New York, April 30 (RHC)-- Columbia University in New York has begun to suspend students involved in peaceful protests on campus.   The news came late Monday night as the protesters vowed to stay in place until the university agrees to divest from apartheid Israel and denounce the on-going genocidal war against Gaza.  

Student participants were handed notices Monday morning giving them until 2 p.m. to clear the encampment, identify themselves to a University official, and agree to comply with University policy “through June 30, 2025, or the date of the conferral of your degree, whichever is earlier.”  University President Minouche Shafik announced in a Monday e-mail that Columbia “will not divest from Israel” and that negotiators failed to come to an agreement after several days of talks.

The notices stated that students who do not comply would be sanctioned with interim suspension, meaning that they would not have access to any University “campuses, facilities and property, including all academic, residential and recreational spaces.”  Suspended students would be not able to complete the semester or graduate, according to the notices.

“You will need to contact your Dean of Students to make arrangements to obtain your personal belongings,” the notice reads.

Members of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” voted around noon to stay in the encampment, though speakers encouraged “high-risk” members, such as international students on F-1 visas, to leave. Students remained in the encampment as of Monday night.

Columbia previously suspended students involved in the April 17th and 18th encampment, though students suspended at the time were allowed to remain in their individual rooms in their residence halls.  In her letter to the New York Police Department authorizing the April 18th sweep of the encampment, Shafik wrote that all University students remaining on the lawns were suspended, though students were not formally notified of their suspensions until after their arrests.