protest

Around 300 Columbia and Barnard students marched in a climate strike with thousands of other young activists—including Swedish teen Greta Thunberg—in New York on Friday as part of a global movement to protest climate change. Strike organizers estimated a turnout of 250,000 protesters in New York while the Mayor’s Office estimated 60,000. Organizers also estimated there were 4 million strikers from over 150 countries worldwide.

In September 2014, thousands of student protesters flocked to the streets of Hong Kong after an announcement to implement reforms to the electoral system which would grant China’s Communist Party greater control over Hong Kong’s appointment of its Chief Executive, the highest elected office in the region. These thousands of unnamed faces flocked together, inadvertently instigating the Umbrella Movement, which would persist for the next three months.

Wednesday, November 14, the day of the Barnard No Aramark boycott, is very chilly. At 8 a.m., the Barnard No Aramark team sets up its table by the Barnard gates, but it is cold and members are concerned about diminished foot traffic. “We weren't even sure if people would come up,” Tanisha Aggarwal, a junior at Barnard and the co-head of Barnard No Aramark, tells me. “It was just so cold out.”

A group of student activists has announced plans to hold a symbolic boycott of Barnard’s dining locations in protest of the college's continued involvement with its food service provider Aramark as the college is in the process of determining whether to maintain its contract with the company.

Updated October 5, 2018 at 5:13 p.m.

On April 27, 2017, not long before of the 30th anniversary of Take Back the Night, the streets of Morningside Heights were silent.

Student-Worker Solidarity has accused Barnard of breaking its own code of conduct following the group’s demonstration at President Sian Beilock’s inauguration ceremony in Riverside Church on Feb. 9.

The Columbia University Marching Band recently defied direct administrative rules banning them from Butler, and the administration has yet to follow up on the infraction. Earlier in the semester, the administration dropped an investigation into protestors at a Columbia University College Republicans event. Many students believe both instances of rule breaking were justified. Are students ever justified in breaking the rules?