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Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace remain suspended as new semester begins

(New York Jewish Week) — When Columbia University suspended its chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace in November, it said they could be reinstated in the spring semester if they show “a commitment to compliance with University policies.”
The new semester began on Tuesday. But the two pro-Palestinian groups remain suspended, the New York Jewish Week has learned.
A university official said the groups have not yet agreed to adhere to university rules that would allow their reinstatement. The official said administration staff had met with representatives from the groups to discuss steps toward ending the suspension.
“The groups would have to agree to fully comply with the university’s long-standing policies and procedures” to regain their recognition, the official told the New York Jewish Week. “If the groups agree to follow these prescribed steps and fully comply with university rules that apply to all student groups, they may be reinstated.”
The official added, “At present, they have not yet committed to doing so and remain suspended.”
The suspensions mean the groups cannot receive university funding or hold authorized events on campus.
The student groups did not respond to requests for comment. In a post Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter, Columbia SJP accused the university of “attempting to intimidate and harass Palestinian students from speaking out about genocide.”
“The more you try to silence us, the louder we will be,” the group said.
The two clubs were suspended as pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activities roiled the campus and universities nationwide, following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. Their suspension marked a significant crackdown on two of Columbia’s most outspoken pro-Palestinian student groups. The university said the two clubs had violated university policies and expressed “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.”
Ahead of the suspension, the two groups held a series of protests and other actions calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas and accusing Israel of “genocide.” Other protests included a “die-in” in front of the school’s Low Library and a demand that Columbia end its dual degree program with Tel Aviv University. SJP also promoted a nine-hour sit-in at the Columbia School of Social Work in violation of school rules.
Columbia’s senior executive vice president and chair of its Special Committee on Campus Safety, Gerald Rosberg, said in November that the decision to suspend the clubs “was made after the two groups repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events.”
The final decision came after the groups held a rally “that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” Rosberg said in a statement.
In response, the two groups said, “You can shut our organizations down, but can’t stop our hearts from beating for liberation, humanity and the freedom of Palestine.”
On Wednesday, a university spokesperson, Samantha Slater, told the New York Jewish Week that the administration hopes “to get the non-complying groups back to working with their official advisers and in compliance with university policy to help keep our campus safe for all.”
Columbia was a focal point for controversy in the weeks after Oct. 7, amid dueling protests for and against Israel and the reported assault of an Israeli student. But the campus has received less attention since the presidents of three other elite universities — Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — gave testimony to Congress last month that the drew the ire of Jewish an other critics. Those university presidents told lawmakers that calling for the genocide of Jews did not necessarily violate university policy, provoking a firestorm of controversy that preceded Penn’s and Harvard’s presidents stepping down.
Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, was invited to appear before Congress at the same hearing, but declined, citing a scheduling conflict. Shafik attended a United Nations climate change conference in Dubai that day.
SJP, whose national umbrella celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7 onslaught against Israel, has been suspended at several schools, including Florida’s public universities, George Washington University and Brandeis University. Columbia’s suspension of JVP appeared to be the first time a university suspended the Jewish anti-Zionist group.
Rutgers University in New Jersey, meanwhile, has reinstated its SJP chapter and put it on a one-year probation, according to the Bergen Record.
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The post Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace remain suspended as new semester begins appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.
The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.
The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.
Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.
Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.
The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”
“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.
Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”
The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.
The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week

Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.
The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes

Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
i24 News – The Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”
The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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