Barnard Student to Newsmax: Hopes Columbia Agreement More Than 'Just Words'

Eliana Birman, a student at Barnard College and assistant digital editor for The Jewish Link, told Newsmax on Monday that she's "hoping" the school will follow the requirements laid out by the Trump administration but noted that the agreement is "just words" for now.

Last week, Columbia University issued a memo announcing that the school agreed to follow the Trump administration's demands aimed at combating anti-Israel protests on campus after the administration threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding if the school didn't comply.

Birman, in an interview with "Wake Up America," said she's "hoping" Columbia, Barnard's sister school, will embrace the demands of the Trump administration but said the agreement to comply is "just words" so far.

"I'm incredibly grateful for the path that seems to be ahead and I'm hoping that these changes actually make a difference in the way they say they're going to, because I know that this statement of President Katrina Armstrong has been a huge step in the right direction. But it's again just words. And so we have to see today and in the future what campus is actually going to look like."

Birman later praised the administration's demand that the school prohibit protestors from wearing masks, saying, "I have been campaigning for a mask ban for a very long time because I think that not being able to identify these protesters has been incredibly dangerous."

She continued, "It allows these people to continue walking around campus and continue interrupting classes and making all these different disruptions and honestly harassing students. And so now that we know that these people are hopefully going to be identified, if they continue to protest, I'm hoping that this will lead to real consequences."

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