Columbia University just suspended nearly 80 students for participating in a teach-in honoring Palestinian writer and revolutionary Basel al-Araj — marking the largest student suspension in the university’s modern history.

The escalation comes amid growing repression against the pro-Palestine movement nationally, and just days before Columbia is expected to finalize an agreement with the Trump administration and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The deal would restore $400 million in canceled federal funding in exchange for adopting policies that criminalize criticism of Israel.

This is not an isolated act of university discipline — it is a test case for a broader political offensive. Trumpism, Zionism, and elite university governance are uniting to crush a generation rising against genocide. 

This offensive spans multiple fronts: New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani is under coordinated attack from right-wing and Zionist forces for expressing solidarity with Palestine. At CUNY, students and faculty face firings, suspensions, and congressional scrutiny for standing against genocide. And nationally, groups like the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) are being targeted for organizing anti-ICE protests.

The fight to reinstate the Columbia 80 is part of a broader battle to defend freedom of speech amid the growing break of youth and workers with the imperialist consensus around Zionist oppression. The university’s attack is about more than any single protest — it’s the opening of a wider offensive against the entire Left, the Palestine movement, and the organizations of the working class and oppressed, including our unions.

What Happened? A Teach-In, A Crackdown, and Dozens Suspended

In May 2025, students at Columbia organized a teach-in to honor Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian intellectual and activist murdered by the Israeli state. Following the event, Columbia administrators responded with militarized force — kettling protestors, body-slamming them, and hospitalizing four students.

Then, on July 21, nearly 80 students received official notice: they had been suspended for one to three years, or permanently expelled. The university pushed through this large-scale repression by illegally restructuring its judicial board, removing both student members and faculty oversight to guarantee harsher penalties. Behind this maneuver is Board of Trustees Co-Chair and Acting President Claire Shipman, who has been negotiating directly with Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and the architect of the Muslim ban and family separation policies.

This crackdown follows two previous mass arrests on campus in the last year. This time, however, the scale is bigger — and the political stakes are higher.

A Zionist Offensive Backed by Trump, the NYPD, and ICE

While Columbia publicly positions itself as a defender of democracy and liberal values, behind closed doors it is acting as a direct collaborator of the U.S. repressive apparatus and the Israeli apartheid regime.

Trustees with ties to Lockheed Martin, BlackRock, the Council on Foreign Relations, AIPAC, and the NYPD have overseen this crackdown. The university is pushing for adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and criminalizes speech in support of Palestinian liberation.

Even more disturbingly, the university has collaborated with ICE. In an opinion piece written from immigration detention, Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil accused Columbia of handing over thousands of student records that laid the groundwork for his arrest. 

Meanwhile, Zionist-aligned alumni groups like Columbia Alumni for Israel and the Canary Mission have worked to identify and potentially deport pro-Palestine activists from campus. This is a full-spectrum attack: academic sanctions, police violence, deportation threats, and public smears — all aimed at crushing youth who dare to stand with Gaza. It reveals exactly why we need a university run by students and workers, not by billionaires or Zionist trustees.

Why Now? Genocide Abroad, Repression at Home

As Columbia attacks its own students, 2.1 million Gazans are being systematically starved. Far more than 58,000 people have been killed. Universities, hospitals, refugee camps — all destroyed. And here in the U.S., the bipartisan ruling class is waging a coordinated offensive against those who speak out against this genocide. As one Columbia student testified during disciplinary hearings:

“Every university in Gaza has been destroyed. Hundreds of academics have been killed. Books and archives incinerated. This is not a war — it’s a campaign of erasure.”

In this context, what’s happening at Columbia is not a local scandal — it’s a strategic attack. A coordinated effort between billionaires, politicians, university administrations, Zionist lobbies, and police departments to destroy the youth vanguard of the Palestine solidarity movement. But repression often produces its opposite. As the ruling class reveals its true face, a new layer of organizers, militants, and leaders is emerging — with deeper clarity, stronger networks, and a renewed sense of urgency.

Mahmoud Khalil’s release from ICE detention proves we can fight and win. His case shows that mobilization works — and that we must take the fight nationwide. Across the country, the same repressive playbook is being used. At CUNY, not only students but also faculty and graduate workers have faced retaliation for standing with Palestine. The CUNY 4 — four faculty and staff fired for their Palestine advocacy — represent the tip of the iceberg.

Even leaders of Columbia’s graduate workers union, SWC-UAW — such as its president Grant Miner — have been targeted and harassed for supporting Palestine — showing that the labor movement is not immune from this wave of repression. These attacks reveal that the struggle for Palestine is also a struggle over the future of unions and public institutions. At Columbia and across the university system, we must fight for full reinstatement of all sanctioned or fired students and workers — and for a national mass movement against repression that unifies the struggles against all of Trump’s attacks from the cuts in universities to the ICE raids. 

We can take lessons from how students and workers organized against the repression during the encampments. At the University of California, workers organized strikes to demand an end to the repression of Palestine solidarity. At CUNY, rank-and-file graduate workers came together in a historic assembly to vote for collective action against retaliation. These are the seeds of a broader, independent movement from below — one that connects the fight for Palestine with the fight to transform our campuses and workplaces. Unions like SWC at Columbia have a particular role to play in using the power of workers to fight against repression.

A petition demanding reinstatement of the Columbia 80 has already gathered over 35,000 signatures, showing that thousands stand behind the right to protest and refuse to let this repression go unanswered.