Instead of joining the annual celebrations of the “Student Day” of the University of Columbia for the School of International and Public Affairs, several alumni gathered to denounce the school when starting their diplomas in protest.
The protest follows the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a postgraduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), A Palestinian activist and a green card holder. Khalil was arrested by immigration and customs compliance agents in his university apartment on March 8.
The demonstration was organized by former students of SIPA for Palestine and began with a group of current alumni and speakers, a few dozen people singing and then a collective tear of diplomas.
“It is not easy to do this, without any of us doing it lightly. There is no joy in this,” said Amali Tower, a 2009 Sipa graduate who spoke in the protest.
Tower said that as an immigrant who experienced displacement, he had to fight hard to obtain his mastery in international matters in Columbia.
“I am not a proud former student, and instead I want to be with the students, and I want to be with Palestinians, and I want to be with immigrants who are being rounded and harassed, oppressed and deported while we talk,” he said.
The University of Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Saturday’s protest.
The protesters built signs and sang “free Palestine” and “Mahmoud Khalil” throughout the afternoon.
Khalil’s The lawyers say that they are currently being arrested in a Louisiana installation.
The Trump administration said he wants to deport Khalil due to his role in pro-palestinian protests on campus and accused him of being a threat to foreign policy.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said this is only the beginning for him and Trump, who intend to continue attacking the protesters who have student visas.
“Once you have lost your visa, you are no longer legal in the United States. And we have a right, like all the countries of the world are entitled, to get you out of our country,” said Rubio this week.
“If you request a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and tells us that the reason why it comes to the United States is not only because you want to write opinion articles, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things how to vandalize universities, harass students, take buildings, create a ruckus, we will not give it a visa,” said Rubio.
Khalil’s arrest and protests have occurred when Columbia is dealing with another leadership shake.
On Friday, the school announced that its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, had aside to return to the Irving Medical Center of the school. The measure occurs a week after the school agreed with the Trump administration to negotiate the restoration of its federal funds.
Armstrong is being replaced by Claire Shipman, who is the co -president of the Trustee Board, making it the third president of the University in less than a year. Shipman is a former White House correspondent for NBC News, CNN and ABC News.
She testified before Congress the past spring during an audience on the university’s efforts to combat anti -Semitism.
“It is another figuro that the Trustee Board will use to make its offer. I don’t think it matters,” said Hannah, a 2024 student in Saturday’s protest.
She did not give her last name for fear of her safety.
“I think Minouche Shafik did a horrible job. I think the interim president Armstrong did a horrible job. I think Shipman is going to do a horrible job because they are not listening to their students. They are listening to the Board of Trustees,” he added.
Hannah also torn his diploma.
“I am here today because I am Jewish, and my Jewish beliefs tell me to introduce me to the communities that are being oppressed, that they are being attacked,” he said.
Columbia is not the only school that has had the students detained. Students born abroad at the University of Tufts, the University of Georgetown and the University of Minnesota have been arrested in federal custody.
Some current students of the Columbia University’s protest said Saturday that they have lost faith in their school.
“The students are terrified of putting a foot on the campus. I am one of them, so the fact that I am here is scary because the way our colleagues have disappeared,” said Jasmine Sarryeh.
Sarryeh is studying for a master’s degree in public affairs in SIPA and is a friend of Khalil.
“Mahmoud is a very dear community member, and the fact that he took his eight -month pregnant wife and from all of us here in Sipa is devastating,” he said. “It’s hard to go to class, it’s hard to come here and not think about him.”
Sarryeh said he has also lost faith in the value of the education he receives from Columbia.
“The University of Columbia used to be a bastion of freedom of expression and academic freedom, and is directed in a really dangerous direction,” he said. “And if they do not begin to defend Mahmoud and all the protesters who were basically promulgating their freedom of constitutional expression and the right to freedom of assembly, that will place them in a very dark path that I hope that the university does not fall.”
