Khymani James made national headlines when video surfaced of him telling Columbia University officials that "Zionists don’t deserve to live." With that, James became the most infamous anti-Semitic student protester in the country.
Columbia said in April that it was banning James, who told his social media followers to be "grateful" that he was not "murdering Zionists," from its Morningside Heights campus. It announced an "interim suspension" and indicated disciplinary proceedings are underway.
"We initiated disciplinary proceedings which encompass this and additional potential violations of university policies," a Columbia spokesman said in April.
Now, as students prepare for the fall semester, the university won’t say whether James will be among them, telling the Washington Free Beacon in a policy that officials appear to abide by selectively that the school does not "comment on individual cases due to privacy concerns." A Columbia spokeswoman did not respond to a request for an explanation given that the school provided comment on James’s case just months ago.
But signs indicate that James, who served as a leader of the unlawful tent encampment that disrupted university life at the close of the last academic year, is poised to return to campus.
He is listed as a Columbia College student in the school’s online directory and retains an active university email. By contrast, the trio of deans who resigned last week after a Free Beacon report exposed their anti-Semitic text exchanges no longer appear there.
Columbia is bracing for a fresh round of protests this fall and, officials announced a campus lockdown on Monday in preparation for students’ return to campus. The university’s silence on James’s high-profile case comes as it drags out disciplinary proceedings for students involved in the occupation of a campus building, Hamilton Hall, and the weeks-long encampment that preceded it.
Columbia said in April that the students who occupied the building would "face expulsion." But their disciplinary hearings were put on hold in May when the university senate raised concerns about the proceedings, citing a lack of due process in the body adjudicating them.
Most students have since had their cases transferred to a separate body, the University Judicial Board, that provides more protections for the accused. It is not clear when the cases will be resolved.
The delays suggest that the school may follow the lead of other universities, including Harvard, that promised stiff penalties for protesters but softened the sanctions under pressure.
James has now outlasted three top-level Columbia administrators—Susan Chang-Kim, Cristen Kromm, and Matthew Patashnick—who exchanged crude and caustic text messages during a panel on anti-Semitism in late May. Those messages, which suggested the concerns of Jewish students had been overhyped due to "$$$$," "touched on ancient antisemitic tropes," Columbia president Minouche Shafik said last month. A fourth participant in the exchange, Columbia College dean Josef Sorett, has been allowed to remain in his post.
While James did not participate in the occupation of Hamilton Hall, he was a major organizer of the encampment and briefly served as a spokesman for Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
After the inflammatory video made national headlines, he stepped down from his public-facing duties and the student group shared a statement on his behalf. In the statement, James blamed "far right agitators" for taking the video out of context.
"Khymani’s words in January do not reflect his views, our values, nor the encampment’s community agreements," the group said. "We are students with a right to learn and grow. In the same way, some of us were once Zionists and are now anti-Zionists, we believe unlearning is always possible and that no human being is static."
Mahmoud Khalil, another spokesman and student negotiator with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, told the Hill that students have been hard at work in preparation for the upcoming semester and will continue to push Columbia to divest from Israel by "any available means necessary."
"And we’ve been working all this summer on our plans, on what’s next to pressure Columbia to listen to the students and to decide to be on the right side of history," said Khalil.
"We’re considering a wide range of actions, throughout the semester, encampments and protests and all of that," he added. "But for us, encampment is now our new base."
Criminal charges against Columbia students arrested for occupying Hamilton Hall were dropped by the Manhattan district attorney’s office in June. The prosecutor on the case argued that the defendants should not face criminal penalties, as they would be subject to internal discipline at Columbia.
Since being barred from campus, James has maintained a low profile. In May, however, he broke his silence by releasing a new rap song on Spotify, where he describes himself as a "new artist with playful sounds, witty bars, and lots of punchlines."
James, who did not respond to a request for comment, took physical action against "Zionists" as an encampment organizer. At the height of the Columbia encampment, in April, he mobilized participants to remove "Zionists" who he said entered the space.
"Repeat after me! We have Zionists! Who have entered the camp!" James chanted. He led students in forming a "human chain" to slowly push the "Zionists" out of the area.
'We have Zionists who have entered the camp" — Columbia students eject Jews from the quad pic.twitter.com/rdNjbR5zxx
— Luke Tress (@luketress) April 22, 2024