In April, Khymani James, a 20-year-old student, was suspended from New York’s Columbia University for saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists” at a college disciplinary meeting. At the time, even the radical pro-Palestine student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) apologised for his alleged extremism. 

But in a show of defiance during the week that saw the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks, the same New York-based students have now rescinded their apology in support of James. 

Their reversal is a sign of the escalation of pro-Palestinian activism on some US campuses into brazen support for terror groups and unabashed public anti-Semitism. Given that students in the UK are often quick to mimic their counterparts across the Atlantic, such phenomena could soon be replicated here. CUAD said in a statement about James: “We let you down,” adding that it would no longer “pander to liberal media to make the movement for liberation palatable”. 

James is suing Columbia over his suspension and responded to CUAD’s decision to support him by posting on X, formerly Twitter: “I will not allow anyone to shame me for my politics... Anything I said, I meant it.”