The Ivy League school has abandoned dozens of suspensions targeting the radicals of anti-Israeli students
The acting president of Columbia, Katrina Armstrong (Columbia.edu)
The University of Columbia announced on Thursday that it had identified and suspended one of the pro-Hamas students who had taken over an Israeli and targeted Jewish student course with anti-Semitic leaflets two days before. If these suspension sticks could give an early overview of the Ivy League school seriously take threats from President Donald Trump and the Congress Republicans.
“As part of Tuesday’s disruption of a history of the modern class of Israel, the University of Columbia identified and suspended a participant in Columbia, pending a complete investigation and a disciplinary process,” said a university statement . “The disturbances of our classrooms and our academic mission and efforts to intimidate or harass our students are not acceptable, are an affront to each member of our university community and will not be tolerated.”
The school leveled similar suspensions on students who participated in illegal anti-Israeli events last spring. But that continued to drop the overwhelming majority of these suspensions. Of the 40 students arrested or disciplined when the university called the police on the campus to erase an anti-Israeli camp on April 18, only 2 remained suspended on August 6, according to disciplinary data published by the Education Committee and the workforce.
Police arrested 35 other students for omitting a second camp on April 29, but none of them made suspensions. Thirty -one of these students were in good standing with Columbia at the beginning of August. And out of the 22 who were arrested in Hamilton Hall after storming the campus building, only 3 suspensions were confronted. A fourth was in disciplinary probation of a previous hearing, while the other 18 were in good position, “according to the Congress report.
At that time, the federal surveillance of Columbia and other higher education elite establishments was limited to the house led by the GOP. While the Biden administration has launched surveys on anti -Semitism complaints in certain universities following the attack on Hamas, on October 7, it settled many of these complaints to terms favorable to schools. In the Senate, during this time, the chief of the time, Chuck Schumer, assured Columbia leaders in private that their “political problems are really only among the Republicans”, according to a report from the Chamber published at the end of Last year.
These republicans now control the room, the Senate and the White House, and they have committed to repress the schools that easily go to pro-Hamas radicals. Trump, for example, said that American colleges “will have to and should end anti -Semitic propaganda where they will lose their accreditation and their federal support”. He also threatened to expel the radicals of the campus in the country on student visas, saying: “As soon as they hear this, they will behave.” The Republicans of the Congress of the two chambers echoed these feelings.
Tuesday class treatment by Columbia could then provide a window on how the school administrators assess these threats. If it will suspect more students linked to the storm – and maintain these suspensions in place – the movements suggest that the interim president of Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, wishes to adopt a stronger position against the Radical Students under the Trump administration. Armstrong has already enlisted the Lobbying Cabinet of the former student of Trump Transition, Dan Murphy, to “provide strategic advice and defend questions related to higher education and credits”, according to disclosure filed with Congress.
A Columbia spokesperson did not answer questions about the details of the suspension and how long it would last.
The student suspended Thursday launched the semester by storming an Israeli history lesson alongside three other pro-Hamas activists. They targeted Jewish students with anti -Semitic leaflets who glorified Hamas, showed a star of David trapped and recommended violence.
A leaflet said: “The enemy will not see tomorrow”, using a triangle upside down – a symbol that Hamas uses to designate Israeli targets – spells “tomorrow”. The leaflet represented a truck full of Hamas terrorists brandishing RPG and machine guns.
Another legendary, with the legend “Crush Sionism”, represented the star of David under a boot. A third encouraged students to “burn Zionism on the ground”.
In response, Columbia posted a security guard at least one Jewish study lesson on Wednesday. The university has announced that it “mobilized the public security team to prevent future incidents, in particular the identification and achievement of additional resources with increased risk classes of disturbance”.
