Columbia Cuts Due Process for Student Protesters After Congress Demands Harsher Punishment

In early August, Columbia University told Congress that most of the students arrested in the past year for protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza would be allowed to return to campus for the fall.

Then a congressional inquiry applied pressure. Last week, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which has been conducting an inquiry into Columbia’s handling of the protests since this spring, published a letter blasting the school for not punishing students harshly enough and issued a subpoena for internal records.

Now dozens of student protesters have received notices that their cases are being fast-tracked to university disciplinary hearings, short-circuiting Columbia’s own investigation process. Scheduled interviews with students have been canceled, and cases are moving directly to the University Judicial Board, which can expel or otherwise punish students, according to an email reviewed by The Intercept.