Columbia Disciplines Students Who Occupied Campus Building Last Year

Columbia University — embroiled in crisis after the Trump administration revoked $400 million in grants and contracts for the school’s “inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students” — announced on Thursday a range of disciplinary actions against students who occupied a campus building last spring, including expulsions and suspensions.

The punishments levied include “multiyear suspensions, temporary degree revocations and expulsions,” according to a statement. The school did not release the names of students who would be punished, in compliance with federal privacy laws, according to a university spokeswoman. It is unclear how many students have been punished.

The announcement came one day after Gregory J. Wawro, a professor of political science who also serves as the university’s rules administrator, said in a statement that the hearings for students accused of violations “in connection with the April 17-18 encampment on the South Lawn and the occupation of Hamilton Hall” had been completed.

Student defendants were allowed to bring two advisers, including legal counsel, to hearings, which were held over video conference, according to a Columbia employee with knowledge of the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly.

Thursday’s announcement arrived less than a week after the Trump administration moved to cancel $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia, an extraordinary action that represented an escalation of the administration’s targeting of the university.

Then, on Monday, the administration warned 60 other universities they could face penalties from pending investigations into antisemitism on college campuses.

Last spring, Columbia began to issue suspensions of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had been encamped for more than a week on campus as they protested the university’s investment in Israel, including its dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University.

A protest that had mostly been nonviolent then took a turn, with demonstrators breaking into and seizing Hamilton Hall, an academic building. After about 20 hours, Columbia’s president at the time, Dr. Nemat Shafik, called in the city’s Police Department. Officers in riot gear arrested dozens of people.

A maintenance worker who was trapped in the building was physically injured in the melee.

In all, nearly 50 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had been inside Hamilton Hall were arrested, along with more than 100 others who were protesting in and around the campus.

Questions about how the university administration was handling discipline have dogged the school since.

In February, the House Committee on Education and Workforce sent a letter to Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, and Columbia’s board chairs, David Greenwald and Claire Shipman, listing “numerous antisemitic incidents” that it said had taken place in the last two academic years.

Those incidents include the student occupation of Hamilton Hall last April, the protest against a class taught by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the disruption of an Israeli history class.

This week, Representative Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan who is the chair of the committee, expressed frustration with Columbia. “It has been challenging to get very basic information,” he said.

The university said that it began its judicial process last summer, filing its complaints against students with the University Judicial Board, which is an independent panel of faculty, students and staff.

Students notified today of the sanctions have five business days to file an appeal, on grounds that there was a procedural error, availability of new information or “excessiveness of sanction.” A university appellate board has 10 days to issue a ruling.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group that helped organize the protests and last fall asserted its support for “armed resistance,” said on its Instagram page Thursday that “the university’s extreme repression is a panicked attempt at silencing the movement for Palestinian liberation,” adding that “they have seen our unyielding commitment to Palestine firsthand over the last year, and they are terrified.”

The announcement of sanctions can be seen as a sign that “Columbia has turned the corner,” said Professor Joshua Mitts, a professor in the law school who this semester is teaching a seminar on free speech and civil liberties on campus. He is also the adviser to Law Students Against Antisemitism, a campus group.

Calling the judicial process “fair and transparent,” Mr. Mitts said that the university showed its fidelity to due process, free speech and academic freedom as it sought to upend antisemitism.

“This is Columbia at its best,” he said.