Columbia University passed a resolution Friday evening to create a task force responsible for investigating the administration’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests in recent days.
The resolution, with a final vote of 62–14, accused Columbia president Minouche Shafik and the larger administration of violating university protocols, undermining academic freedom, and breaching the privacy and due-process rights of students and faculty members.
Shafik, who has evaded a censure measure so far, is facing pushback from the campus community and public for authorizing police to intervene in the campus protests. Columbia leadership announced on Friday it will not be calling NYPD officers back to campus at this time.
In the past week, pro-Palestinian protesters have been calling on Columbia to cut all financial and academic ties to Israel amid its war with Hamas in Gaza. Upon completion of its investigation, the newly established task force will present its findings and recommend action steps to address the alleged misconduct of university leadership.
Also on Friday, Columbia banned one of its students involved in organizing pro-Palestinian protests on campus, a university spokesperson told National Review.
Khymani James, a student leader in the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) group, gained widespread attention on Thursday after the Daily Wire unearthed a live-streamed video in which he said, “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Notably, James made the fiery comment shortly after a disciplinary hearing with university-conduct officials earlier this year.
A Columbia spokesperson confirmed James was “banned from campus” on Friday, but declined to provide specifics on the forthcoming disciplinary proceedings. It remained unclear whether James was suspended or expelled.
“I want to make clear that calls of violence and statements targeted at individuals based on their religious, ethnic or national identity are unacceptable and violate university policy,” a spokesperson said, according to CNN.
In January, James met with university staff over a late 2023 Instagram story in which he wrote, “Zionists in my dm wanting to meet up and fight lol. I don’t fight to injure or for there to be a ‘winner’/’loser.'”
“I fight to k***,” he wrote. “See yall in New York January 2024.”
In the video posted to social media, James defended his position that all Zionists deserve to die, though he specified he wouldn’t personally kill any.
“There should not be Zionists anywhere,” he told staff. “People who hold those types of ideologies, the world is better without them. That is what my comment is indicative of, and I will stand with that.”
“Zionists don’t deserve to live comfortably, let alone Zionists don’t deserve to live,” the 20-year-old said after the meeting on camera. “The same way we are very comfortable accepting Nazis don’t deserve to live, fascists don’t deserve to live, racists don’t deserve to live, Zionists, they shouldn’t live in this world.”
Hours after the Daily Wire report broke, James apologized for his comments.
“CUAD and the Gaza Solidarity Encampment have made clear that my words in January, prior to my involvement in CUAD, are not in line with the CUAD community guidelines. I agree with their assessment,” James wrote in the apology statement posted to X. “Those words do not represent CUAD. They also do not represent me.”
“I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize,” he added.
James, who describes himself as an “anti-capitalist” and “anti-imperialist” in his X bio, helped set up a pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia amid a renewed wave of antisemitism on elite university campuses across the U.S. Columbia student protesters refused to dismantle their tents on Friday, as negotiations with the administration continued. Shafik initially had multiple deadlines for students to remove the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, but those deadlines have passed.