Columbia University’s senate will weigh instituting a campus-wide ban on face coverings as institutes of higher education grapple to hold accountable masked students who violate school policies. 

The proposal, leaked this week by anti-Israel student group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, was confirmed by professor and chairman of the department of physiology and cellular biophysics, Andrew Marks, who submitted the resolution. Mr. Marks, however, told the Columbia student newspaper that he had “no idea” how the student group got ahold of the proposal. 

The university senate is a policy-making body that includes faculty, students, administrators, and staff and reports to the Board of Trustees. The group meets monthly and the next plenary is scheduled for February 7. 

The policy seeks to ban masks that “prevent the identification” of the wearer in “classrooms, academic and special events” in an effort to “maintain open academic inquiry, uphold accountability, and safeguard against violations of the Rules of University Conduct.” Those who violate the policy, the proposal notes, will be subject to “automatic suspension” under the university president’s authority. 

Individuals who wear standard medical masks for health reasons will not be penalized under the policy but they must agree to temporarily lower or remove the mask to identify themselves at the request of a university official. The author is also careful to clarify that the policy should not be “construed to abridge academic freedom, principles of free speech, or the University’s educational mission.” 

The proposed measure references several instances in which individuals have “participated in disruptive actions on campus” and hindered the university’s ability to hold them accountable by shielding their identities. It lists the violent takeover of Hamilton Hall in April of last year by anti-Israel students as such an example. 

The author also mentioned the recent interruption of a “History of Modern Israel” class last week. During that incident, a group of Keffiyeh-clad student activists barged into the first session of the course and began to recite a monologue in protest of Columbia’s “normalization of genocide.” 

The students, whose faces were completely concealed, also handed out fliers with violent slogans like “The enemy will not see tomorrow” and “Burn Zionism to the ground.” One flier included the image of a boot stomping on a Star of David along with the line “Crush Zionism.” 

The university, in unusually swift fashion, released a statement denouncing the class interruption and launched an investigation into the incident. A few days later, the school identified and suspended a Columbia student involved in the protest and barred from campus two other participants who are not Columbia students but attend an affiliated institution. 

While many Jewish groups on campus commended the school’s decisive response to the incident, others urged the administration to take stronger action. A Columbia watchdog group, Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus at Columbia, took the opportunity to double down on its call for the university to institute a campus-wide mask ban. 

New York first instated an anti-mask law in 1845 as a means to suppress an uprising of tenant farmers in the Hudson valley and the law was later used to prosecute members of the Ku Klux Klan. The ban was eventually repealed in 2020 at the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Over the summer, Nassau County became the first county in the state to pass a mask ban law. Now, lawmakers are launching state-wide efforts to reinstate the ban.

Last week, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who represents New York’s 81st district, proposed a bill seeking to identify a new crime of “masked harassment” in the state. An individual would be found guilty of such a crime if they intentionally conceal their face for the purpose of “menacing or threatening violence” against others. Opponents of a mask ban argue that such a policy would harm public health and be difficult to enforce. 

Masking has become the subject of nation-wide discussion as anti-Israel protests and antisemitic attacks have surged on college campuses and city streets following Hamas’s October 7 attacks. Many of the protesters conceal their identities by putting on medical masks or wrapping themselves in Keffiyehs. 

Mr. Marks told the Spectator that he is “very optimistic” about the proposal but is not sure if the measure will be up for discussion during February’s plenary. Should Columbia put in place a mask ban, they would be joining the likes of the University of California, which, over the summer, became one of the first institutions to adopt such a ban.

Columbia University and Mr. Marks have not yet responded to the Sun’s request for comment.