In the United States, Columbia University sanctions students who have participated in Propalestinian actions

The American University Columbia announced, Tuesday, July 22, having imposed individual sanctions on around 80 students who had occupied in May a campus library to denounce the Israeli strikes in Gaza.

In recent months, American universities have experienced major protest movements against Israeli bombing in Gaza, and have been accused by the Trump administration “Anti -Semitism”.

At the beginning of May, around 80 people had occupied the Butler library in Columbia, in New York, an action condemned by the Presidency of the University, which immediately called on the police. The head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, had qualified these demonstrators of “Pro-hamas thugs”.

The Columbia Judicial Affairs Committee imposed sanctions on some of these students on Monday, considering their degree of involvement and having already been sanctioned, on Tuesday, university said in a statement.

About a year earlier, New York police had dislodged Propalenian demonstrators barricaded in a Columbia building, an epicenter of a protest movement also requiring universities that they cut bridges with companies related to Israel.

“Any disruption of university activities constitutes a violation of the policies and the regulations of the university, which will necessarily result in consequences”argued, Tuesday, Columbia. The university has not detailed individual sanctions, but stressed that they were going from periods of « probation » to “Suspensions, ranging from one year to three years”or even “Expulsions”.

The Mahmoud Khalil case

These disciplinary measures arise as the Trump administration increases its pressures against universities, by freeze, in the case of Columbia, hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research subsidies.

At the end of May, the president of Columbia had been hooked during a graduation ceremony by students who criticized her for giving in to the government’s pressures and of not prevented the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil.

This figure of the Propalestinian movement had been arrested in March in a university residence and placed in a federal detention center in Louisiana. Mr. Khalil has since been released, but he still risks expulsion.

The Columbia Committee for supporting the Boycott campaign in Israel, a Propalestinian grouping, denounced sanctions “Historical” and accused the president of the University of « collaboration » With the Trump administration. According to this grouping, students suspended apologies are asked to be able to reintegrate the university, failing which they will be «In fact» expelled.