On Thursday, Columbia University issued suspensions, expulsions, and temporary degree revocations to a number of students connected to the April 2024 occupation of the school’s Hamilton Hall.
The announcement from the University Judicial Board came on the same day as a campus ICE raid, with Department of Homeland Security agents executing search warrants on two Columbia University residences.
“I am writing heartbroken to inform you that we had federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) in two university residences tonight,” Interim President Dr. Katrina Armstrong told students and staff in an email.
On Friday, DHS officials said they had announced another student protester who allegedly overstaying her Visa. She was identified as Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank.
“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement. “When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.”
Additionally, the school expelled and fired Grant Miner, President of UAW Local 2710, just one day before contract negotiations were set to begin.
“The shocking move is part of a wave of crackdowns on free speech against students and workers who have spoken out and protested for peace and against the war on Gaza,” said the union in a statement. “As the UAW has emphasized, the assault on First Amendment rights being jointly committed by the federal government and Columbia University are an attack on all workers who dare to protest, speak out, or exercise their freedom of association under the US Constitution.”
Less than a week ago Columbia Graduate Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE agents for his involvement in last spring’s Gaza protests. He is currently being detained in Louisiana, while the Trump administration attempts to deport him in what legal advocates say is an egregious violation of the First Amendment. Just days before the arrest Columbia published a new protocol reversing the school’s previous status as a sanctuary campus status and allowing ICE access to the school without a warrant in some circumstances.
Khalil, and seven other Columbia students, are now suing the university Mahmoud Khalil, to block the school from handing over private disciplinary records to Congress.
Trump crackdown
Khalil’s arrest, and the arrival of ICE agents on college campuses, is part of the Trump administration’s federal crackdown on the U.S. Palestine movement.
“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump told a group of pro-Israel donors on the presidential campaign trail.
Shortly after arriving at the White House, Trump issued several executive orders aimed at stifling protest on campus, including one that seeks to cancel the visas of foreign students who participated in them.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” said Trump in a fact sheet released alongside the EO. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
Axios has reported that the State Department will use AI as a tool to revoke the visas of foreign students who appear “pro-Hamas.” Last week scholar Helyeh Doutaghi’s was placed on administrative leave by Yale Law School after an AI-generated article falsely accused her of being a “terrorist” over her connections to Palestine groups.
Thursday also saw the Trump administration send a letter to Columbia detailing a series of steps that the university could take in order to reverse the government’s recent cancellation of roughly $400 million in federal funds.
The demands included a mask ban, action on “anti-Zionist” discrimination, and the suspension of the students involved in the Hamilton Hall occupation. “We expect your immediate compliance,” read the letter.
After Khalil’s arrest, Columbia Journalism School dean, Jelani Cobb reportedly told a group of students to refrain from posting about the Middle East on their social media page. When a Palestinian student questioned the school acquiescing to Trump, Cobb told them, “Nobody can protect you. These are dangerous times.”
“If you were accepted to Columbia University, don’t come here,” tweeted a student. “This school will ruin your life for a McChicken and a nice tweet from Donald Trump.”
About 20 years ago, on a visit to Berlin, I stood in the courtyard of Humboldt University, scene of the notorious book-burning by the Nazis. Who would have dreamed then that US Neo-Nazis would be gearing up to do the same – and, even more horrifyingly, in the name of the Nazis’ principal victims?
University news:
Harvard Law School Students Pass Referendum Urging University To Divest From Israel…Harvard Law School Students Pass Referendum Urging University To Divest From Israel…The resolution, which called on Harvard to “divest from weapons, surveillance technology, and other companies aiding violations of international humanitarian law, including Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine,” passed with 72.7 percent of votes in favor, with 842 students participating. Nearly 2,000 students attend HLS….
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/14/hls-divestment-referendum-passes/
A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment….Betar US is one of a number of rightwing, pro-Israel groups that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests, an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University….
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/israel-betar-deportation-list-trump
HANNAH ARENDT: “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” — from The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
SOURCE – https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7662360-in-an-ever-changing-incomprehensible-world-the-masses-had-reached-the
The Lobby, Mahmoud Khalil & the First Amendment
March 14, 2025
A multi-pronged assault on free speech — built on baseless accusations — is being used to justify the deportation of a permanent U.S. resident
By Robert Inlakesh
“The detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist involved in organizing at Columbia University, is the result of more than a year of pro-Israeli think-tank propaganda and lobbying efforts to tie the students to Hamas and erode free speech protections in the United States.
Since the first anti-war encampment at Columbia University last April, a network of pro-Israel organizations — including lobby groups, think tanks, and private security firms — has worked to dismantle the student protest movement. Their influence has been evident in the rapid and coordinated response to suppress demonstrations.
Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s public claim that Khalil is a “Hamas supporter,” no evidence has been provided to substantiate the allegation. In fact, a White House official admitted in an interview with The Free Press that “the allegation here is not that [Khalil] was breaking the law.”
The Trump administration has offered no evidence of illegal or violent activity to justify its efforts to deport Khalil, a Green Card holder. Instead, his removal appears rooted in political disagreement. Washington has made clear that any speech critical of Israel can be labeled as “pro-Hamas” and “antisemitic” without the need to substantiate such claims.
[A federal judge has paused Khalil’s deportation after his attorneys said his arrest was a “targeted, retaliatory detention and attempted removal of a student protestor because of his constitutionally protected speech … Neither Secretary Rubio nor any other government official has alleged that Mr. Khalil has committed any crime or, indeed, broken any law whatsoever.”
Khalil has had his residency green card taken and is being held in a facility in Louisiana awaiting detention.
“This case is as clear a First Amendment violation as any case I’ve ever seen in my 23-year career,” attorney Jeffrey Pyle, who does not represent Khalil, told The Washington Post. “
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/14/the-lobby-mahmoud-khalil-the-first-amendment/
The Death of Free Speech in America?
You can thank Israel and its many friends
by Philip Giraldi
March 14, 2025
“There should be little doubt in anyone’s mind that the “wag the dog” relationship between the United States and Israel has done terrible damage to American institutions and constitutional liberties. The US bipartisan unconditional support of the ongoing Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the world which now despises America’s corrupt political system and its increasing bizarre and out of touch leadership. There were even reports this past week that Washington and Tel Aviv have been discussing shipping upwards of two million Palestinians to Sudan and Somalia, two of the most violent places on earth, to permit the development of Trump
Gaza resort and the annexation of the rest of historic Palestine by Israel.
To be sure, the cancer at the heart of the Israel-US relationship, if one might even call it that, has been in place for a long time as American politicians scrambled to get their share of Jewish billionaire money in exchange for a carte blanche when it comes to Israeli misbehavior. I recall how
in May 2023, the newly appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, spoke before the Israeli Knesset. McCarthy made it a point to flatter his Israeli hosts by emphasizing that traveling to Israel was his first foreign trip as speaker, underlining the value of the relationship.”
https://freepress.org/article/death-free-speech-america