Columbia University

Columbia Tries To Undermine Its Unions, Hire Scab Instructors

August 15, 2025 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Educate! Columbia University, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Unions, Worker Rights

Imagine you get a letter from your manager a week before you are set to teach classes, removing you from teaching duties but saying you’ll get paid anyway. This odd experience has happened to around 137 graduate students at Columbia University in New York City who teach core curriculum, language, and writing classes. They are members of Student Workers of Columbia (SWC), Auto Workers Local 2710. Getting paid to not teach might sound pretty good, but in fact the university is hiring adjuncts with no union contract to do the work of union members. “I spent all summer not knowing if I was going to teach or not, and then they finally were like, ‘No, your class is canceled,’” said a core curriculum teacher who asked not to be named.

As Columbia Capitulates To Trump Over Palestine, Student Activists Regroup

August 6, 2025 Tamara Turki, Mondoweiss. Strategize! Campus Movement, Columbia University, Higher Education, Palestine, Retaliation, Student Activism

Over the past two years, Columbia University has become a case study in the growing battle between grassroots movements in the U.S. and the institutions determined to silence them. What began as a student-led call for divestment from Israel escalated into a high-stakes confrontation between students, university leadership, and, eventually, the U.S. president. That battle now appears to have reached a grim turning point. In trading student rights to free speech and protest for federal funding, Columbia, once known as the “activist Ivy,” has signaled the end of an era of American higher education nurtured political dissent and the beginning of a new one, marked by increased surveillance, censorship, and punishment.

Stop The Nationwide Repression Of The Pro-Palestine Movement

July 24, 2025 Maryam Alaniz, Left Voice. Strategize! Campus Movement, Columbia University, Israel, Palestine, Repression, Student Activism

Columbia University just suspended nearly 80 students for participating in a teach-in honoring Palestinian writer and revolutionary Basel al-Araj — marking the largest student suspension in the university’s modern history. The escalation comes amid growing repression against the pro-Palestine movement nationally, and just days before Columbia is expected to finalize an agreement with the Trump administration and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The deal would restore $400 million in canceled federal funding in exchange for adopting policies that criminalize criticism of Israel.

The Evolution Of Domestic Counterinsurgency In The US

July 3, 2025 Carrie Zaremba, Mondoweiss. Educate! Campus Movement, COINTELPRO, Columbia University, counterinsurgency, History, Israel, Palestine, Repression

By the time DHS agents showed up at Mahmoud Khalil’s door, a full-spectrum campaign had already marked him as a target. Columbia professor Shai Davidai had posted Khalil’s name and image online, called him a terrorist, and urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to deport him. The smear was picked up by a network of doxxing accounts like “Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus,” which publicly lobbied for the revocation of Khalil’s visa. Rubio repeated the call, Khalil received death threats, and the university stayed silent. Then, federal agents arrived. A professor’s tweet had become a trigger for federal enforcement. A tweet, a tag, a dossier — these were the new informant files. This time, professors, NGOs, and anonymous social media accounts were the new operators.

Government Misses Appeal Deadline But Refuses To Release Mahmoud Khalil

June 14, 2025 Nathan Fuller, Defending Rights & Dissent. Educate! Columbia University, Legal System, Mahmoud Khalil, Trump Administration

U.S. government prosecutors told New Jersey District Judge Michael Farbiarz that they would not be releasing detained Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil today, despite Judge Farbriarz’s determination on Wednesday that detaining Khalil on the basis of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that he poses a risk to U.S. foreign policy was likely unconstitutional. The judge gave the Trump administration until today to appeal that finding. Instead, the government said that a second accusation against Khalil, that he misrepresented himself on his visa application, was sufficient ground to keep him in detention. Stunningly, Farbiarz has now sided with the Trump administration.

Swell Of Support For Pro-Palestine Student Yunseo Chung

June 2, 2025 People's Dispatch. Resist! Campus Movement, Columbia University, Donald Trump, Free Speech, ICE, mass deportations, Palestine, Yunseo Chung

Following a court hearing on Thursday, May 29, a federal judge extended an order blocking Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents from arresting 21-year-old college student Yunseo Chung. Chung, like fellow Columbia students and graduates Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Ranjani Srinivasan, has been targeted by the Trump administration amid its broader attacks on immigrants, institutions of higher education, and the pro-Palestine movement. The temporary restraining order on Chung’s detention by ICE is now extended until her next court hearing on June 5.

Columbia Students Boo President, Cheer Mahmoud Khalil At Graduation

May 23, 2025 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. Resist! Columbia University, First Amendment, Higher Education, Mahmoud Khalil, Marco Rubio, Palestine, Student Activism

Columbia University held its graduation ceremony this week. When acting school president Claire Shipman addressed the crowd, she was met with a loud chorus of boos and “Free Mahmoud!” chants. “Good morning, Class of 2025. I know that many of you feel some amount of frustration with me, and I know you feel it with the administration,” she told the students. Shipman’s attempt to separate the two entities was met with louder boos, and why wouldn’t it be? Since Columbia students erected a Gaza Solidarity Encampment last spring, the school has worked to stifle pro-Palestinian activism on campus.

Courts Force Release Of Detained Students; Campus Activism Reignites

May 15, 2025 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. Resist! California, Columbia University, Hunger Strikes, Israel, Mohsen Mahdawi, Palestine, Rumeysa Ozturk, Trump Administration, Tufts University, Victory

Since the last installment of this newsletter, two students detained by the Trump administration have been released on bail. Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student who was kidnapped by agents during a citizenship interview, was released from a Vermont correctional facility on April 30. “The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford. Mahdawi addressed a crowd of supporters and reporters upon his release. “For anybody who is doubting justice, this is a light of hope and faith in the justice system in America,” Mahdawi told a crowd outside the courthouse after his release.

NYPD Arrests Dozens Of Pro-Palestine Protesters After Columbia Occupation

May 9, 2025 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. Resist! Columbia University, New York City (NYC), NYPD, Police, Repression, Student Activism

Roughly 80 pro-Palestine protesters were arrested on Wednesday night after occupying a library on Columbia University’s campus. Demonstrators rushed through Butler Library’s security gate at about 3:00 p.m., hanging banners, tagging shelves with graffiti, chanting pro-Palestine slogans, and renaming it the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” a reference to the Palestinian writer who was killed by the Israeli army in 2017. By 7:00 p.m., the school had called in the police. A volatile scene had already developed, as a crowd of supporters gathered outside the building and public safety officers prevented students from leaving the library without showing identification.

Harvard Refuses To Comply With Trump Administration

April 19, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Resist! Columbia University, Donald Trump, Free Speech, Harvard University, Palestine, Student Activism, United States

After Columbia University fully capitulated to the Trump administration’s demands of disciplinary measures against pro-Palestine students and censorship against academic departments, the Trump administration set its sights on other institutions of higher education, one of these being Harvard University. On April 11, Trump officials sent Harvard a similar demand letter to the one Columbia received on March 13. But Harvard’s response to Trump’s demands has been markedly different to Columbia’s – on April 14, Harvard’s President Alan M. Garber issued a bold response: Harvard would “not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

Protesters Denounce ICE ‘Abduction’ Of Mohsen Mahdawi

April 16, 2025 People's Dispatch. Resist! Columbia University, Donald Trump, Free Speech, ICE, Immigration, Israel, Mohsen Mahdawi, New York City (NYC), Palestine

On April 14, Palestinian Columbia University student and leading pro-Palestine activist Mohsen Mahdawi was detained by immigration agents as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship in Colchester, Vermont. Mahdawi is the second Palestinian Columbia University student activist to be kidnapped by immigration authorities, after Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest which has earned international attention as demands for his release grow. With Mahdawi’s detention, pro-Palestine groups have renewed calls to end Trump’s attacks on students and free speech.

Stop The Genocide Abroad And The Repression At Home

April 14, 2025 Open Letter, Mondoweiss. Resist! Columbia University, Genocide, Israel, National Day of Action, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Repression

This April 17, we, a collective of academic workers, students, union members, and activists within multiple higher education associations and unions, trade unions, and other organizing spaces, call for a coordinated national direct action in protest of the ongoing genocide abroad and the escalating repression at home. As academic workers and students united with other labor sectors, we aim to take back public places and uplift the right to dissent and the right to collective organizing for liberation. We stand against the neoliberal and colonial logic of higher ed that represses speech and academic freedom in the US and that enables genocide, carceral tactics, and the long-running destruction of education and historical memory in Gaza and throughout Palestine.

A Letter To Columbia

April 7, 2025 Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia Daily Spectator. Resist! Campus Move, Columbia University, ICE, Mahmoud Khalil, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Repression

To Columbia—an institution that laid the groundwork for my abduction—and to its student body, who must not abdicate their responsibility to resist repression, Since my abduction on March 8, the intimidation and kidnapping of international students who stand for Palestine has only accelerated. On March 9, Yunseo Chung had to file a lawsuit and eventually seek a court order barring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from detaining her for her protest activity. On March 11, Ranjani Srinivasan chose to cross the border to Canada upon the belief that this university was ready to hand her over to ICE.

More Than 1,800 Academics Say They Will Boycott Columbia

April 5, 2025 Jessica Halliday Hardie, In These Times. Resist! Academics, boycott, Campus Movement, Columbia University, Palestine

Near the end of March, Gary Wilder, a professor of anthropology at the City University of New York, sent an email about his decision to decline attending a conference at Columbia University, explaining he was doing so because Columbia is “actively colluding with the U.S. government’s project to destroy higher education and criminalize dissent.” “A boycott is one of the few instruments available to the academic community through which to censure Columbia,” Wilder wrote to many of those involved in the gathering. Wilder is one of more than 1,800 academics and 50 organizations who have joined a quickly expanding boycott of Columbia, which has been at the center of U.S. state and political repression surrounding activism for Palestinian liberation.

Jewish Pro-Palestinian Protesters Chain Themselves To Gates

April 3, 2025 Joseph Zuloaga, Spencer Davis and Daksha Pillai, Columbia Spectator. Resist! Campus Movement, Columbia University, Judaism, Mahmoud Khalil, Palestine, Student Activism

Four Jewish pro-Palestinian demonstrators chained themselves to the gate near St. Paul’s Chapel early Wednesday afternoon in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, SIPA ’24, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 8. A new group of protesters tethered themselves to the Earl Hall gates later that afternoon. A Wednesday post from Columbia’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace cites a March 10 report from the Forward in which Ross Glick, former leader of Betar, a self-described “bold Zionist movement,” said he visited Washington, D.C. to meet with officials about Khalil.

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