Columbia University expels students who seized building during pro-Palestinian protests last year

NEW YORK: Columbia University has expelled or suspended some students who took over a campus building during pro-Palestinian protests last spring and temporarily revoked the diplomas of others who have since graduated, officials said on Thursday. The university said in a campus-wide email that a judicial board brought a range of sanctions against students who occupied Hamilton Hall last spring to protest the war in Gaza.

Columbia University did not provide a breakdown of how many students were expelled, suspended or had their degrees revoked, but it said the outcomes were based on an "evaluation of the severity of behaviours". The culmination of the monthslong investigative process comes as the university is reeling from the arrest of a well-known Palestinian campus activist, Mahmoud Khalil, by federal immigration authorities last Saturday in what President Donald Trump said would be the "first of many" such detentions. At the same time, the Trump administration has stripped the university of more than USD 400 million in federal funds over what it calls a failure to combat campus antisemitism. Congressional Republicans have pointed specifically to a failure to discipline students involved in the Hamilton Hall seizure as proof of inaction by the university.

Disciplinary hearings and expulsions

The building occupation followed a tent encampment that inspired a wave of similar demonstrations at college campuses across the country. On April 30, 2024, a smaller group of students and their allies barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall with furniture and padlocks in a major escalation of campus protests. At the request of university leaders, hundreds of New York police stormed onto campus the following night, arresting dozens of people involved in both the occupation and the encampment. At a court hearing in June, the Manhattan district attorney's office said it would not pursue criminal charges for 31 of the 46 people initially arrested on trespassing charges inside the administration building. But the students still faced disciplinary hearings and possible expulsion from the university. Some faced interim suspensions.

The final sanctions announced on Thursday followed a lengthy process that involved hearings for each student led by Columbia's long-running Judicial Board. Separately, a newly-created disciplinary board has brought a flurry of new cases against students -- including Mahmoud Khalil -- who have expressed criticism of Israel, triggering alarm among free speech advocates. Khalil was not among the protesters accused of seizing Hamilton Hall. The expulsion announcement drew praise from some faculty members, including Gil Zussman, chair of the electrical engineering department and member of Columbia's Task Force on Antisemitism. "Finally demonstrating that breaking university rules has consequences is an important first step towards going back to the core missions of research and teaching," he said in a post on social media platform X. (AP) RC