When Katie Aryeh looks at her college experience after October 7th, it looks starkly difference from the one before.
"It was just a very hostile environment, really from day one. Unfortunately, the administration, both Barnard and Columbia, allowed it to continuously get more and more dramatically worse."
Aryeh lost nearly all of her non-Jewish friends in the days, weeks and months following, and moved out of her dorm room where she lived with a friend who was no longer supportive of her. She says the little support from administration and from campus leaders — including some of her own professors — left her feeling ostracized.
Aryeh says most of her friends before October 7th were not Jewish. Seemingly overnight, she lost them all.
"It was cool at Barnard to be on that side, it became a social status symbol to be pro-terrorism and anti-Jewish students, and so it wasn't ever contested," she explained.
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More than a year-and-a-half later, Barnard College settled with Aryeh and dozens of Jewish and Israeli students who sued them over antisemitism on campus. They joined the likes of Harvard and NYU in these agreements.
"I think these schools quickly recognized that the way they were handling antisemitism on campus was was not proper," said Kasowitz partner Joshua Roberts, who helped negotiate this deal.
The school agreed to a host of changes, including requiring antisemitism training and hiring a Title VI coordinator. The school also said it would discipline students for off-campus conduct, including what they post online and on social media.
Barnard will also create stronger boundaries for campus protests, including when, where and how they occur. The school will also prohibit the use of face masks and disguises, something that made it difficult to identify students during protests.
Even more notable, administration officials will not recognize, meet or negotiate with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) or any of its spin-off organizations.
Aryeh, however, doesn't believe this move shuts down conversation from opponents.
"I think there are many people at Columbia's campus who are capable, hopefully, of having reasonable conversations," she said. "Columbia University Apartheid Divest has proven to be nothing but a terror supporting group. They have no interest in having a productive conversation. They have an interest in, again, quote, eradicating Western civilization. I don't think government should negotiate with terrorists, and I don't think university administration should."
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Some critics, though, say the settlement conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
"The equation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism has been more than clear. You know, when you have protesters who are screaming 'bomb, bomb, Tel Aviv,' and then in the next sentence, screaming 'death to the Jews' and 'Palestine will be Arab,' there's not really a lot of gray area there," Aryeh recounted.
Part of CUAD's stated goals was for the university to divest from Israel. The settlement does not disclose exact terms of the agreement, but it seemingly renders the boycott, divest and sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS, dead on campus.
"They are not to use endowment funds for any political purpose, including any resolution that would prevent funds from going towards Israeli companies, Israeli businesses, or anything like that, for a political reason," Roberts explained.
The firm did not respond to requests asking about a monetary side to the settlement.
Kasowitz law firm is still in litigation with the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, Barnard's sister institution.
Roberts says the Columbia complaint isn't just speech, it's conduct.
"We've got physical assaults in there. We've got terrorist supporting conduct in there, and that far exceeds any potential free speech issue that is conceivable." he said.
The firm is considering other institutions and is open to generating new suits.
Columbia, meanwhile, is also reportedly nearing a deal with the Trump administration to restore funding. But Roberts says they are still planning to continue their litigation.
