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Not one Columbia student participating in campus occupation has been expelled, House report says

August 20, 2024 | | Print Article

The Ivy League’s ongoing anti-Israel problem was slammed after a new House report revealed the “disgraceful” response from the “invertebrate administration” to punish law-breaking students.

Encampments, harassment, and occupation were all part of the astroturf-fueled, Hamas sympathizing movement that swept college campuses prompting police intervention. Months after classes, exams, and commencement ceremonies were disrupted while Jewish students were tormented at Columbia University, a report from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce found that arrested students had not only avoided expulsion, they remained in “good standing.”

“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” read a statement from committee chair North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx (R). “More than three months after the criminal takeover of Hamilton Hall, the vast majority of the student perpetrators remain in good standing.”

“By allowing its own disciplinary process to be thwarted by radical students and faculty, Columbia has waved the white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in these unlawful actions,” the lawmaker continued.

“Breaking into campus buildings or creating antisemitic hostile environments like the encampment should never be given a single degree of latitude,” added Foxx, “the university’s willingness to do just that is reprehensible.”

The report referenced the break-in and barricading of Hamilton Hall that had led to one of the more striking images from the protests as a facilities worker within the building that housed the dean’s office had confronted a man later said to be an heir to advertising executives and an alleged “professional agitator.”

“I was freaking out. At that point, I’m thinking about my family. How was I gonna get out? Through the window?” recalled Mario Torres. “When it comes to the public safety, the workers’ safety, people don’t feel comfortable walking through a mob to punch in to get into campus. That’s crazy.”

A university spokesperson had provided little detail at the time of the supposed suspensions that had begun and now the House report detailed there had only been three interim suspensions and one probation among the 22 students that had been arrested inside Hamilton Hall on April 30th, while “18 are in good standing.”

Similarly, 27 students who had been arrested in May “had their cases closed due to ‘insufficient evidence’ despite their arrests,” while the charges against 29 of 35 students who had been placed on interim suspensions for failing to leave their encampment had been dismissed with 31 “currently in good standing.”

“Of the 40 students arrested by NYPD on April 18th for participating in the encampment, 18 were restored to good standing through ‘alternative resolution’ but are on conditional probation, 21 are in good standing pending a hearing, and one is on disciplinary probation from a prior incident,” the report noted before further stating that all of the 32 students who had been part of the encampment during the alumni reunion at the end of May were in “good standing.”

A spokeswoman for the university told the New York Post, “Following the disruptions of the last academic year, Columbia immediately began disciplinary processes, including with immediate suspensions. The disciplinary process is ongoing for many students involved in these disruptions, including some of those who were arrested, and we have been working to expedite the process of this large volume of violations.”

She insisted the university, “is committed to combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination and taking sustained, concrete action toward a campus where everyone in our community feels valued and is able to thrive.”

The report came in the wake of the resignation of Columbia President Dr. Minouche Shafik Wednesday, which had prompted Foxx to state, “During Shafik’s presidency, a disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and disorder engulfed Columbia University’s campus. Jewish students and faculty have been mocked, harassed, and assaulted simply for their identity. Every student has the right to a safe learning environment. Period. Yet, flagrant violations of the law and the university rules went unpunished.”

“Columbia’s next leader must take bold action to address the pervasive antisemitism, support for terrorism, and contempt for the university’s rules that have been allowed to flourish on its campus,” she added as, prior to the president’s departure, three deans who had previously been placed on indefinite leave for sending messages with “antisemitic tropes” during a campus event had also resigned.

As for the sentiment of the community, the Post reported that not a single graduate of the Jewish Ramaz high school on the Upper East Side had enrolled at Columbia College for the first time in decades and Matthew Schweber, a member of Columbia’s Jewish Alumni Association, was quoted as saying of the university’s response to the Hamas sympathizers, “It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham.”

Kevin Haggerty
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