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Stunning and brave: Columbia U. grads tear up diplomas to protest Jew-hating radical’s arrest, school caving to Trump

March 31, 2025 | | Print Article

A group of Columbia University graduates ripped up their diplomas in protest of the school’s cooperation with the federal government in the arrest and detention of anti-Israel radical agitator Mahmoud Khalil.

Over the weekend, dozens of grads from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs shredded the documents, greatly pleasing the crowd, which chanted “Free Palestine!” during the elite Ivy League university’s annual Alumni Day celebration.

Saturday’s demonstration took place a day after interim president Katrina Armstrong resigned amid a battle with the Trump administration, with $400 million in grants and contracts at risk over the school’s tolerance of anti-Semitism on campus. Faced with a loss of federal funding, the school backed down and agreed to changes, including a ban on face masks.

“It’s not easy to do this, with none of us doing this lightly,” 2009 SIPA graduate Amali Tower, who spoke at the protest, said, according to NBC News. “There’s no joy in this.”

“I’m not a proud alumni at all, and instead I want to stand with the students, and I want to stand with Palestinians, and I want to stand with immigrants who are being rounded up and harassed, oppressed and deported as we speak,” declared Tower, who is an immigrant herself.

(Video Credit: YouTube/ABC7 New York)

The protest comes as Khalil, a Columbia graduate student, is being detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being taken into custody at his university-owned dwelling earlier this month, becoming a martyr figure for the anti-Semitic left, including House Democrats who are demanding his release.

He is currently being held at an ICE detention center in Louisiana. Protesters at the rally held up signs reading “Free Palestine” and “Free Mahmoud Khalil.”

“Columbia University used to be a bastion of freedom of speech and academic freedom, and it’s headed in a really dangerous direction,” Columbia student Jasmine Sarryeh is quoted by NBC News.

“And if they don’t start standing up for Mahmoud and all the protesters that were basically enacting their constitutional freedom of speech and right to freedom of assembly, that will set them down a very dark path that I hope the university doesn’t go down,” she said.

The stunning and brave gesture of graduates tearing up their own diplomas drew mockery and scorn from X users.

The New York-based institution of higher learning has become a hotbed of anti-Semitism since Israel began the military operation to clean the terrorist presence out of Gaza after Hamas savages attacked civilian areas on October 7, 2023, slaughtering over 1,200 people and taking many as hostages.

“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 the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” Trump wrote in a March 4 post to Truth Social.

Chris Donaldson
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