Columbia University barred two activists and suspended one student for their involvement in the disruption of an Israeli history class, the university’s Office of Public Affairs updated on Monday.
The university announced that it had identified two more masked activists who last Tuesday entered the History of Modern Israel course taught by Israeli historian Dr. Avi Shilon and distributed flyers with violent imagery.
These protest participants were not Columbia students but were reportedly enrolled at an affiliated academic institution. The Public Affairs office said that they had been barred from the campus and referred to their home institution for investigation and discipline.
A third activist had been identified as a Columbia student on Thursday and has been suspended pending a full investigation and disciplinary process. “The investigation of the disruption, including the identification of additional participants, remains active,” Columbia added.
“Disruptions to our classrooms and our academic mission and efforts to intimidate or harass our students are not acceptable, are an affront to every member of our university community, and will not be tolerated.”
The university had promised last Wednesday an expedited full investigation into the incident and had posted security guards outside classes that it identified as being at similar risk for disruption.
The class disruption was widely condemned by various actors, including Interim President Katrina Armstrong, the Columbia/Barnard Hillel Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, the House Committee on Education and Workforce, the American Jewish Committee, and the Anti-Defamation League.
A group of staff affiliated with the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) for Columbia University, Barnard College, and Teachers College sent a letter to the Columbia Spectator on Thursday criticizing the protest.
While FSJP said that it defended freedom of speech and protests and believed that anti-Zionism should not be equated with antisemitism, it could not defend the interruption of Shilon’s class.
The group believed the imagery of the flyers was violent and “derived from the disgraceful annals of antisemitic propaganda.” They also noted that the activists ignored Shilon’s invitations to join the class.
“Such interference with a class engaged critically in the analytical study of Israel is indefensible and antithetical to the cause of Palestinian liberation and to the pursuit of learning,” read the letter to the editor.
“We know that yesterday’s unacceptable actions do not represent the vast majority of pro-Palestinian activists at Columbia, and we do not mean to discredit the movement at large; we do, emphatically, repudiate actions that impede academic freedom and that propagate antisemitic material.”
Glorifying violence
Columbia had also on Friday condemned Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) on its Instagram account: “The use of imagery that glorifies violence is a breach of our values.”
CUAD had organized protests the day of the class disruption, in which some flyers called to “crush Zionism” and depicted a boot stepping on a broken Star of David. It issued a statement of support for the activists on Wednesday, declaring that the class was rewriting Palestinian history and was thereby inherently violent.
“Every single university in Gaza has been destroyed. As long as there are classes and functions [at] Columbia that support and rewrite the genocide, occupation, and settler colonialism of Palestine – we will continue to disrupt!” CUAD said on X/Twitter on Wednesday.
The barring and suspension of students came as CUAD’s protest was about to demand that the administration dismiss disciplinary charges for dozens of students who participated in the occupation of campus buildings in April.
CUAD organized a walkout on the first day of the semester, during which protesters chanted, “Globalize the intifada,” Columbia student and Israeli peace activist Josh Drill told The Jerusalem Post. In a Tuesday Instagram post, Drill argued that the only way to move toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians was through nonviolence.
The protesters had also scheduled their own lectures last Tuesday at the Harlem St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, but according to social media posts by CUAD and the church, the New York Police Department barricaded the block and reportedly didn’t allow marchers to enter due to security concerns.
The church said that it was told the protesters were breaking the law by walking in the street. It added in a Monday statement that it would consequently hold prayers for justice and peace on Tuesday and the coming Sunday.