NEW YORK – A federal judge on Thursday ordered Columbia University and Bernard University to refrain from responsibly asking a Republican-led House committee on student disciplinary records until at least next week, Mahmoud Khalil and other students hold a hearing in pursuit of a temporary restraining order.
Halil, a graduate student at Columbia University, filed a lawsuit earlier this month, seeking to block school boards and labor for students involved in the demonstration from obtaining disciplinary records, along with other students who have been arrested for their role in the campus protest against Israel and faced deportation and were identified by pseudonyms.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian set up a hearing in Tuesday's case.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan against the school, the committee and its chairman, the Michigan Republican Speaker, seeks a permanent injunction that prohibits lawmakers from forcing schools to comply with records and universities to demand.
The committee last month sent a letter requesting Columbia and Bernard provide record or billions of dollars in risk for federal funding.
The judge's order includes $400 million that Columbia has already retracted allegations this week that it failed to protect students and staff from anti-Semitism amid the wave of Palestinian protests as it is facing a deadline from the Trump administration and is now complying with cleaning requests to receive federal funds.
This list includes overhauls admission policies, placing research sectors in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa under academic reception for at least five years, adopting a new definition of anti-Semitism.
On Thursday, a group of Colombian history professors wrote to school leaders, urging them to reject “authoritarian” efforts to control the university.
“If this control was realized here or elsewhere, it would make real historical scholarships, education and intellectual community impossible,” the professor wrote in a letter shared on social media. They argued that the administration's intervention “has puts the ability to be honest about the past, present and future.”
Scholars also gave the letter a brief historical lesson, noting past struggles against academic freedom in schools, including those who were fired from teachers during World War I and students who were expelled after leading anti-Naggy protests in 1936. However, they warned that this latest fight was “fundamentally different” from these previous conflicts.
When asked to comment on the professor's letter, Columbia University officials mentioned the statement Posted on Wednesday By Katrina Armstrong, the school's president.
In it, Armstrong said the school would “continue a constructive dialogue with federal regulators,” including efforts to address anti-Semitism, harassment and discrimination, but “does not waver from the value of academic freedom and free expression that has guided the institution for the past 270 years.”
“We can ask justified questions about our practices and progress, and we can answer them. But we never compromise on the value of educational independence, our commitment to academic freedom, or our obligation to follow the law,” she wrote.
