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A handful of alumni from Columbia University’s school of international and public affairs (Sipa) ripped their diplomas in a show of protest against the federal government’s jailing of graduate student Mahmoud Khalil’s over his activism for Palestinians.
On Saturday, instead of participating in the university’s annual Sipa alumni day, a few dozen alumni and students gathered outside campus as part of a protest organized by Sipa’s and Barnard Alumni for Palestine groups.
The groups wrote on Instagram: “Join us March 29th at 1pm to PROTEST SIPA Alumni Day and demand justice for our community. Mahmoud Khalil – our colleague, our classmate, our friend – was unjustly arrested with the active complicity of Sipa’s administration, which has chosen surveillance and collaboration with federal agencies and law enforcement over protecting its students.”
Outside of campus Saturday, several alumni held their diplomas while others held signs that read “Shame on SIPA”.
Speaking at the protest, Amali Tower, a 2009 Sipa alum, ripped her diploma and said: “It’s not easy to do this, with none of us doing this lightly. There’s no joy in this.”
Tower went on to add: “I’m not a proud alumni at all, and instead I want to stand with the students, and I want to stand with Palestinians, and I want to stand with immigrants who are being rounded up and harassed, oppressed and deported as we speak.”
Another student, Hannah, who only provided her first name to media outlets due to concerns for her safety, also ripped her diploma and said: “I’m here today because I’m Jewish, and my Jewish beliefs tell me to show up for communities that are being oppressed, that are being targeted.”
She criticized the university’s former president Minouche Shafik who oversaw the police crackdowns on student protesters in the spring of 2024, as well as Shafik’s successors Katrina Armstrong and incoming president, Claire Shipman.
“I think Minouche Shafik did an awful job. I think the interim president Armstrong did an awful job,” Hannah said. “I think Shipman is going to do an awful job because they’re not listening to their students. They’re listening to the board of trustees.”
Jasmine Sarryeh, a current student at Sipa and a friend of Khalil’s, said: “Students are terrified to set foot on campus. I’m one of them, so just the fact that I’m here is scary because [of] the way that our colleagues have disappeared.”
She added: “Mahmoud is a very loved community member, and the fact that he was taken away from his eight months’ pregnant wife and from all of us here at Sipa is devastating.
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“It’s hard to go to class, it’s hard to come here and not think of him.”
Saturday’s protest from Sipa alumni and students came amid a slew of detentions of students across the US by federal immigration authorities over their Palestinian activism. Among them are Khalil, who held permanent residency and was arrested in front of his pregnant wife, Noor, a US citizen, earlier in March.
Other students detained by immigration officials include Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, after the department of homeland security (DHS) accused him of having ties to Hamas.
Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents and federal prosecutors revoked the permanent residency – or green card – of Yunseo Chung, another student at Columbia University, earlier in March after her participation in anti-war demonstrations. A federal judge blocked immigration officials from detaining Chung as she filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump’s administration, accusing it of using “immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike”.
