Rep. Ilhan Omar and her daughter Isra Hirsi at her victory speech on Nov, 6, 2018, Photo by KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images

By Jacob Kornbluh April 20, 2024

Rep. Ilhan Omar said Friday that she was “enormously proud” of her 21-year-old daughter, Isra Hirsi, who was suspended from Barnard College the day before for her participation in anti-Israel protests on the campus of Columbia University. 

Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student organizations at the university, which includes Barnard, said Hirsi and two other students were told of their suspension early Thursday by Barnard’s dean, Leslie Grinage. Later that day, the New York Police Department arrested more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters, mostly on charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct, clearing what they called a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” of more than 20 tents from Columbia’s main lawn. 

Omar, a Minnesota Democrat and one of the most outspoke critics of Israel in Congress, posted her praise Friday on X.

“She has always led with courage and compassion,” Omar said, citing Hirsi’s involvement in a school walkout over gun violence and a youth climate rally while in high school, “and now pushing her school to stand against genocide.”

“Stepping up to change what you can’t tolerate is why we as a country have the right to speech, assembly, and petition enshrined in our constitution,” Omar added.

Cornel West, a law professor who is running for president, joined the students protesting the NYPD arrests and spoke before the large crowd.

Afterward, Columbia President Nemat Shafik said in a letter to students and staff that she authorized the police intervention. “I took this extraordinary step because these are extraordinary circumstances,” Shafik wrote. “The individuals who established the encampment violated a long list of rules and policies.”

Behind Columbia’s crackdown

Thursday’s crackdown and the suspensions followed a congressional hearing Wednesday on Columbia’s response to rising antisemitism on campus. In testimony before the House Committee on Education & the Workforce, Shafik pointed to the suspension of two pro-Palestinian student groups as an example of actions the school has taken to curb antisemitism. Shafik also agreed that some professors’ commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been antisemitic.

Ahead of the hearing, Hirsi and other students had gathered to protest Columbia University’s ties with corporations they accuse of profiting from “Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine,” according to Apartheid Divest. In a video posted online, Columbia officials warn the students they would be suspended if they failed to disperse.

“I have never been reprimanded or received any disciplinary warnings,” Hirsi, an organizer with  Apartheid Divest and the Columbia-Barnard chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Those of us in Gaza Solidarity Encampment will not be intimidated. we will stand resolute until our demands are met.”

Omar, one of two Muslim women elected to the House in 2018, perhaps more than anyone in Congress, has drawn the ire of Israel supporters. She endorses the movement to boycott Israel, and has been accused of crossing the line into antisemitism in her rhetoric, some of which she has apologized for. Omar, who sits on the committee that grilled Shafik on Wednesday, questioned her and other Columbia officials about cracking down on anti-Palestinian protests. 

In a 2020 interview with Fortune magazine, Omar, who was elected to Congress in 2019, praised her daughter’s activism. “If my generation had acted with the urgency that her generation had acted,” she said, “would my daughter be at the state capitol asking for us to introduce sensible gun laws and to protect the lives of young people?”

Hirsi was listed that year in the Fortune‘s 40 Under 40 Government and Politics list.

Last month, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Columbia over the school’s November suspensions of Students for Justice in Palestine and the campus chapter for Jewish Voice for Peace following a walkout the groups organized. Columbia said the walkout was unauthorized and that the groups had repeatedly violated school policies by failing to comply with “requirements for advance notice and consultation” in organizing events on campus.

A confidential letter obtained by the Forward on Wednesday showed that investigations were opened over the conduct of several Columbia professors accused of making antisemitic and anti-Israel comments in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

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