Free speech is a building block of any democratic polity. And academic freedom is foundational to the production of knowledge and the life of learning. Academic freedom is necessary in order to protect humanistic and scientific inquiry from censorship, prejudice, and discrimination, and to ensure the safety of all scholars and students engaged in the pursuit of learning. President Laura Rosenbury’s public letter (“A Time for Action,” 10/26) undercuts both core principles.

The letter not only devalues the lives of Palestinians undergoing military siege in Gaza, noted by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese as “ethnic cleansing” and the Center for Constitutional Rights as an “unfolding genocide,” but by classifying anti-Zionist speech as hateful and discriminatory, it also endangers Barnard students, faculty, staff and alumni who are demanding attention be paid to Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza and subjected to escalating settler and IDF violence in the West Bank. Rosenbury’s letter exacerbates serious harm to which Barnard and Columbia students of all backgrounds, but most especially Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students, have been subjected—notably, doxxing. Explicitly identifying some kinds of political speech, that is, anti-Zionist speech, as unacceptable on Barnard and Columbia campuses, constitutes a serious infringement on both free speech and academic freedom.

The Barnard administration’s deliberate conflation of anti-Zionism—a critical, political position against a state-building project and political ideology—and anti-semitism—a form of racism against a group based on religious or ethnic identity—is a fundamental category mistake that is not sustainable on any serious, critical intellectual grounds. It amounts to an act of suppression of political perspectives that do not align with what is emerging as a College-endorsed ideological commitment. The president’s letter and provost’s actions, reflective of an emerging College policy articulated in other public emails and in private ones sent to individual members of the faculty and student body, expresses a clear movement away from academic freedom and freedom of speech when it comes to the question of Palestine. It also subjects all faculty and students critical of the Zionist political project to the increased security, surveillance, and policing currently being implemented by the College. 

This move towards curbing academic freedom has already resulted in an act of overt censorship by the College. On October 23, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty posted a statement to the WGSS website expressing solidarity with students and support for the Palestinian people (while explicitly denouncing the killing of Israeli civilians). The statement drew on WGSS faculty areas of academic expertise and provided a list of educational resources for students. Citing College policy violations, the Provost’s Office removed the statement within hours, without any contact or discussion with the Department itself. Despite the WGSS Department’s request, the College has yet to explain which policies were violated. Subsequently, on October 27, the College changed its policy about the maintenance and updating of departmental websites, restricting editing access by all departments and centers, curtailing departmental faculty autonomy over their own communications.

As a faculty, we feel a responsibility to note publicly that President Laura Rosenbury’s letter demonstrates threats to the state of academic freedom and freedom of expression at Barnard, and escalates threats to student and faculty safety. We call on the College to ensure the safety of all students, faculty, and staff, regardless of their political beliefs. We call on President Laura Rosenbury to de-escalate the situation on our campus, by:

• Issuing a statement and instituting policy, including demonstrable acts, ensuring the defense of the academic freedom and free speech of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. This must include the freedom to debate and criticize Zionist ideologies and policies.

• Restoring faculty self-governance, and immediately sponsoring a faculty-organized forum on academic freedom.

• Rolling back surveillance and policing on campus, which ranges from the actual presence of security officers, to the use of anti-discrimination policy and resources to surveil and punish speech, to encouraging reporting for punitive purposes.

Signed,