About a week before Mahmoud Khalil was detained and the DHS raids, the Trump administration moved to pull $400 million in federal funding from the New York City university.
Columbia University has issued sweeping sanctions against students who took part in pro-Palestinian protests last spring, just days after a prominent former student activist was detained by immigration authorities inside his home and multiple campus accommodations were raided by homeland security agents.
The Ivy League institution announced Thursday that its judicial board has issued a range of disciplinary actions against students who occupied Hamilton Hall last April, with consequences ranging from multi-year suspensions to temporary degree revocations and expulsions. In its statement, Columbia did not specify the number of people disciplined.
Last spring, students, along with people not associated with the school, breached Hamilton Hall, a campus building, and locked themselves inside after refusing to dismantle encampments by the deadline.
The ordeal ended in more than 280 arrests.
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NYPD enter Columbia University, arrest pro-Palestinian protesters
The sanctions come days after Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student at the university, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). During last year’s protests, Khalil became a spokesperson for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student-run anti-Israel-Hamas conflict organizations.
ICE threatened to deport Khalil before transporting him to a detention centre in Louisiana on Sunday.
Khalil, who did not participate in the encampments over fears that his student visa would be cancelled and condemned acts of antisemitism on campus, has since become a permanent resident of the U.S. and is married to an American citizen.
On Monday, efforts to deport him were blocked by Judge Jesse Furman. Two days later, Furman ruled that Khalil would remain in the Louisiana facility until lawyers for both parties present further arguments.
Following his arrest, hundreds of New Yorkers took to the streets to demand Khalil’s release.
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Pro-Palestinian student activist detained by ICE sparks mass protest in NY
On Thursday, Katrina Armstrong, interim president of Columbia University, confirmed in a statement that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had executed raids in two university residences.
“Federal agents from the 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,” the statement says.
Nobody was detained, nothing was removed from the premises and no further actions were taken, Armstrong added.
About a week before Khalil was detained and the DHS raids, the Trump administration moved to pull US$400 million in federal funding from the New York City university and threatened to do the same to any universities allowing “illegal protests” and tolerating antisemitism on campus.
Newly designated education chief Linda McMahon was appointed by the senate on Monday to take the aforementioned steps and to ultimately dismantle the Department of Education entirely.
U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to shut down the department and said he wants McMahon “to put herself out of a job,” The Associated Press reports.
In a post on social media on March 4, Trump said all “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests.”
“Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” it concluded.
On Friday, the Department of Education issued a memo saying it had opened investigations into 45 universities that it says did not meet the deadline to halt diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The statement orders universities to “end the use of racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities” and threatens the loss of federal funds if they refuse to act.
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