Columbians from Students for Justice in Palestine and LionPAC organized competing demonstrations Tuesday afternoon in support of the warring sides in the continuing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

I’m tired of eating club themed cupcakes, attending cosponsored lectures, flyering for discussions, and rambling about interesting ideas in class. If we never put our high minded philosophy into issues as clear cut as this, it’s all useless.

As a freshman at Columbia, I was surprised to find many upperclassmen jaded to the possibility of changing anything ... To get people involved you have to give them something to which they can relate; you have to give them something to fight for. The face of a Barnard office worker is a reality people can’t ignore.

It was a bright happy day of barbeque and Top 40 hits this Tuesday at the Founder’s Day Celebrations, but something was sunny at Barnard. The office and clerical workers represented by the UAW Local 2110 are in a state of limbo.

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On a dark, cold Monday evening nearly a hundred students, faculty member, and union organizers sat together at Barnard in the group’s first sign of solidarity. The struggle, pitting Barnard President Debora Spar against 130 of the lowest paid employees on campus, will determine whether these workers get to maintain basic labor rights ranging from serious cuts to healthcare and maternity leave to controversial proposals like the elimination of sexual harassment claims and child care leave.

Mind-boggingly, last week Barnard President Debora Spar herself wrote, “Of course, companies should strive to create generous maternity leaves,” and “…keep fighting the proverbial fights—better day care, better family leaves, more flex time at work and co-parenting at home. These are important goals.” Yet she is in charge of demanding huge cuts to maternity leave and flex time.

But being an elite is expensive. Fortunately, Spar and her Wall St. affiliated Barnard board members realized the best way to keep Barnard solvent would be to slash the health, pension, and tuition benefits of the lowest paid employees at the college-the clerical workers. And in order to empower women, Spar decided to drastically cut from the most basic female employment victories — maternity leave and flex time.

However, the speech was peppered with evidence of an underlying assumption, one that I find prevalent at Barnard College and particularly offensive. It is this pervasive idea that “women,” as an entity, are a homogenous block of singularly minded individuals

President Barack Obama’s speech to the Barnard College 2012 graduating class focused on how this group of smart young women can help move our country forward. His speech focused on women and how women can change the world, which is fitting as the commencement speaker for one of the world’s best women’s college.