Including expulsions, multi-year suspensions, and degree revocations, Columbia University has taken strict disciplinary action against almost 80 students engaged in pro-Palestinian protests.
Announced on Tuesday, the most recent sanctions concern student activities at the Butler Library invasion in May 2025 and encampments during Alumni Weekend in 2024. Columbia said these protests broke university policy and obstructed academic activity.
“Such violations will naturally have effects,” the institution said.
Leading campus demands for divestment from businesses connected to Israel, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) denounced the penalties as excessive. According to CUAD, “These penalties substantially exceed precedent for teaching or non-Palestine-related building occupations.” “We will not be dissuaded; we are dedicated to the battle for Palestinian liberation.”
Pro-Palestinian student encampments at Columbia in 2024 started a worldwide wave of campus demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza. Later, the university allowed hundreds of New York City police officers to disperse protests, which led to mass arrests.
Though authorities cracked down, pupils returned in May 2025 to occupy Butler Library throughout final examinations, reaffirming their demand that Columbia sever relations with corporations supporting the Israeli military.
Tuesday saw the Judicial Board of Columbia confirm that expulsions, suspensions, and degree revocations were handed out, noting this to be the concluding set of results from the protest era. The number of expulsions was not made public by the institution.
The disciplinary actions come as Columbia tries to retrieve $400 million in federal funding withdrawn by the Trump administration, which has accused the institution of failing to shield Jewish students from persecution. During the university’s May graduation, Acting President Claire Shipman, who has headed the crackdown, was jeered.
On Tuesday, Mahmoud Khalil, a protest organizer at Columbia and deportee under Trump’s immigration crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists, met with congressmen in Washington, DC. Recently released from ICE detention in Louisiana, he was
According to health authorities, Columbia’s actions coincide with the ongoing humanitarian tragedy in Gaza, where at least 15 Palestinians, including a six-week-old infant, perished of hunger in the previous 24 hours alone.
