Columbia, Facing Pressure From Washington, Will Expel, Suspend Anti-Israel Students Behind Last Year’s Takeover of Hamilton Hall

Columbia University will finally discipline the anti-Israel students who violently took Hamilton Hall last spring, doling out a range of punishments from suspensions to expulsions, the school announced on Thursday. The decision comes as the New York City-based Ivy has lost out on more than $400 million in federal grants due to its “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students,” the Trump administration charged last week. The various disciplinary actions, which were determined by the school’s judicial board, include “multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions,” the office of public affairs stated. The punishments will go into effect following an appeal period. The school did not specify how many students were disciplined. The takeover of Hamilton Hall in April 2024 marked a significant escalation in the anti-Israel protests that erupted on Columbia’s campus after Hamas’s October 7 attack. During the ordeal, dozens of students and non-students barged into the administrative building, shattered windows, barricaded doorways, and even held a university custodian against his will. A total of 22 students were arrested, though a majority of the arrests were dropped. Although Columbia publicly promised that the student activists would face expulsion, a report from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce uncovered that the school failed to expel a single student. “Columbia University was the site of some of the most disturbing and extreme antisemitic conduct violations in the country, including the criminal takeover of a campus building and numerous incidents of antisemitic harassment and disruption,” the committee charged. “However, documents and information produced by Columbia make clear that since October 7, 2023, Columbia has imposed shockingly few meaningful disciplinary consequences.” The Morningside Heights Ivy, which has been the site of some of the most virulent and raucous anti-Israel protests in the country, became the Trump administration’s first target in its efforts to quash campus antisemitism. President Trump’s antisemitism task force opened an investigation into the school last week before deciding shortly after to pump the brakes on an estimated $400 million in grants. The Trump administration’s crackdown at Columbia extended into the weekend, with the state department revoking the visa and green card of one of the leading organizers behind Columbia’s student encampment movement, Mahmoud Khalil. Mr. Khalil, who is currently being held in an immigration detention center in Louisiana, served as the negotiator between the student protesters who occupied Hamilton Hall and the university’s administrators. He continued his anti-Israel activism into the following academic year, telling the Hill that he would continue to petition Columbia to divest from Israel by “any means necessary.”Just last week, Mr. Khalil was spotted participating in a protest at Barnard College, an affiliate of Columbia, during which the anti-Israel students occupied the lobby of a campus library and handed out propaganda fliers that were credited to the “Hamas Media Office.”

Columbia, Facing Pressure From Washington, Will Expel, Suspend Anti-Israel Students Behind Last Year’s Takeover of Hamilton Hall

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