ALL OUT TO COLUMBIA (NEW SEMESTER, SAME STRUGGLE)
Suspension for Gaza: the Highest Honor
For Hind. For Gaza. For Palestine. This is why we fight.
Last week, Columbia held 22 disciplinary hearings against alleged student protestors from the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. During their hearings, students spoke bravely about their commitment to fighting towards a free Palestine and forced the University Judicial Board (one of the disciplinary bodies of the university) and Rules Administrator Gregory Wawro to confront Columbia’s complicity in genocide.
Sanctions for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment are set to come out within the next few days. Hind’s Hall disciplinary hearings begin next week. We must pressure Columbia to drop all sanctions and dismiss all the charges against Palestine protest before final decisions are made. Come out to Columbia main gates and support the students fighting for Palestinian liberation on January 21 @ 1PM. And join us for an alternative first day of class at the Popular University for Palestine!
Read four students’ full opening and closing statements from last week’s disciplinary hearings below.
1. “The zionist entity has bombed every single university in Gaza”
My name is ——. I am an ecosystems ecologist and climate scientist. First and foremost I want us all to take a moment to acknowledge that we are on Lenapehoking, the unceded, stolen land of the Lenape people. Despite an attempted genocide, the Lenape continue to exist, steward these abundant lands we call home, and resist the forces of colonialism, which our university, formerly Kings College in the City of New York and re-named after the genocidal serial killer Christopher Columbus, represents.
Secondly, I want to bring our attention to the fact that this is January 9th, meaning this disciplinary hearing is happening over 8 months since the alleged incidents in April. During this excruciating limbo, I was suspended for one month, which precluded me from accomplishing my teaching and research duties, restricted my access to Columbia Health doctors and other campus-based services, and significantly impacted my progress towards my degree during a pivotal time prior to my qualifying exam. However, the minor personal and professional inconveniences I have faced is nothing compared to the living hell that Palestinians have experienced during this time. I have been disgusted to witness my Palestinian and Palestinian-American friends, students, and colleagues face despicable discrimination, repression, and a complete lack of empathy from this institution for the incredible loss and trauma many of them are experiencing almost daily.
The zionist entity has also bombed every single university in Gaza, turning centers of knowledge and education to rubble, and has killed over 100 internationally-renowned Palestinian scholars and hundreds more students.
As a scholar and educator, I cannot stand by and witness this brutal scholasticide, which is directly funded by my tax dollars and by my employer. Palestinian labor unions have long called for divestment from the Apartheid State of Israel, and working at an institution flagrantly violating human rights means I am crossing a picket line every day that I come to work.
Today, January 9th, is also the birthday of my late grandmother, who was the daughter of an Armenian genocide survivor and an elementary school teacher who believed that “education is the great equalizer”. She witnessed on TV the Nakba (or “catastrophe”) of the Palestinian people in 1948 and for the rest of her life was a staunch advocate for Palestinian self-determination. Grandma always taught us to raise our voices in the face of injustices and I feel her presence here supporting me today. I am also the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor from Austria who was betrayed by the silence and complicity of his neighbors and playmates as a child as they were forcefully displaced from their home while the neighborhood was “Aryanized” prior to refugees during WWII. I feel in my bones the pain of forced displacement so many Palestinian families endure. When we say “Never Again” commemorating the Holocaust I believe we should mean it everywhere and will not stand by in stunned silence like my grandfather’s neighbors as the bodies, many of whom are children, pile ever higher in this genocide that is already multiple Nakbas.
Apart from these deeply-held personal convictions, I see fighting for Palestinian liberation as an essential component of my work as an ecologist. All ecological crises, from deforestation to biodiversity collapse, stem from power struggles over land and other resources. The current climate crisis is not natural; it is a symptom of unequal, extractive, and violent systems of oppression. Throughout history and throughout the world, ecocide, or the decimation of natural systems to fuel “economic growth”, has always gone hand-in-hand with the genocide and subjugation of Indigenous peoples. The killing, imprisonment, and vilification of Land Protectors is an essential component of extractive capitalism. The ongoing genocide in Gaza and dehumanization and oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and throughout Historic Palestine is exactly the same. Palestinians have deep cultural connections with the plants, waterways, and agricultural practices of their ancestral lands. Severing those, whether by bulldozing familial olive groves or forcefully displacing people, constitutes white supremacist colonial land-grabbing.
While overt state- and university-sanctioned violence toward student protestors was on display for the entire campus and the world to see during the April 18th arrests and subsequent brutal police raid of Hind’s Hall, this is just the very tip of the iceberg of the violence that this institution perpetrates against its students. Repression of speech is violence. Surveillance and restricted movement is violence. Harassment and discrimination is violence. Termination of faculty and staff who have spoken out about the genocide in Gaza is violence. Eviction and expulsion of some of the best and brightest students actually fighting for the values we espouse in classrooms is violence. And directly funding and profiting off of a literal genocide is violence.
The bureaucratic back and forth and months of silence from the university Rules administrators has led me to complete an entire semester of coursework, teaching, and research without any certainty of my standing at this institution. Despite this significant delay, the Rules administrators have failed to produce any substantive individualized evidence of my alleged charges other than an arrest record, which is illegal to possess– let alone use to discipline students and employees– under New York State’s sealing statute. Despite this being communicated repeatedly to the UJB and Rules administrators by our legal counsel you have continued to forge ahead with these hearings, notifying me just a few weeks ago as I was in the airport to travel home for a much-needed break. Therefore, a significant portion of my holidays have been spent in legal meetings and trying to decode university Rules and New York laws instead of relaxing with family and friends and preparing for my upcoming Fulbright trip to accomplish field work for my dissertation at the end of January.
We hoped that moving our hearings from the jurisdiction of Columbia’s shadowy “Center for Student Success and Intervention” (CSSI), which was concurrently under investigation by the University Senate for violation of student privacy and due process, would result in a more fair and reasonable adjudication of these alleged charges. This is primarily because the UJB is made up not of external lawyers, consultants, and career bureaucrats but of our peers and professors. Columbia faculty are some of the leading scholars on post-colonial theory, international affairs, 1st amendment law, and so many other subjects the student movement for Palestine has been inspired by. However, we have been met again with delays, stalling tactics, and stonewalling from the Rules administrators. More broadly, since last October the vast majority of faulty have stood by and watched Columbia’s administration, at the behest of the Board of Trustees (some of whom own individual stock in companies like Lockheed Martin directly profiting off the genocide in Gaza) perpetrate myriad insidious forms of violence against students. Instead of standing with us in the struggle for Palestinian liberation and academic freedom, the majority of faculty left students to fend for ourselves against some of the most powerful forces of state-sponsored violence. There are many quotes, from MLK, Gandhi, and Tutu about how neutrality, silence, and the indifference of “good” people means complicity in oppression. But a simple chant from the Black Lives Matter movement sums it up nicely: “Silence is violence”. Your silence has been deafening. And it is not only cowardly and a tacit endorsement of the oppressive status quo but has been quite literally violent, causing indescribable harm to the most marginalized, vulnerable, and powerless members of our community. But by serving on this body, you are now being given a chance to rectify some of this harm, live out your supposed values, and put your theory into practice to stand with students in opposition to the administration’s repression tactics.
As such, I stand before you today with a single ask: amnesty. In the matter at hand, amnesty is both the reasonable and the moral decision. This investigation has overstayed its mandated date of completion by a full order of magnitude, making a mockery of the very rules it claims to uphold; its rush to conclude now, while I am away from campus, makes it difficult to resist the inference that the University is operating not on the basis of public or community safety, but in accordance with the most expedient political news cycles. Whether or not this inference is accurate, the ease by which this connection is made should give the panelists pause during these proceedings.
Members of the University Judicial Board, I believe the question posed before you today is not merely whether I was present at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 17th and 18th and violated these supposed Rules. Your decision also represents larger questions we as a university community are wrestling with. What does “safety” mean to different people from different backgrounds? When these meanings are in conflict, which group’s perceived safety is prioritized and why? And, maybe most importantly, is a university simply a corporation ruled with an iron fist by a small group of shareholders, in which students are seen as customers and faculty and staff as replaceable units of labor? Or is it a safe haven for learning and growth, critical thinking, and freedom of thought and expression?
Please consider carefully both the procedural and moral implications of your decision in my case and those of my peers. Thank you for your time and attention.
2. “There is absolutely Nothing you could do to me worse than the complacency and active funding of genocide that Columbia University already participates in.”
I am here today to confront a process that epitomizes everything wrong with colonialist systems of power. This hearing, this entire ordeal, is nothing more than a grotesque performance—a façade of justice masking a blatant attempt to silence, punish, and retraumatize those of us who may dare to resist oppression and advocate for liberation. I know these systems intimately because I grew up in them. I was raised in the criminal justice system, where I learned at an early age how power is weaponized against the most vulnerable. I have an extensive criminal record and I have sat in this same kind of seat many times before. Columbia’s actions mirror the same colonialist values that upheld my incarceration as a young adult and that now attempt to punish me for my convictions and advocacy.
And while you try to paint us as dangerous, let’s be clear about who the real victims are. Since the date this process began, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been massacred, many of them children. Specifically Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old girl, was killed by the IOF with 355 bullets in her. One of her last words were “please, will you come?”. Nobody was able to make it to Hind, the very least we can do is tell her story. While I am being forced to sit through this sham, entire families are being ethnically cleansed.
This is the kind of horror that fuels my advocacy—not hatred, but a relentless drive to see justice for Hind, for Gaza, and for every Palestinian who has been silenced by apartheid and genocide.
There is absolutely Nothing you could do to me worse than the complacency and active funding of genocide that Columbia University already participates in.
What’s happening here at Columbia is no different in essence. This university—like so many colonialist institutions—claims to value diversity and justice but turns against the very people it purports to uplift when we challenge the status quo. When I came to Columbia, I was told my lived experience in the criminal justice system was an asset, a testament to resilience and perspective. But now Columbia wants to be surprised when people allegedly use that lived experience for advocacy. This process has not just disrupted my life; it has mirrored the very systems of oppression I am fighting to dismantle. It is deeply personal, a reminder of the ways colonialist values permeate every facet of our society. I can wholeheartedly say thank you to Columbia for providing a disgusting show of what fear from a colonialist institution looks like.
And yet, despite your best efforts, you cannot harm me. I have survived horrors far beyond the imagination of this institution. Sitting before this board is laughably insignificant compared to what I have endured and overcome. Your attempts to intimidate us are pathetic, and they do nothing but highlight the fragility of the systems you are so desperate to uphold.
Columbia’s actions in this matter are not just cruel; they are a betrayal. As a domestic violence advocate, my work centers on supporting people in crisis, building trust, and helping survivors reclaim their agency. Yet by initiating this disciplinary process, Columbia jeopardized my ability to do that work. You claim to train leaders for social justice, yet you abandon communities and perpetuate harm the moment it serves your agenda. Your hypocrisy is staggering, but it is not surprising. Ironically my focus at Columbia and with my masters in policy is around abolition, including the abolition of systems that allow for a University to harm their students.
Make no mistake as I stated in my admissions essay:
my support for liberation by any means necessary is not something that can be punished or disciplined out of me. My commitment to a free Palestine is unwavering.
Whether or not this panel sees fit to dismiss these charges, I will never apologize for standing against genocide, for naming apartheid, or for standing with the Palestinian people. I am here because I care about justice—not the performative kind you pretend to practice in this room, but real, transformative justice.
Moreover, since my alleged involvement in these matters concluded more than eight months ago, I cannot be reasonably expected to provide accurate information as to my whereabouts or activities on the provided date, particularly not information which is not already detailed in the investigative reports compiled more than six months ago. As such, I question what urgent new information these hearings are being convened to gather which does not expressly contradict my right to not make self-incriminating statements, as detailed in the Rules of University Conduct (Section 446).
Dismiss these charges, there is absolutely no basis. Anything less will only confirm what I already know: that this institution values colonialism over accountability, power over people, and oppression over justice. Thank you.
3. “I leave this hearing today with hope, muqawama, and sumud in my heart.”
My name is ——-. I chose this program because of its purported commitment to international social and humanitarian causes, which is advertised heavily on their respective websites. The School of Social Work’s mission statement says that the school aims to “enhance the well-being of the people and communities of New York City, the nation, and around the world,” and specifically, to “redress conditions that limit human development and quality of life; and promote human rights, social justice, and respect for human diversity.” Mailman’s mission states that they are “guided by the fundamental principle that health is a human right … to build a healthy and just world for everyone.” I wholeheartedly agree with those ideals. But the actions that Columbia has taken to prosecute activism for Palestinian liberation and self-determination, an end to apartheid systems everywhere, and fundamental human rights for Palestinians, say that Columbia itself does not—that, in fact, they will do everything they can to prevent students from holding the university accountable to its stated vision.
I implore you all to reflect on why we are here today, beyond an alleged breach of University rules. Why there was an encampment to begin with. Why the student body overwhelmingly supports divestment. Why bodies like Amnesty International have concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and the matter has found cause at the ICC. Because they see what I have seen firsthand on the ground in Palestine, discovered what I have discovered doing research on violations of Palestinian human rights for the UN. And they, too, have seen the live-streamed atrocities leveled against Gaza, half of whose population is children.
But if we must limit the scope of this hearing to my disciplinary process, so be it. In the Rules Administrator Investigation Report against me, there is no evidence that I violated any rule, let alone the rules implicated in the four charges listed. Further, the investigation process has already punished me, without sufficient cause or a finding of responsibility. I was suspended for 4 weeks and was prohibited from speaking to my professors about making up work until the suspension was lifted, after the semester had ended. Also in social work, we do a 9-5 job three days a week on top of classes, for no compensation. At the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, I sought a research position or teaching job within the university, so I could have some sort of income while in grad school. Unfortunately, all those positions required me to show good disciplinary standing with the university. Although there are only charges against me, I could not guarantee that I would be “in good disciplinary standing,” given the lack of transparency and shifting processes that I have faced over the past 8 months, described in detail in the documents provided prior to this hearing. Because of that, I was unable to get a work position and have struggled without that additional income.
Taking all this into consideration, I ask that my case be dismissed due to the lack of individualized evidence, particularly the illegal use of sealed arrest records, which violates New York’s sealing statute. When considering the entirety of the evidence submitted today, it is insufficient to establish the various elements of each charge against me by a preponderance of the evidence. Finally, I also ask you to carefully consider whether the Rules Administrator references any evidence that is not in the evidence packet in front of you, and if so, to dismiss it.
Closing:
In the evidence packet provided, and in today’s hearing, the Rules Administrator has not provided any admissible individualized evidence against me according to my own and my legal counsel’s understanding of New York State’s sealing laws.
Notwithstanding, and without conceding the sealing issue, the fact of an arrest alone is insufficient to support the charges against me. All that would prove is that a person was present somewhere in the East Lawn at one point in time on April 18th. The additional evidence presented is generalized in nature and does not in any way point to my own specific conduct, as is required under the Code of Conduct.
I would like to point out that the Rules Administrator today admitted that no delegates were present on the lawn on the 18th at any point, and gave no warnings at any time on the 18th, even though the delegates' presence and/or warnings is critical to most if not all charges.
I also object to the argument put forward here today that the university does not bear the burden of proof to prove, by a preponderance of evidence, my guilt of the charges brought against me. The university is the one bringing these charges against me. if they are trying to show that I violated their rules, they must show that per each charge by a preponderance of the evidence.
Additionally, I again incorporate into this statement the motion to dismiss and the letters that I and my attorney have submitted explaining why any records related to any criminal cases are sealed under New York State Law, and therefore cannot be relied upon by the University in the disciplinary process. Consequently, for the reasons of undue delay, procedural unfairness and violation of the Rules’ instructions on collective guilt, and for the use of unlawfully obtained evidence, the charges against me should be promptly dismissed.
I would like to complete my degree program without further interruptions so that I can do what I came here to get the credentials for — working in global mental health concerning immigrants and refugees. It is impossible to work in that space without recognizing the settler colonial determinants of health, much less the impact of genocide. In 2020, a study showed that over 50 percent of children in Gaza exhibited PTSD. I am currently researching how cultural concepts of muqawama (resistance) and sumud (best translated as steadfastness) in Palestine inform resilience in the face of military occupation, moderating the relationship between protracted violence and adverse mental health outcomes. These disciplinary proceedings have been disruptive, but I look to my Palestinian friends to tap into my own sumud—
I look to my friend Rashed, whose 10 family members were killed last November while they were sheltering in the Mahdi Maternity Hospital in Gaza, to my friend Samar, who has been in the streets week after week leading activists in the Palestinian Youth Movement, to authors like Susan Abulhawa, Hala Alyan, Mohammed al Kurd, and to all the Palestinian dead and survivors whose lives were destroyed and whose grief is unimaginable. I leave this hearing today with hope, muqawama, and sumud in my heart. Thank you.
4. “Last but not least, Free Palestine.”
Opening Statement:
My name is —————. When I was admitted to Columbia University, I was the first student in the history of my Title I high school to ever be accepted to the institution. As an immigrant, a low-income student, and the first person in my family to attend college, Columbia served as a beacon of hope and social mobility for myself and my family. Shamefully, I understand now that this was an extremely foolish and naive conception of the institution. In the past four years, Columbia has proven itself to be entirely at odds with my educational and social aspirations. Despite touting itself as an institution dedicated to social justice and welcoming of the enriching value of dissent, I have witnessed how proponents of the very social justice Columbia deems “essential” to our university have been silenced, suppressed, and punished. In the face of my passionate peers fighting for what they believe in, Columbia showed their true colors by unleashing the full force of the carceral state in allowing the NYPD to enter our campus—subjecting our students and community members to unimaginable brutality. I was appalled to bear witness to such carcerality, brutality, and violence brought onto my peers at the hands of our university. In the wake of these horrific and shameful events, my university met our community’s collective trauma with punitive and dystopian surveillance, instead of collective care or safety.
As Columbia continues to drag out eight month old disciplinary hearings, israel—which I will refer to as the Zionist entity in this statement, because I know the entity of israel to be illegitimate, genocidal, and settler-colonial, and therefore undeserving of any formal recognition—has murdered an estimated number of nearly 400,000 Palestinians. Thus, I call the entity which Columbia funds exactly what it is: a zionist project founded upon and grounded in occupation, displacement, apartheid, and death. In addition to a 400,000 person death toll, the violence that the Zionist entity has been responsible for include: the destruction of over 50% of homes and 87% of school buildings in Gaza, the demolition of hospitals—17 out of 36 of which are now rendered only partly functional—and the deaths of over 150 journalists since October 7th, 2023. This is not to mention the IOF’s murder of civilians in Lebanon and Syria. While the Columbia administration punishes its community for protesting a genocide, its own hands remain red from funding this unimaginable violence.
In the past eight months, I have been unjustly penalized by the disciplinary process by the same institution that was meant to educate me. The sanctions which student conduct have waged against me has greatly inhibited my supposedly elite education. The interim suspension the university imposed upon me in April, which recognized my presence on my campus as trespassing, resulted in the loss of my on-campus work-study employment, and consequently my only source of income. This loss severely affected my mental and financial well-being as a low-income student on full financial aid. This—alongside my inability to attend classes, meet with my professors, share experiences with my peers, attend events for clubs which I am a part of—has transformed my experience at Columbia for the worse. More than these poor material changes to my everyday collegiate experience, however, Columbia’s actions have demonstrated to me as a student, a scholar, and a community member the misguidedness in which this university’s priorities lie, which are in protecting their financial interests and evading accountability for their culpable ties and investments to genocide.
I seek amnesty, because the evidence presented against me does not satisfy the Rules Administrator’s obligation to prove that I, as an individual, was more likely than not responsible for the charges against me. Lastly, for the record, Palestine will be free.
Closing Statement:
Without conceding the sealing issue, the alleged arrest alone is insufficient to support the charges against me, as it would only show that a person was present somewhere on or near campus on April 18th. All other evidence that has been presented is generalized in nature and does not establish my specific conduct, which is required under the Rules of University Conduct.
I want to reiterate that I incorporate into this statement the motion to dismiss and the letters that I and my attorney have submitted explaining why any records related to any criminal cases are sealed under New York State Law, and therefore cannot be relied upon by the University in the disciplinary process. In sum, for the reasons of undue delay, procedural unfairness, violation of the Rules’ instructions on collective guilt, and for the use of unlawfully obtained evidence, the charges against me should be promptly dismissed.
Last but not least, Free Palestine.
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WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
We would love to hear your comments, critiques, and perspectives! If you would like to contribute to The Barricade, please email cuadthebarricade@proton.me. You can also follow us @ColumbiaBDS on Twitter/X and @CUApartheidDivest on Instagram. Get a legal or disciplinary notice related to alleged pro-Palestine activism? Contact CUAD's collective defense team at cuaddefense@proton.me and our legal support team at columbiapalsolidarity@proton.me for help!
DIVEST AND BOYCOTT THE GENOCIDAL APARTHEID STATE OF SO-CALLED ISRAEL
GRANT COMPLETE AMNESTY TO STUDENT PROTESTORS
LONG LIVE THE STUDENT INTIFADA
LONG LIVE THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL RESISTANCE
FREE PALESTINE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA WITHIN OUR LIFETIME
GLORY TO ALL OUR MARTYRS
Jeez. So many words that don’t help Palestinians one bit.