Columbia indefinitely suspends students after an anti-Israel event featuring a speaker with links to terrorism

Columbia University has indefinitely suspended four students after they took part in an anti-Israel event last month that featured a speaker who was "known to support terrorism."

The event, known as "Resistance 101," took place on March 24 at a "campus residential facility." Fox News Digital reported that the "university had already barred" such an event twice in the past, according to Columbia University President Minouche Shafik.

"It featured speakers who are known to support terrorism and promote violence. I want to state for the record that this event is an abhorrent breach of our values," Shafik said.

The event reportedly featured Khaled Barakat, who is an alleged member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is a terrorist organization located in Gaza and the West Bank. However, Barakat has denied any affiliation with the terrorist organization, according to the Columbia Spectator.

Following the event, Shafik wrote: “I did not become a university president to punish students. At the same time, actions like this on our campus must have consequences. That I would ever have to declare the following is in itself surprising, but I want to make clear that it is absolutely unacceptable for any member of this community to promote the use of terror or violence.”

Shafik also noted that the university is in the process of identifying students who were involved in a Thursday "All Out for Al-Shifa" solidarity protest. The event was reportedly organized by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers.

The students who were involved "will face discipline under our policies," Shafik said.

During the "All Out for Al-Shifa" event, one student said: "Columbia is making us homeless, taking away our campus jobs, our sole source of income, taking away our scholarships, our access to dining halls, our access to classrooms and education that we have earned."

Instead of taking responsibility for breaking the rules on the university campus, the same student said: "I stand before you today as one of the six Columbia students unjustly and inhumanely suspended from Columbia as of 8 p.m. last night."

“I received 24-hour notice that I, a full-scholarship, federal-work-study receiving student with disabilities and housing accommodation, will be evicted from my University housing. This was all done with no hearing and no semblance of due process. Shame on Columbia.”

The Columbia Spectator reported that Chief Operating Officer Cas Halloway said the university "engaged an outside firm led by experienced former law enforcement investigators to conduct an investigation" into the "Resistance 101" event.

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