Social media erupted Thursday evening after Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., revealed she had been suspended from Barnard College following her involvement in an anti-Israel protest on Columbia University’s campus in New York City.
“[I’m] an organizer with CU Apartheid Divest @ColumbiaSJP, in my 3 years at @BarnardCollege i have never been reprimanded or received any disciplinary warnings,” Hirsi, 21, wrote in a post on X. “[I] just received notice that i am 1 of 3 students suspended for standing in solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide.”
“[T]hose of us in Gaza Solidarity Encampment will not be intimidated,” she added in a follow-up post. “[W]e will stand resolute until our demands are met. our demands include divestment from companies complicit in genocide, transparency of @Columbia’s investments and FULL amnesty for all students facing repression”.
Hirsi was one of several students who took part in what Barnard College referred to Thursday as an “unauthorized encampment” that was originally set up on Columbia’s campus on Wednesday.
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Hirsi’s bio on X features a hammer and sickle — a Soviet-era communist symbol — as Washington Beacon contributor and political commentator Noah Pollak noted on social media.
“Ilhan Omar’s psycho daughter just got suspended from Barnard over her Hamas activism, and she has a Soviet hammer & sickle emoji in her bio + pronouns. Perfection,” Pollak wrote in a post to X.
Hirsi, who co-founded the U.S. Youth Climate Strike and has received fawning coverage from liberal media outlets, added the infamous symbol to her profile at some point in 2021.
“Barnard College has just suspended Ilhan Omar’s daughter for her involvement in pro-Hamas and Iran protests at Columbia University,” wrote Brigitte Gabriel, the founder and chairman of ACT For America. “Supporting terrorism should be grounds for immediate expulsion!
“Ilhan Omar doesn’t just hate America, she’s also teaching her kids to hate America,” Gabriel wrote in a follow-up post. “Why are we bringing people to America who hate America? This is a road to terrorism.”
Emily Schrader, an Israeli-American human rights activist who campaigns against antisemitism, questioned why Hirsi is only facing a suspension and insisted that she “should be expelled.”
“Ilhan Omar’s daughter suspended from Columbia for her leadership role in unsanctioned antisemitic and pro-terror protests,” Schrader wrote in a post on X. “My only question is, why only now, and why only a suspension? She should be expelled. I’ll happily pay for a ticket to Gaza for her.”
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StopAntisemitism — a group that frequently provides its social media followers with the names, accounts and employers of those it says espouse antisemitic viewpoints — also chimed in about the news.
“Seems the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree,” the group wrote in a post to X.
The group also included in its post a photo of Omar and her daughter, with the caption reading, “Antisemite Ilhan Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, suspended from Barnard/Columbia for radical anti-Israel protesting”.
The group also responded directly to Hirsi’s initial tweet, saying, “Good news! You were told several times to leave the encampment and you didn’t. Now you’re suffering the consequences.”
Brooke Goldstein, a human rights attorney who serves as the executive director of The Lawfare Project, also weighed in on Hirsi’s suspension, saying she was not surprised by the news.
“Hirsi has acknowledged that she is one of the organizers of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the hate group that has done so much damage – not just to Jewish students on campus, but to the rights of all students,” Goldstein wrote. “This may be breaking news, but somehow it is not shocking news. A lot of questions need to be answered, including by Rep. Ilhan Omar.”
Hirsi was named to Forbes’ “40 Under 40 Government and Politics” list in 2020 and has been featured in New York Magazine. She was described as “saving the planet” by Vice News for her climate change work.
While several right-leaning and Israeli-supporting activists took aim at Hirsi over her involvement in the protest, others, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., offered words of support.
Tlaib, who was censured by her colleagues in the House in November for anti-Israel comments she made in the wake of the Jewish state’s war against terror group Hamas, wrote in a post to X: “From UM to Vanderbilt to USC to Columbia, students across our country are being retaliated against for using their constitutional rights to protest genocide. It’s appalling.”
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Hirsi’s suspension came after dozens of protesters camped out in tents on school grounds Wednesday, calling on the university to divest itself from companies that have ties to Israel. The encampment was set up the same day Nemat Shafik, the university’s president, testified before Congress about antisemitism on the college campus.
The students from both Barnard and Columbia who set up the encampment had a “stated intention to remain,” Barnard College said in a statement about the matter.
“Before noon on April 17, Columbia made multiple requests that students participating in the unauthorized encampment leave the lawn. A number of Barnard Senior Staff also went to the lawn to ask Barnard students participating in the encampment to leave and to advise Barnard students that they would be subject to sanctions at Barnard if they did not leave the encampment,” the school said Thursday. “Members of the Barnard Senior Staff provided participants in the unauthorized encampment with written warnings at approximately 7 p.m. on April 17. These written warnings stated that students would receive interim suspensions if they did not leave the encampment by 9 p.m. on April 17.”
“This morning, April 18, we started to place identified Barnard students remaining in the encampment on interim suspension, and we will continue to do so,” the school added.
In addition to Hirsi, protest organizers said the two other Barnard students who received suspensions from the school were Maryam Iqbal, 18, a freshman, and Soph Dinu, 21, a junior majoring in religion, according to the New York Times.
Police began removing the protesters from Columbia University’s campus in New York City on Thursday.
Shafik sent a message to the student body, saying that these “extraordinary steps” were necessary “because these are extraordinary circumstances.” She also said that those who established the encampment had “violated a long list of rules and policies.”
“Out of an abundance of concern for the safety of Columbia’s campus, I authorized the New York Police Department to begin clearing the encampment from the South Lawn of Morningside campus that had been set up by students in the early hours of Wednesday morning,” Shafik said.
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Video from the campus showed officers loading dozens of protesters onto police buses.
Fox News’ Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
