Squad rallies behind Omar’s daughter following school suspension

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) took to X to show their solidarity with Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) daughter, Isra Hirsi, following her participation in a pro-Palestinian protest at Barnard College.

Hirsi announced on X that she was one of three students suspended “for standing in solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide.”

“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,” Tlaib wrote on X.

For the past three years, Hirsi has been an organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, noting that she had “never been reprimanded or received any disciplinary warnings.”

“How does a student with no disciplinary record suddenly get to a suspension less than 24 hours after a nonviolent protest? What merits asymmetric crackdowns on Palestinian human rights protests,” Ocasio-Cortez said on X.

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Barnard College, which is connected to Columbia University, said the suspensions come as senior staff said Columbia and Barnard students “set up an unauthorized encampment” on Columbia’s south lawn.  The staff members made multiple requests to the protesting students to leave the lawn and told the students they could receive an interim suspension if they did not leave by Wednesday night.

Hirsi’s suspension comes a month after civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against Columbia University for suspending pro-Palestinian student groups last fall.