Columbia University on Thursday said that it had rejected a series of punishments to students who occupied a campus building last spring during pro-palestine protests.
The announcement took place one week after the United States President’s administration, Donald Trump, announced that he had canceled US $ 400 million in federal aid and contracts in response to what he said was Ivy League School’s bad response to anti -Semitism on the campus.
The interim president of Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, has called the legitimate administration’s concerns and said that the university worked with the government to address them. Protests and pro-Israel contractors on New York City Campus have attracted allegations of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Racism.
The university said on Thursday in a statement that its judicial board « issued sanctions to students ranging from multi -year suspensions, temporary degree revocations and expulsions » related to the occupation of the Hamilton School Room last spring.
The Judicial Board is made up of students, teachers and staff selected by the Senate of the University.
The university, quoting legal privacy restrictions, did not publish the names of disciplined students or said how many students faced punishments, which students can resort.
The union represented by Columbia’s student workers, Local 2710, said in a statement that its president, Grant miner, was among the expelled students, just one day before the contracting negotiations with the university began, a movement that the union called « the last assault on rights of first modification ».
A university spokesman had no comment on the Union Declaration.
Columbia was the epicenter of the anti-Israel protests that affected several university campuses in the United States.
The demonstrations began after Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023 and later the Israeli assault with American support in Gaza. Protesters demanded that the university endowments disinten the Israeli interests and the United States to end military assistance in Israel, among other demands.
The Trump administration has promised strong repression on what is marked as pro-Hamas protesters.
During the weekend Federal Immigration Agents Columbia student detained Mahmoud KhalilA leader of last year’s campus protests, whom the Trump administration intends to deport. The administration has said that his arrest was the first of many who hopes to carry out. Khalil’s deportation has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
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