NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University announced disciplinary action Tuesday against students who participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration inside the Ivy League school’s main library before final exams in May and an encampment during alumni weekend last year.
A student activist group said nearly 80 students were told they have been suspended for one to three years or expelled. The sanctions issued by a university judicial board also include probation and degree revocations, Columbia said in a statement.
The action comes as the Manhattan university is negotiating with President Donald Trump’s administration to restore $400 million in federal funding it has withheld from the Ivy League school over its handling of student protests against the war in Gaza. The administration pulled the funding, canceling grants and contracts, in March because of what it described as the university’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.
TBH, the stories regarding Columbia feel muddled, perhaps purposefully.
I know when there were high-profile protests at my old university, Mizzou, several years ago, the most controversial aspect was the occupation of some public areas of the campus and the deliberate exclusion of some members of the student body from accessing them. (And in one case a professor was filmed demanding help to physically remove people from the occupied space.) In the case of Columbia University, that’s been one of the sticking points, and it would seem Columbia has a legitimate basis for punishing students if they too did this. (ie, protesters barring Jews from certain parts of campus.)
That said, from what I’ve read, the main sources for those allegations were Columbia University and the Trump Admin, two sources I’m not particularly inclined to believe.
I honestly don’t know what to think.
They didn’t ban Jews from certain parts of campusses. Unless you mean everyone including Jews.