Columbia University in the United States has imposed severe punishments, including expulsion, suspension from courses and revocation of academic degrees, on dozens of students who participated in protests against Israel’s war on Gaza.
The student activist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which has called for the school to cut all financial ties with Israel, said in a statement that nearly 80 students have now been either expelled or suspended for up to three years over their involvement in antiwar protests.
On Tuesday, Columbia said in a statement that its latest punishment of students relates to “disruption of Butler Library in May 2025 and the encampment during Alumni Weekend in spring 2024″.
“Disruptions to academic activities are in violation of University policies and rules, and such violations will necessarily generate consequences,” the university wrote.
The CUAD group said the university’s sanctions on students “hugely exceed precedent for teach-ins or non-Palestine-related building occupations”.
“We will not be deterred. We are committed to the struggle for Palestinian liberation,” the group added.
The pro-Palestinian student encampments at Columbia University in 2024 helped ignite a global movement against Israel’s unrelenting war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The protest sites were eventually broken up when Columbia University allowed hundreds of New York City police officers on campus, leading to dozens of arrests.
Despite the university’s harsh crackdowns, student protesters occupied the Butler Library during final exams in May this year, demanding divestment from companies linked to the Israeli military and expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Columbia University’s Judicial Board confirmed it issued expulsions, suspensions and degree revocations after what it called a disruption during “reading period”. It did not say how many students were expelled but said that this was “the final set of findings from that period”.
The Ivy League university is in negotiations with US President Donald Trump’s administration to restore some $400m in federal funding. The Trump administration cut funds to the New York City-based institution over what it claimed were failures to “meaningfully protect Jewish students against severe and pervasive harassment”.
Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, a former trustee, was booed by students during a May graduation ceremony for her role in cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests.
Fellow Ivy League institution Harvard University, which has also been targeted with billions in funding cuts by the government, has pushed back against pressure to change its policies by taking the Trump administration to court.
The latest disciplinary measures announced by Columbia against students came on Tuesday as Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip continued to cause widespread starvation, with at least 15 people, including a six-week-old baby, dying from hunger and malnutrition within a 24-hour period, according to health officials.
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University protest leader targeted for deportation by the Trump administration, met with lawmakers in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, more than a month after he was released from immigration custody in Louisiana, where he was being held amid a pledge by the US president to deport pro-Palestinian activists.
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