Columbia University expelled, halted or revoked the extent of students who occupied the campus hall in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in April 2024, the university said Thursday.
Students were punished based on “the seriousness of their actions in these events” and past violations from the Colombian statement.
The move is the university’s response to the crackdown on US student activists who led a pro-Palestinian demonstration last year amid Israel’s Gaza War and called on schools to cut economic ties with Israel.
It also came after the government cut $400 million in federal funds in Colombia on March 7th. The university was one of 60 institutions that further cut letters from US authorities this week.
Here’s what we know about the threat to Colombia and how it responded:
What do US government letters to Columbia and other universities say?
On March 10, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to 60 agencies to inform them that they were investigating for “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination” and warned of potential law enforcement measures if they “do not protect Jewish students.”
Prominent institutions such as Columbia, Harvard and Princeton were among the schools that received notice. All 60 schools benefit from federal US funding.
The letter cited title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Ministry of Education said it “protects Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on the mission: “The department is extremely disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear safety amid more than a year of ruthless anti-Semitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life. University leaders need to do better.”
Shalom Columbia: Trump’s administrators, led by @usedgov and the task force, canceled $400 million with federal grants to @Columbia, failing to protect Jewish students from anti-Semiticism (@thejusticedept, @hhsgov, & @usgsa). pic.twitter.com/cavoxbhhvx
– Whitehouse (@Whitehouse) March 7, 2025
Previously, on March 7, the Ministry of Education announced a $400 million funding, particularly to Colombia, citing that it “failed to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitistic harassment.”
The school was a major hub amid a wave of campus protests that swept the US last year as Israel’s war with Gaza escalated. On April 30, a group of students, staff and alumni occupied Hamilton Hall, the academy on campus, and was subsequently forced to be liquidated by the New York Police Department at the request of the university’s leaders.
How did Colombia respond? What actions have been taken against the students?
Colombia has not publicly responded to letters from the education department.
However, in a statement to staff and students on March 10, Colombian interim president Katrina Armstrong said cuts in funding would affect “university research and key functions” and would affect staff and students. About a quarter of the university’s operating costs of over $6 billion a year are met with federal grants.
Then on Thursday, Columbia announced that students involved in the Hamilton Hall protest last year had been suspended or banished for a multi-year period after the university’s investigation. The multi-monthly process was carried out by the school’s University Judiciary Committee and included hearings for each student involved.
“Columbia is committed to implementing university rules and policies and improving the disciplinary process,” the university said.
University Statement on UJB Decisions March 13, 2025: https://t.co/c8hn518zid pic.twitter.com/dgr71azmex
– Columbia University (@Columbia) March 13, 2025
Others who have since graduated will revoke their degrees, he added. The names and exact numbers of students approved by the Judiciary Committee were not disclosed.
According to the Associated Press news agency, several other students have been informed by university officials that they are investigating to support Palestinians and to participate in “fraud” protests and share social media posts.
“Dangerous Times”: How did students and others respond?
An opinion published in the university’s publication Columbia Daily Spector in February accused student workers of not laying university leadership.
“Columbia student workers have sent a letter calling for assurance that Columbia will protect non-citizens, faculty and staff. In response, we received an ambiguous reply from your office. Rather than facing the Columbian community, university leadership has either been standing by these threats or accelerated and made possible,” the body writes.
According to a report by the New York Times, Columbia University officials warned students at the institution’s Journalism School of Science about posting on social media this week. Non-US citizens were especially warned to avoid publishing about Gaza and Ukraine.
“If you have a social media page, make sure that commentary on the Middle East is not met,” Journalism School Dean Geranicob told students. “No one can protect you… these are dangerous times,” he added.
“History shows that universities that do not defend their members’ academic freedoms are opening themselves up for further attacks on academic freedom in the future,” said Moraldo Sousa dos Santos, historian who is currently affiliated with Cornell University.
“Columbia not only ignored the call for Halil’s protection, but is willing to work with the current administration in its efforts to challenge it on campus.
“Instead, we should try to provide legal and public support to a generation of students who belong to the same long struggle with separatism and apartheid that were shaped between the 1960s and 1980s,” he told Al Jazeera.
What happened that led to all of this?
Authorities also cracked down directly on students involved in the pro-Palestinian demonstration.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Colombian student who served as a student negotiator with university authorities until his graduation in December, was arrested and taken into custody by immigration authorities on Saturday, March 11th.
Khalil is Palestinian and grew up in Syria. He holds permanent residency in the United States and is married to a US citizen, but is now facing deportation. Halil’s lawyer Amy Greer told reporters that he was in a home owned by Columbia University when officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) agency arrived to detain him.
Posting on his true social platform after Halil’s detention, Trump said it would be “many first arrests.”
Republicans in the US Congress have scrutinized and criticized Columbia’s disciplinary process since the Hamilton Hall event. In a letter to the agency in February, Republican representatives demanded that Columbia hand over records of students involved in protests on campus or cutting funding.
This week, Bernard University, associated with Columbia’s Halil and seven other unnamed students, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan to permanently block a US Congressional committee from obtaining student records from the institution.
Meanwhile, protesters have come together to support Khalil. Dozens of demonstrators were arrested by police on Thursday, flooded with banners that read “Free Mahmoud” in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York.
