Columbia University announced Thursday it has expelled or suspended students who expressed anti-Israel sentiments while occupying a campus building last spring. The Ivy League school has also revoked the diplomas of some graduates.
Columbia’s judicial board issued “multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions” related to the forcible takeover of Hamilton Hall, the New York university said in a campus-wide email. The number of punished students was not provided.
The announcement comes as Columbia faces a fierce crackdown from the Trump administration over the elite school’s failure to protect Jewish students and punish those engaging in antisemitism on campus.
In the past week, the administration’s joint antisemitism task force pulled $400 million in federal grants and contracts from Columbia and threatened to withdraw more funding. Columbia holds more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments, according to the task force.
Additionally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil with the intention to remove him from the U.S. because of his support for Hamas, a designated terrorist group. However, the deportation effort has been halted by a federal judge. Khalil, who graduated in December, remains detained by ICE in Louisiana for now while the court considers his case.
President Donald Trump promised ICE’s apprehension of Khalil would be the “first arrest of many to come.”
In April 2024, a mob of anti-Israel protesters unlawfully seized and occupied Hamilton Hall to protest Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Students and others barricaded themselves inside the campus building for 17 hours before former Columbia President Minouche Shafik called in the police to quell the protest.
The New York Police Department arrested nearly four dozen protesters on criminal trespassing charges. Charges for 31 of the 46 protesters were later dropped. However, they still faced disciplinary hearings and possible expulsion from Columbia. The takeover of Hamilton Hall followed an anti-Israel tent encampment for which over 100 people had been arrested less than two weeks earlier.
Thursday’s punishments arrived almost eleven months after the incident.
Columbia’s Jewish community praised the university’s disciplinary actions.
“This ruling is an important first step in righting the wrongs of the past year and a half,” Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, said in a statement. “I am grateful to the Rules Administrator and other members of the Administration for their roles in ensuring these cases were resolved.”