Barnard alumni delivered a letter on Monday morning addressed to Barnard President Laura Rosenbury and her administration. The letter, which was signed by over 1,000 alumni as of Wednesday, demands that Barnard “reinstate all students who have been suspended in relation to their protesting” and allow students “to live in their dorms, eat in their dining halls, attend their classes, and study in their campus buildings.”

The letter came after Barnard suspended at least 53 students following Thursday’s police sweep of the ongoing “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”—authorized by University President Minouche Shafik—which resulted in 108 arrests. Barnard evicted the suspended students from campus housing and limited their access to campus dining.

“We the undersigned Barnard alumni wholeheartedly stand with the anti-war demonstrators both at Columbia’s encampment and at dispersed campus protests,” the alums wrote.

They stated their position as “strong advocates of social justice,” in their “professional and personal lives,” and wrote that they stand with and support student protests demanding divestment from companies with ties to Israel.

Alumni wrote that Barnard’s choice to suspend students and bar them from “accessing their dorms in one of the most expensive cities in the world is abhorrent,” and that “Rendering students homeless because of their anti-war and anti-genocide protests belies Barnard’s commitment to student safety and well being.”

The alumni wrote that they demand “due process in disciplinary actions,” and that until student demands are met and all suspended students are reinstated, they will “withhold donations to the College and pledge to boycott Barnard and Columbia sponsored events including, but not limited to, reunion.”

The student demands referenced call upon Columbia to stop all disciplinary proceedings, lift suspensions, “comply with Columbia University Apartheid Divest’s divestment proposal to the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing,” “remove the New York Police Department from within and directly outside the Morningside campus,” and reinstate Columbia’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Rebecca Gray, BC ’13, penned the letter and has continued to format signatories as more alumni sign on.

“I think the current actions by administration both at Barnard and Columbia mirror the actions against students showing up for Palestinian liberation when I was a student,” Gray said.

Gray said that when they were a student, an outcry from alums and donors prompted the removal of a banner outside of Barnard Hall hung up for “apartheid week.” Gray said that they were not a participant in this activism as a student, so for them to notice “showed how severe it was.”

Gray said that while they are not on social media, they have been made aware of the ongoing encampment, Barnard “censoring departments” on college webpages, student suspensions, as well as the suspensions of SJP and JVP.

“I think it’s just a gross double standard, what administration does to students fighting for Palestinian liberation versus other students who protest,” Gray said. “I could not imagine riot cops being sent on students protesting for climate change or divestment relating to climate, for example. I couldn’t imagine the kid of a white congressman being suspended and evicted from Barnard housing.”

“How many more Palestinians does Israel need to kill before academic institutions sever their ties with a government who is committing genocide?” the letter reads.

The letter states that when the alumni were students at Barnard, they were told to advocate for “human rights, women’s rights, rights to healthcare, academic freedom, and religious freedom.”

“Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are unilaterally barred from these rights because of Israel’s violent repression,” the letter reads. “To allow armed police to descend on peaceful anti-war protests is gross and inhumane, and mimics the violent repression of regimes across the world.”

According to Gray, alums with active Columbia IDs attempted to deliver the letter to Rosenbury’s office on Monday morning, but she was not there. Instead, these alums brought the letter to the mailroom.

“I followed up with a phone call to the president’s office, and an administrator there physically retrieved the letter from the mailbox, and I got confirmation directly that it was brought to the president’s office,” Gray said.

The letter was additionally emailed to Rosenbury and will be sent “each subsequent day” as alums continue to sign on.

“We are so proud of the students for centering Palestinian liberation and giving up a lot of potential liberties that they have in order to do so,” Gray said. “We want to make clear that while our letter condemns suspensions, the letter foremost is in response to and support of the students’ demands of the Gaza solidarity liberation encampment, and we don’t want those suspensions to overshadow those demands.”

“Your actions have consequences,” the letter concludes.