Columbia University says it expelled some students who seized building last year

NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University has expelled or suspended some students who took over a campus building during pro-Palestinian protests last spring and temporarily revoked the diplomas of others who have since graduated, officials said Thursday.

The university said in a campus-wide email that a judicial board brought a range of sanctions against students who occupied Hamilton Hall last spring to protest the war in Gaza.

Columbia did not provide a breakdown of how many students were expelled, were suspended or had their degrees revoked, but it said the outcomes were based on an “evaluation of the severity of behaviors.”

The culmination of the monthslong investigative process comes as the university is reeling from the arrest of a well-known Palestinian campus activist, Mahmoud Khalil, by federal immigration authorities last Saturday. President Donald Trump has said the arrest would be the “first of many” such detentions.

At the same time, the Trump administration has stripped the university of more than $400 million in federal funds over what it calls a failure to combat campus antisemitism. Congressional Republicans have pointed specifically to a failure to discipline students involved in the Hamilton Hall seizure as proof of inaction by the university.

The building occupation followed a tent encampment that inspired a wave of similar demonstrations at college campuses across the country.

On April 30, 2024, a smaller group of students and their allies barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall with furniture and padlocks in a major escalation of campus protests.

At the request of university leaders, hundreds of New York police stormed onto campus the following night, arresting dozens of people involved in both the occupation and the encampment.

At a court hearing in June, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said it would not pursue criminal charges for 31 of the 46 people initially arrested on trespassing charges inside the administration building.

But the students still faced disciplinary hearings and possible expulsion from the university.

The final sanctions announced Thursday followed a lengthy process that involved hearings for each student led by the long-running University Judicial Board.

Some students who joined the encampment but did not participate in the building takeover learned that they would not face further discipline beyond their previous suspensions.

“With respect to other events taking place last spring, the UJB’s determinations recognized previously imposed disciplinary action,” the university said in a statement.

The disciplinary process drew scrutiny from House Republicans, who demanded university administrators turn over disciplinary records of students involved in campus protests or risk billions of dollars in federal funding.

On Thursday, Khalil and seven students identified by pseudonyms filed a lawsuit seeking to block a Congressional committee from obtaining such records for students at Columbia and Barnard College, a women's institution affiliated with Columbia.

Filed in federal court in Manhattan against the two schools; the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce; and its chairman, Republican Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan; the lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction barring Congress from forcing the schools to provide the records and the universities from complying.

Last month the committee sent a letter demanding that Columbia and Barnard provide the records or risk federal funding. The plaintiffs argue in the complaint that the committee is abusing its power in an attempt “to chill and suppress speech and association based on the viewpoint expressed” and the investigation “threatens to significantly infringe on First Amendment rights.”

In a statement emailed by a committee spokesperson, Walberg said, “This lawsuit changes nothing.”

The information requested “is critical to its consideration of legislation on this issue” and necessary to “hold schools accountable for their failures to address rampant antisemitism on our college campuses,” he added.

Barnard spokespeople did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment, and Columbia declined to discuss the pending litigation.

Separately, a newly-created disciplinary board has brought a flurry of new cases against students — including Khalil — who have expressed criticism of Israel, triggering alarm among free speech advocates. Khalil was not among the protesters accused of seizing Hamilton Hall.

The expulsion announcement drew praise from some faculty members, including Gil Zussman, chair of the electrical engineering department and member of Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism.

“Finally demonstrating that breaking university rules has consequences is an important first step towards going back to the core missions of research and teaching,” he said in a post on the social platform X.