Columbia University says it has expelled or suspended some students who took over a campus building during pro-Palestinian protests last spring, and has temporarily revoked the diplomas of some students who have since graduated. In a campus-wide email sent Thursday, the university said its judicial board had issued the sanctions after a monthslong investigative process against dozens of students who occupied Hamilton Hall, based on its "evaluation of the severity of behaviors," the AP reports. The university did not provide a breakdown of how many students were expelled, suspended or had their degree revoked.
The university and its students already were reeling from the arrest of a well-known campus activist, Mahmoud Khalil, by federal immigration authorities last weekend—the "first of many" such arrests, according to President Trump. And the Trump administration has stripped the university of more than $400 million in federal funding over what it describes as the college's inaction against widespread campus antisemitism. The takeover of Hamilton Hall took place on April 30, 2024, an escalation led by a smaller group of students of the tent encampment that had sprung up on Columbia's campus against the Israeli attacks in Gaza. Students and their allies barricaded themselves inside the hall with furniture and padlocks in a major escalation of campus protests.
At the request of university leaders, hundreds of New York Police Department officers stormed onto campus the following night. Officers carrying zip ties and riot shields poured in to the occupied building through a window and arrested dozens of people. At a 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 in the administration building—but all of the students still faced disciplinary hearings and possible expulsion from the university.
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