[Read the fact sheet and download a social media toolkit at tinyurl.com/cupopuni-factsheet]

In Columbia's long history of student protest, none has faced the current level of disciplinary repression. No student should be suspended, expelled, or subjected to false allegations of discrimination simply for participating in a teach-in and distributing educational materials. Yet Columbia's Rules Administrator has announced that it plans to mass suspend and expel students for participating in a pro-Palestine teach-in and distributing educational materials. Over 70 students have been named for suspension and expulsion, including two year suspensions for people with no previous disciplinary record. Columbia will try to expel at least 15 students, more than doubling its count from 9 to 24. Help us stop them.

The expulsions related to Basel al-Araj Popular University are the first known political expulsions at Columbia in more than half a century, and a total break from recent treatment of protests that are not related to Palestine. No teach-in in the history of the university resulted in an expulsion until the teach-in centered Palestine. Moreover, library disruptions were a routine part of student life and these also did not result in suspension or expulsion until they focused on Palestine. Consider for example, "Orgo Night”, which was a 42-year tradition in which hundreds of students and a marching band disrupted a study room in Butler Library the night before the organic chemistry final. The University banned Orgo Night in 2017. To protest, over 200 students and a marching band occupied Butler 209. No students were suspended or expelled for this.

How did we get here?

On May 7th, an autonomous group of students launched the Basel al-Araj Popular University in Butler library, symbolically stripping the library of its previous namesake, Nazi sympathizer Nicholas Murray Butler. Basel al-Araj was a Palestinian revolutionary who dedicated himself to studying and teaching the history of Palestinian resistance at the Popular University in the West Bank. Israel murdered al-Araj in 2017 because his revolutionary scholarship encouraged Palestinians to defend themselves by any means against US-funded Zionist colonization and violence.

Students intended to host a brief teach-in on Palestinian liberation and Columbia's complicity in genocide and occupation, leaving peacefully after the teach-in concluded. There was no intent to “occupy” the library. However, as soon as participants entered the main reading room, Public Safety officers shut the doors and kettled them inside. Public Safety officers barred students from leaving, including after a fire alarm sounded. During this time, Public Safety officers repeatedly body slammed, choked, and taunted students with homophobic slurs. While some students chose to tap out with their IDs, most students mistrusted University promises in part because the same officers had brutalized their peers and lied in previous disciplinary proceedings. (University assurances that students could tap out and leave safely have proven false: the Rules Administrator is now pursuing one-year suspensions for students who identified themselves and left quickly upon request.)

Three students were carried out of the library on stretchers. One more was hospitalized following an attack by Public Safety just outside the library. In total, Public Safety’s actions resulted in five concussions and four hospitalizations, none of which were caused by students.

Despite Public Safety’s brutality, once it became clear that they would not be permitted to leave, teach-in programming continued, with participants sitting on the floor while reading texts on decolonization. The teach-in continued until the University brought NYPD into the reading room, where participants took arrest without resisting.