Columbia University expels, suspends and revokes degrees of several students

On Thursday, the university announced it was expelling, suspending and revoking the degrees of 22 students following last year’s Hamilton Hall protest, fulfilling one of the nine demands issued in a letter from the Trump administration to Columbia.

The University Judicial Board (UJB) – which has been overseeing disciplinary proceedings for pro-Palestinian protestors since the fall and issued the punishments – said it was issuing “multi-year suspension, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall” on 30 April.

Previously, the UJB – an independent body of faculty, staff and students – had only suspended students. One of the demands made by the Trump administration is to eliminate the UJB and centralise discipline beneath the president’s office, giving them sole jurisdiction over punishing students.

A statement from the Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition alleged that co-chair of the Board of Trustees David Greenwald – who worked at Goldman Sachs for 20 years – “was revealed to have personally interfered in the disciplinary cases of these students”.

An estimated six students were expelled from Columbia University, according to student organisers. One of the students expelled and fired was Grant Miner, president of the Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) union.

According to the union, the expulsion occurred a day before contract negotiations were set to begin with the university on Friday. In a press release issued on Friday, they said: “Miner was expelled without any evidence after nearly a year of disciplinary proceedings.”

“The first bargaining session between SWC and Columbia begins Friday, where the Union will present demands to protect international and undocumented student workers.”

“Mahmoud Khalil, a UAW card signer, was detained by the US government last week, making Miner the second SWC member to be targeted. The Union is demanding protections for international and undocumented students, which would make it more difficult for Columbia to cave to federal pressure by aiding the Department of Homeland Security in abducting student workers,” they added.

At the time of publication, SWC announced Columbia had cancelled bargaining two hours before negotiations were due to take place.

On Thursday night local time, less than a week after immigration authorities detained Columbia student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, Department of Homeland Security agents were back on the university’s campus to serve two search warrants.

The occurrence came to light after interim President Katrina Armstrong wrote an email to the university community late Thursday.

“I am writing heartbroken to inform you that we had federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in two University residences tonight. No one was arrested or detained. No items were removed, and no further action was taken.”

Armstrong added DHS served Columbia University with “two judicial search warrants signed by a federal magistrate judge authorizing DHS to enter non-public areas of the University and conduct searches of two student rooms.”

Armstrong wrote that the university was obligated to comply with the warrants, and that “University Public Safety was present at all times”.

In addition, the DHS issued a press release saying that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had arrested a second Columbia student – a Palestinian from the West Bank – for allegedly overstaying her student visa.

The Department announced she had participated in Pro-Palestine protests.

They also said they had cancelled the visa of an Indian doctoral student for “supporting Hamas”. The Indian student was said to have “self-deported”.

The presence of DHS agents on campus came hours after it was revealed that the Trump administration – through the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration – delivered a letter to Columbia with a list of actions it demanded the university take before it would consider reinstating $400m in grant funding it cut from the school.

This included placing the distinguished Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under an “academic receivership” for a minimum of five years and installing a new department chair. This would involve the university ceding control of the department and an outsider chair that could be appointed by the government to run it, potentially overseeing everything from curriculum design to the hiring and firing of faculty.

The Trump administration also demanded that Columbia discipline students involved in last year’s protest at Hamilton Hall, and centralising all disciplinary processes under the university’s president’s office, giving them the power to suspend or expel, and an appeals process only through the president.

The university is also being told to “Ban masks that are intended to conceal identity or intimidate others, with exceptions for religious and health reasons”, and requiring masked individuals to wear their school IDs outside their clothing.

The administration also wants Columbia to formalise a definition of antisemitism, referencing the controversial IHRA definition that Harvard University and New York University recently adopted.

The administration requested “immediate compliance”, upon which they “hope to open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms” to return the institution “to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence”.