On Tuesday, October 8, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) released a statement apologizing to organizer Khymani James (CC ’25) for a statement CUAD posted on Instagram in the spring that was an apology on James’ behalf. James was suspended by the University for a resurfaced video where they expressed a call to violence.

Content warning: call to violence, antisemitism, racism, homophobia

On Tuesday, October 8, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) issued a statement apologizing to organizer Khymani James (CC ’25) for a previous Instagram post made in the spring. The post had claimed to apologize on James’ behalf after they were suspended by the University for a resurfaced video in which they called for violence.

Today’s apology to James comes a week after James sued Columbia for its disciplinary actions against him in Spring 2024. In January, James stated in a video call with a Center for Student Success and Intervention (CSSI) official that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” James livestreamed the call on Instagram and later posted the videos as reels on his account. In this livestream, James stated that Columbia Student Success Intervention (CSSI) should be “glad” that he was “not just going out murdering Zionists.” The video resurfaced online in April after James became a Gaza Solidarity Encampment spokesperson and brewed national attention, prompting Columbia to investigate James’s comments. 

James was first at the center of controversy due to their actions in the Encampment. On Sunday, April 21, a viral video of individuals entering the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on campus led to claims of antisemitism in the Encampment after one student demonstrator, later identified as James, asked students to create a “human chain” so that the individuals recording the video, whom James identified as Zionists, “do not pass this point and infringe upon our privacy and try to disrupt our community.” James is currently suspended, according to the lawsuit they filed on September 27. The University cited “disruptive behavior” as grounds for suspension and barred him from entering campus. 

In a since-removed statement posted on CUAD’s Instagram account on Friday, April 26, James is quoted as saying, “What I said was wrong. Every member of our community deserves to feel safe without qualification.” In this statement, James also said that they regretted their earlier words from January and that they had “been feeling unusually upset” at the time of the January video “after an online mob targeted me because I am visibly queer and Black.” Meanwhile, CUAD and the Gaza Solidarity Encampment wrote that James’s words “do not reflect his views, our values, nor the encampment’s community agreements. [CUAD] believes in the sanctity of all life, and believes our work is in changing minds and hearts. We are students with a right to learn and grow.” 

On September 27, James filed a lawsuit against Columbia for issuing him with a temporary suspension based on their “discriminatory remarks,” according to James’ attorney Jonathan Wallace. Wallace accused Columbia of violating James’ rights by suspending him for an issue that had already been resolved and inflicting “severe damage on his education and personal well-being.” Wallace also represented Mohamed Abdou, who was fired in the spring after allegedly sharing “pro-Hamas rhetoric,” according to former President Shafik in Columbia’s congressional hearing on antisemitism. Since then, students have shared an open letter in support of Abdou, claiming his words were taken out of context. 

The lawsuit stated that the University violated James’ rights when it claimed that James “may have violated University policy by posting inappropriate content on social media” while studying abroad in London in Fall 2023. During this time, the lawsuit reports that James was subject to racist and homophobic slurs, allegedly after they shared “anti-war and anti-genocide political beliefs” on Instagram. On April 19, 2023, James was placed on Disciplinary Probation due to allegedly livestreaming their CSSI disciplinary hearing and “show[ing] hostility or aversion toward group members of a protected class.” 

The lawsuit reads “Columbia violated James’ Tedeschi Rights by charging and suspending him for matters that had already been decided.” Tedeschi rights refer to the rights granted to James as a Columbia student as recognized in the case of Tedeschi v. Wagner College. James also alleges that they were only suspended by Columbia due to calls for Columbia to take action against James by a conservative publication, The Daily Wire. Columbia also allegedly bought James a train ticket to Boston for the evening of April 25, 2024 due to conversation held between James and a Columbia dean where concerns were expressed about their safety. 

The lawsuit further alleges that Columbia singled out and scapegoated James due to outside pressures. “The timing and language of the sanction letter makes it clear that Columbia acted in response to external forces and national media attention.” James and his team argue that his Tedeschi rights were violated as Columbia suspended him on matters that were previously resolved. 

In a Tuesday Instagram post, CUAD apologized to James for the since-deleted apology statement that the group released in the spring, explaining that the apology statement “was written by several CUAD organizers, not Khymani, and does not represent Khymani or CUAD’s values or political lines.” The apology condemns the “anti-blackness and anti-queerness that Khymani experienced, and continues to experience, from neo-liberals, neo-liberal media, and fascists.” It states that the CUAD organizers were complicit in this harm by “not maintaining [their] political line, keeping the statement public on our Instagram, and in neglecting the mental and physical safety of Khymani.”

CUAD also apologized to those supportive of Palestinian liberation whom they allegedly “alienated by compromising [their] values and tailoring [their] actions and narrative to the mainstream media.” CUAD’s statement goes on to state, “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” and condemns “pandering to liberal media to make the movement for liberation palatable and digestible.”

James addressed the statement in her X account, writing, “I never wrote the neo-liberal apology posted in late April, and I’m glad we’ve set the record straight once and for all… Anything I said, I meant it.” James also addressed this on her Instagram story, writing “Thank you to my comrades for setting the record straight and posting this beautiful, powerful letter. Long live the resistance.” 

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