Barnard College invites UN official criticized for controversial views on Israel

A controversial anti-Israel United Nations official, Francesca Albanese, was recently invited to speak at Barnard College in New York City.

Albanese’s official title is UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. She spoke at Barnard on Wednesday, Oct. 30 in an event that was not open to the media, according to The Times of Israel.

Her appearance at Barnard was critiqued by Columbia University student Eden Yadegar.

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“I find it incredibly problematic that Barnard not only invited Francesca Albanese but did so in a way that glorified her work as non-controversial,” added Elisha Baker, another Columbia student. “It is as if Barnard were to say that antisemitism should be platformed without questions at all.”

“What was even sadder was that students and faculty who attended the event laughed at a question about rape and murder of Israelis and gave Albanese a standing ovation at the end of her presentation,” Baker added.

Barnard College defended its decision to invite Albanese in a statement obtained by The Times of Israel.

“We seek to create a space in which disparate voices speak and are heard so that students may engage with the world and its many challenges,” a College spokesperson stated. “Our embrace of this goal does not constitute institutional endorsement of any particular speaker or the viewpoints they express.”

“All external speakers,” the statement concluded, “like all members of our community, are expected to comply with our policy on nondiscrimination,”

Albanese previously appearanced at other prestigious universities, including Harvard University, Brown University, and Princeton University.

During the Harvard talk, for instance, Albanese stated that Israel’s offensive against Hamas is “monstrous,” stating that Hamas’ initial motivation for attacking the Jewish state was to respond to “occupation” and “apartheid.”

“The argument is that this attack,” Albanese contended, referring to the Oct. 7 massacre, “was launched as a way to break the occupation, against the apartheid.”

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“I understand why Israel is using this argument of anti-Semitism because by saying ‘we were attacked because we are Jews,’ it’s feeding the existential threat that many Jews feel,” Albanese continued. “But the point is that the real threat is the apartheid that Israel imposes on the Palestinians.”

At Brown University, Albanese was protested by more than 2,000 members of the school community, who signed an open letter accusing Albanese of “blatant antisemitism and legitimization of terrorism.”

“We do not want our peers, however well-meaning and curious they may be, to learn from a speaker who actively promotes dangerous tropes and terrorism against our communities,” the letter asserted.

Campus Reform has contacted Barnard College for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.