Student Activist detention, cutting cuts, anti -Semitism investigations in Columbia – The Williams Record

In the past few weeks, the federal government has canceled 400 million dollars of federal financing to Columbia University because it describes as the default of the school to limit anti -Semitic harassment. The government recently expanded its investigation in cases of anti -Semitism at 60 universities and universities. Separated from the ongoing investigations, the federal agents recently recorded a doctoral student in Columbia, which had been a loud participant at the latest campus protests against the military campaign in Gaza.

Painting of the student Protester

Mahmoud Khalil, graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, will be suspended after a possible deportation after they were arrested on March 8 by officials from the US Ministry of Homeland Security. Khalil is a legal resident and is married to a US citizen. During his arrest, the officials first told him that his student visa had been revoked. When they were informed that he had no such visa, they instead stated him on the basis that his green card had been revoked.

Khalil was not charged with a crime. Foreign Minister Marco Rubio said that after a provision by the Immigration and Nationality Act, he was arrested, which allows the Foreign Minister to deport anyone who affects foreign policy or the country's national security interests.

Last spring, Khalil was a prominent participant in Columbia against investments in Columbia to support the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. As a student negotiator, he often interacted with the administration of the university and the press. According to the protests, he was examined by the Columbia's Office of Institutional Equity, a new disciplinary authority that created the university in order to examine charges for harassment and discrimination. The Trump government has claimed that Khalil organized events that work for the ideology of Hamas. Some reporting indicate that Khalil was due to his public role and the fact that he was not wearing a mask than many other demonstrators did not wear.

Khalil is currently taking place in the Lasalle Detention Center, a federal immigration facility in Louisiana. The lawyers of the American Civil Liberties Union and Khalil argue that his arrest due to his participation in the protests is an obvious violation of his right to freedom of speech in the context of the first change. The Trump government said that Khalil is only one of many who want to hold and deport them for similar reasons, according to the New York Times.

Federal grants for Columbia canceled

Regardless of this, the joint task force of the Trump government to combat the anti-Semitism formed on February 4th announced the immediate cancellation of around $ 400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University on March 7, since the Task Force as “the continuing unaction of the school in view of the continuing harassment of the Jewish students” after his Press release was described.

Katrina Armstrong, the interim president of the university, dealt with the effects of the financing cuts in a declaration to the Senate of Columbia University, the political decision of the school, which includes and is subject to faculties and students. The power of the school's trustees. “I will tell you that we will work with you all and in our community to keep our mission” Columbia Spectator.

“We owe every student the best possible experience that he can ever have that there should never be a student who did not welcome, trapped or valued,” Armstrong wrote the day when the task force announced the funding cuts.

The reductions of 400 million US dollars come from the facilities from which the Task Force consists of – the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration. The National Institute of Health -a department of the Ministry of Health and Human Services -announced on March 10 that it terminated 250 million US dollars in Columbia as part of the 400 million cuts in the federal financing of the University. The cuts end over 400 individual research grants.

“There is no question that the cancellation of these funds immediately will have the research and other critical functions of the university on the students, the faculty, employees, research and patient care” Viewers.

The examination of anti -Semitism within university formation is expanding

After the cancellation of the federal financing of Colombia, the Ministry of Education announced on March 10 that its office for civil rights (OCR) sent letters to additional universities and universities that threatened the enforcement measures if the institutions were not able to protect Jewish students from discrimination according to the Civil Law Act. The letter was not forwarded to the public, but threatened that the schools that violated title VI have violated title VI In higher Ed.

Initially, the examination of the department on Columbia and four other universities focused. According to President Trump's executive order entitled “Additional measures to combat anti -Semitism”, the department announced that it would examine cases of anti -Semitism in Columbia. Northwestern, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. This investigation continues and led to the cancellation of the federal financing of Colombia on March 7.

Three days later, on March 10, OCR 55 identified additional institutions in response to complaints that were submitted to the office, and made a total of 60 schools, including the investigations, including small colleges for free arts such as Middlebury and Swarthhoren. However, Williams was not included in the investigation.

“US universities and universities benefit from enormous public investments that are financed by US taxpayers,” wrote Minister of Education Linda McMahon in the department's press release. “This support is a privilege and depends on the unscrupulous compliance with the federal government's anti -discrimination laws.”