Latest news with #ColumbiaUniversityApartheidDivest
The Sun
23-07-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Columbia University sanctions 80 students over Gaza protests
NEW YORK: Columbia University has imposed disciplinary actions, including expulsions and degree revocations, on nearly 80 students involved in anti-Israel protests on campus. The sanctions follow months of tension as the university negotiates with the Trump administration to restore $400 million in federal funding cuts. The university stated that the punishments stem from a library sit-in in May and an encampment during alumni weekend in spring 2024. Disciplinary measures include probation, suspensions ranging from one to three years, degree revocations, and expulsions. Columbia, a focal point of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza, has faced pressure from the Trump administration over alleged anti-Semitism. The university has agreed to policy reforms to regain federal funding, a move that has angered many students. The student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which advocates for cutting financial ties with Israel, condemned the sanctions as excessive. 'We will not be deterred. We are committed to the struggle for Palestinian liberation,' the group said. Harvard University, another Ivy League institution, is also contesting federal funding cuts in court. Columbia's latest sanctions mark the conclusion of disciplinary actions from the 2024 protests. - AFP
Boston Globe
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Columbia University says it has suspended and expelled students who participated in protests
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Columbia has since agreed to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration, including overhauling the university's student disciplinary process and adopting a new definition of antisemitism. Advertisement 'Our institution must focus on delivering on its academic mission for our community,' the university said Tuesday. 'And to create a thriving academic community, there must be respect for each other and the institution's fundamental work, policies, and rules. Disruptions to academic activities are in violation of University policies and Rules, and such violations will necessarily generate consequences.' It did not disclose the names of the students who were disciplined. Columbia in May said it would lay off nearly 180 staffers and scale back research in response to the loss of funding. Those receiving nonrenewal or termination notices represent about 20% of the employees funded in some manner by the terminated federal grants, the university said. Advertisement A student activist group said the newly announced disciplinary action exceeds sentencing precedent for prior protests. Suspended students would be required to submit apologies in order to be allowed back on campus or face expulsion, the group said, something some students will refuse to do. 'We will not be deterred. We are committed to the struggle for Palestinian liberation,' Columbia University Apartheid Divest said in a statement. Columbia was at the forefront of U.S. campus protests over the war in spring 2024. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment and seized a campus building in April, leading to dozens of arrests and inspiring a wave of similar protests nationally. Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has cut funding to several top U.S. universities he viewed as too tolerant of antisemitism. The administration has also cracked down on individual student protesters. Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was detained in March over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. He is now suing the Trump administration, alleging he was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite.
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Columbia University expels, suspends about 80 students in pro-Palestine Butler Library occupation
NEW YORK — Columbia University has expelled or issued lengthy suspensions to nearly 80 pro-Palestine students for the May occupation of Butler Library just days before final exams, a campus protest group announced Tuesday. The affected students, who are facing suspensions of between one and three years, learned of the sanctions Monday, according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest. As a condition of their return to campus, the protesters said they were asked to submit apologies — with some stating they will refuse. The Butler takeover was short lived, with the NYPD moving in quickly and making dozens of arrests. The group said they believed the disciplinary action was related to a reportedly forthcoming deal between Columbia and the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars, mainly in federal research funding. It was not immediately clear how many of the students were expelled or what factors led to some protesters facing harsher discipline than others. A college official known as the 'rules administrator' confirmed in a statement that he 'issued findings and sanctions related to the disruption of Butler Library during [the] reading period in May 2025,' but did not offer any specifics. Columbia spokespeople did not immediately return a request for comment. The students had been on interim suspension pending further investigation and barred from campus for the last few months. 'We will not be deterred. We are committed to the struggle for Palestinian liberation,' Columbia University Apartheid Divest said in a statement.
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First Post
14-06-2025
- Politics
- First Post
US court extends detention of pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil
US District Judge Michael Fabiarz had issued an order Wednesday that the government could not detain or deport Khalil, a legal permanent resident, based on Secretary of State Marco Rubio's assertions that his presence on US soil posed a national security threat read more Members of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group, including Sueda Polat, second from left, and Mahmoud Khalil, center, are surrounded by members of the media outside the Columbia University campus, April 30, 2024, in New York. File Photo/AP Pro-Palestinian student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil remained in US detention Friday despite an expected release, his lawyer said, following reported accusations of inaccuracies in his permanent residency application. US District Judge Michael Fabiarz had issued an order Wednesday that the government could not detain or deport Khalil, a legal permanent resident, based on Secretary of State Marco Rubio's assertions that his presence on US soil posed a national security threat. The order gave the government until Friday to release Khalil. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD But by Friday afternoon, the Trump administration 'represented that the Petitioner is being detained on another, second charge,' the judge wrote. The Department of Homeland Security has provided the court with press clippings from various American tabloids suggesting Khalil, who is married to a US citizen, had failed to disclose certain information about his work or involvement in a campaign to boycott Israel when applying for his permanent resident green card, ABC News reported. 'The government is now using cruel, transparent delay tactics to keep him away from his wife and newborn son ahead of their first Father's Day as a family,' Khalil attorney Amy Greer said in a statement, referring to the US holiday observed on Sunday. 'Instead of celebrating together, he is languishing in ICE detention as punishment for his advocacy on behalf of his fellow Palestinians. It is unjust, it is shocking, and it is disgraceful.' Since his March 8 arrest by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Khalil has become a symbol of President Donald Trump's willingness to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war, in the name of curbing anti-Semitism. At the time a graduate student at New York's Columbia University, Khalil was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Authorities transferred Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from his home in New York to a detention center in Louisiana, pending deportation. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD His wife Noor Abdalla, a Michigan-born dentist, gave birth to their son while Khalil was in detention.
New York Times
04-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
To Bolster Columbia Inquiry, Prosecutor Likened Hamas Graffiti to Cross Burning
The Justice Department, intent on pursuing a criminal case against student protesters at Columbia University, argued that graffiti with a Hamas symbol outside the home of the school's interim president threatened her life and was comparable to a racist cross burning, newly unsealed court documents show. The documents offer new insight into a contentious fight between political appointees in the department who told the civil rights division to open the case in late February and federal judges and career prosecutors who believed the move was risky overreach. The records also underscore how determined the Trump administration was to press forward with a case judges viewed as weak. Justice Department leaders pushed for an investigation of a student group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, but federal judges in New York rejected the administration's efforts to get a search warrant four times, in what some veteran lawyers described as an unusually prolonged disagreement between federal prosecutors and the courts. The release of the records came in response to a request from The New York Times, which first reported on the dispute and then filed a court motion to unseal the documents. The nonprofit news site The Intercept later joined. The new details come at a time of heightened security concerns for Jewish Americans. Last month, two Israeli Embassy staff members were fatally shot outside the Jewish museum in Washington. On Sunday in Boulder, Colo., a man used Molotov cocktails to attack a group of people peacefully marching in support of hostages taken by Hamas. The suspects both shouted 'Free Palestine' at the scenes, the authorities have said. Campus protests against Israel's military actions in Gaza have roiled college campuses for more than a year, particularly at Columbia. The Trump administration has promised to take on such demonstrations, saying they reflect antisemitism that must be punished. A Justice Department spokesman said Wednesday that the agency 'makes no apologies for our zealous efforts to prevent violent acts by antisemitic groups.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
