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Columbia University says it expelled or suspended some students who seized building last year [abc7ny.com]:

NEW YORK -- Columbia University says it has expelled or suspended some students who took over a campus building during pro-Palestinian protests last spring, and had temporarily revoked the diplomas of some students who have since graduated.

In a campus-wide email sent Thursday, the university said its judicial board had issued its sanctions against dozens of students who occupied Hamilton Hall based on its "evaluation of the severity of behaviors."

"The outcomes issued by the UJB are based on its evaluation of the severity of behaviors at these events and prior disciplinary actions. These outcomes are the result of following the thorough and rigorous processes laid out in the Rules of University Conduct in our statutes, which include investigations, hearings and deliberations," the statement said.

The university did not provide a breakdown of how many students were expelled, suspended or had their degree revoked.

The culmination of the monthslong investigative process comes as the university's activist community is reeling from the arrest of a well-known campus activist, Mahmoud Khalil, by federal immigration authorities this past Saturday - the "first of many" such arrests, according to President Donald Trump.

And on Thursday night, federal immigration agents showed up at an apartment on West 113th Street, near the Columbia University campus, looking for a woman, but she was not there, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

According to the sources, this is part of the Trump administration's crackdown on individuals it has described as espousing the views of Hamas and threatening the safety of Jewish students.

The crackdown has also seen the Trump administration strip the university of more than $400 million in federal funds over what it describes as the college's inaction against widespread campus antisemitism. Congressional Republicans have pointed specifically to a failure to discipline students involved in the Hamilton Hall seizure as proof of inaction by the university.

The takeover of Hamilton Hall came on April 30, 2024, an escalation led by a smaller group of students of the tent encampment that had sprung up on Columbia's campus [abc7ny.com] against the war in Gaza.

Students and their allies barricaded themselves inside the hall with furniture and padlocks in a major escalation of campus protests.

At the request of university leaders, hundreds of officers with the New York Police Department stormed onto campus the following night. Officers carrying zip ties and riot shields poured into the occupied building through a window and arrested dozens of people.

At a court hearing in June, the Manhattan district attorney's office said it would not pursue criminal charges for 31 of the 46 people initially arrested on trespassing charges inside the administration building - but all of the students still faced disciplinary hearings and possible expulsion from the university.

The district attorney's office said at the time that they were dismissing charges against most of those arrested inside the building due in part to a lack of evidence tying them to specific acts of property damage and the fact that none of the students had criminal histories.

More than a dozen of those arrested were offered deals that would have eventually led to the dismissal of their charges, but they refused them, protest organizers said, "in a show of solidarity with those facing the most extreme repression." Most in that group were alumni, but two were current students, prosecutors said.

Back on campus on Thursday night, students at Columbia say they are fully aware what they say on the record can have a lasting impact on their lives, but what they did feel comfortable sharing is that they feel the administration is failing them, and it has made them afraid to speak out.

"Like there has to be some form of consequence. I don't think that anyone should be flat out suspended. It's tricky right?" one student said.

"I wish that the staff was more willing to talk about it, specifically the professors because it feels like there's so much fear from the administration around maybe they're losing their jobs if they speak out about this," another student said.

Meanwhile, earlier on Thursday inside Trump Tower, protesters were arrested [abc7ny.com] after filling the gilded atrium demanding the release of Khalil.

In a new petition seeking his immediate release, Khalil's attorneys said his arrest was a "targeted, retaliatory detention and attempted removal of a student protestor because of his constitutionally protected speech."

His lawyers conceded Khalil is "an outspoken student activist" who called Israel's actions in Gaza "genocide" but said he has been "committed to peaceful protest."

The petition claims the arrest violated Khalil's First and Fifth Amendment rights and the Administrative Procedure Act.

This as the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a federal lawsuit against Columbia and the House of Representatives for calling for the release of thousands of student records as part of an investigation into antisemitism on college campuses.

"Allowing Congress and institutions like Columbia and others to target you or someone else because of a viewpoint you hold is an epic danger to American values," said CAIR NY Executive director Afaf Nesher.

Columbia for its part declined to comment further.

Demonstrators plan to rally again outside the campus gates on Friday in support of Khalil and Palestine.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

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