Columbia graduates, NY officials demand Columbia, Barnard ban masks on campus

New Yorkers are pressuring Columbia University to enact a campus-wide mask ban as student protesters and activists on campus wear medical face masks and wrap their faces and heads in keffiyehs to disguise their identities. Jewish students and alums have compared the keffiyeh-wearing activists concealing their identities to the Ku Klux Klan and that permitting the masks provides cover for criminals. The keffiyeh scarf is a symbol for terror group Hamas as well as Palestinian and anti-Israel sentiment.

According to The New York Post, the effort to ban masks comes following protests in response to the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian former Columbia grad student who organized antisemitic riots during which radicals praised Hamas and the Oct. 7 massacre. He was a spokesperson and leader of a protest movement on campus that sprung up in response to the terrorist massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7 2023. That group is opposed to Israel's self-defense and have advocated for the eradication of that nation.

A former NYC councilman, a former NY assemblyman, and a 1995 graduate of Columbia Law, Rory Lancman, said in a statement, “Masks and face coverings at rallies, whether a white hood or a checkered keffiyeh, are worn to intimidate and conceal wrongdoing, and should have no place on college campuses.”

Lawyer Matthew Schweber, a member of the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association who has handled First Amendment cases, told the Post, “The free Palestine movement is the modern manifestation of the Ku Klux Klan.” He continued, “There is no reason why these protesters should be able to hide their identity. Mask-wearing has nothing to do with free speech. Mask-wearing has to do with harassing and intimidating Jewish students on campus and silencing them.”

Pro-Hamas radicals have worn the keffiyeh, popularized by mass murdering PLO head Yasser Arafat, as headscarves and face coverings during protests and riots on college campuses. During occupations at Barnard College last week, administrators offered to meet with the mob if they removed their masks, but the protesters refused, according to school spokesperson Robin Levine.

Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday, “The masks and being able to cover your face is allowing people to be emboldened. You would see a lot less cowardly actions if people were not able to hide behind masks. And not only protesters but people who are committing crimes, going into stores, robberies, some of the assaults that we’re seeing.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) told the Post he supports a mask ban at Columbia and Barnard. “There should be a mask ban everywhere in New York, and nowhere more so than college campuses, which have become cesspools of antisemitism,” he said.

Chief Operating Officer for StopAntisemitism Elizabeth Coplon told the Post, “No one would be allowed to stalk and threaten African-Americans while wearing Klan hoods, neither should anyone be allowed to harass and menace Jews wrapping their faces with keffiyehs.”