Most Columbia students arrested during pro-Palestinian protests will return to campus

NEW YORK - Most Columbia University students who were arrested or faced discipline for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations will be able to return to campus this fall, according to information released on Aug 19 by a congressional committee investigating the school’s response to anti-Semitism.

Representative Virginia Foxx, a Republican and chair of the committee, had requested information about the outcome of the cases as part of its inquiry, which is part of a broader political attack by House Republicans on elite institutions of higher education.

Of the 40 students arrested when Columbia first called police to the campus to remove a student encampment on April 18, just two remain suspended, according to the information provided to the committee by the university. The rest are in good standing and can enrol in classes while waiting for their disciplinary hearings, although about half have been placed on “disciplinary probation”.

Of the 84 students who had been arrested or disciplined in late April, when police were called to clear a second encampment and rout students who had occupied Hamilton Hall, just five remain suspended, the committee announced. The rest can return to campus while awaiting their hearings. Some have had their charges dropped.

In a news release, Ms Foxx called the lack of consequences for the students “reprehensible”.

“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” she wrote.

Protests have become a political lightning rod, with demonstrators and their supporters saying university crackdowns and arrests have dampened free speech, a core academic value. Critics of the protests – including Republican lawmakers and Jewish students and alumni who are concerned they foster anti-Semitism – have argued that a lack of severe consequences could encourage more extreme actions in the coming year.

The protests died down over the summer, but the disciplinary processes are continuing to play out, propelling the debate over how universities should respond to protesters who have vowed to keep up their activities this fall.

Some of the students returning to Columbia’s campus could still face serious consequences. Mr Mahmoud Khalil, a student negotiator on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the school’s main student protest movement, said dozens of students could still face punishments.

“They may get suspended again, they may get expelled,” Mr Khalil said, adding, “the fact that this interim suspension was lifted doesn’t mean that their case was dropped.”

The information about student discipline comes as Columbia students begin to move back into dorms and the university adjusts to life after the surprise resignation last week of Dr Minouche Shafik, who had served as Columbia’s president for about a year.

Dr Shafik, who left for an unpaid, temporary job with the new British government, has been replaced by Dr Katrina A. Armstrong, a physician who is also Columbia’s executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences.

Student protesters have warned that they will be back in force this fall. In preparation, Columbia has closed the gates to its main campus to all but those who have a school ID.

The university said on Aug 19 that it was working to speed the disciplinary process for students.

“Columbia 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,” said Ms Samantha Slater, a school spokesperson.

Universities across the country are also beefing up security and clarifying protest rules as classes begin.

On Aug 19, the president of the University of California, Dr Michael V. Drake, issued guidance banning encampments, the obstruction of university property and masking that was intended to conceal identity.

“The free speech movement was born at the University of California,” Dr Drake wrote in a letter to the school community. “We are proud to uphold that tradition today.”

However, he said, the university had to balance free speech rights against the need to protect the safety of the community. In the spring, several campuses, including the University of California, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara called in police to dismantle encampments, leading in some cases to violent confrontations between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and police officers.

Ms Foxx’s committee has been most concerned with the speech of the protesters, which lawmakers argue included anti-Semitic statements and threats against Jewish students. However, Columbia did not charge any protesting students with hate speech or other violations related to the content of their speech, according to the information released by the committee, which was current as of Aug 6.

Instead, students were accused of trespassing, participating in an unauthorised demonstration, disruptive behaviour and failure to disperse. Among the resolved cases involving encampments, disciplinary probation so far was the harshest outcome. The information did not include all disciplinary cases from the past school year, however, a Columbia official said.

Like many universities, Columbia has a complicated disciplinary system and students are able to appeal their cases and have legal representation. Cases are either heard before the Centre for Student Success and Intervention, which is largely run by administrators, or through the University Judicial Board, which is part of the University Senate, a body of staff, faculty and students.

City prosecutors had already dropped the charges against most of the students who had been arrested during protests on campus, citing their clean criminal records and a lack of evidence tying them to specific criminal acts. (The students who had occupied Hamilton Hall, for example, had disabled security cameras and wore masks.)

The numbers released by the congressional committee on Aug 19 did not account for Barnard students or outsiders who were also arrested.

None of the cases of the 22 students who occupied Hamilton Hall, a serious protest escalation on April 30 that caused significant property damage to the building, have been formally resolved yet, the information showed. Of those students, three remained on interim suspension, meaning they did not have access to campus. The rest can return while their cases proceed.

Mr Khalil said the student protest group had previously asked Columbia to lift all interim student suspensions as a precondition to participate in a new mediation process that Dr Shafik had announced this summer as a way to calm tensions on campus.

Protesters had also asked for all student disciplinary cases to be transferred to the University Senate. But the administration has been concerned that the Senate will not impose severe enough punishments, said Dr James Applegate, an astronomy professor and member of the Senate’s executive committee.

Dr Applegate predicted that there would be blowback no matter how the disciplinary cases were finally decided.

“If, in fact, students are severely punished, the left is going to scream bloody murder,” he said. “If they’re not severely punished, the right is going to scream bloody murder. So somebody is going to be mad.” NYTIMES