Education
Columbia University alumni rip up their diplomas in protest of school and leadership

Instead of joining in Columbia University’s annual “Alumni Day” celebrations for the School of International and Public Affairs, several alumni gathered to denounce the school by ripping up their diplomas in protest.
The protest follows the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), a Palestinian activist and a green card holder. Khalil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at his university-owned apartment on March 8.
The demonstration was organized by SIPA Alumni for Palestine and began with a group of alumni and current student speakers, a few dozen people chanting and then a collective ripping of diplomas.
“It’s not easy to do this, with none of us doing this lightly. There’s no joy in this,” said Amali Tower, a 2009 SIPA graduate who spoke at the protest.
Tower said as an immigrant who experienced displacement, she had to fight hard to get her master’s in international affairs at Columbia.
“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,” she said.

Columbia University did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Saturday’s protest.
The protesters held up signs and chanted “Free Palestine” and “Free Mahmoud Khalil” throughout the afternoon.
Khalil’s lawyers say he is currently being detained in a facility in Louisiana.
The Trump administration said it wants to deport Khalil because of his role in the pro-Palestinian protests on campus and accused him of being a threat to foreign policy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this is just the beginning for him and Trump, who intend to continue targeting protesters who hold student visas.
“Once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legal in the United States. And we have a right, like every country in the world has a right, to remove you from our country,” Rubio said this week.
“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa,” Rubio said.
Khalil’s detention and the protests have occurred as Columbia is dealing with another leadership shake-up.
On Friday, the school announced that its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, had stepped aside to return to the school’s Irving Medical Center. The move comes a week after the school agreed to a deal with the Trump administration to negotiate the restoration of its federal funding.
Armstrong is being replaced by Claire Shipman, who is the co-chair of the board of trustees, making her the third university president in less than a year. Shipman is a former White House correspondent for NBC News, CNN and ABC News.
She testified before Congress last Spring during a hearing about the university’s efforts to combat antisemitism.
“It’s another figurehead that the Board of Trustees is going to use to do their bidding. I don’t think it matters,” Hannah, a 2024 alumna, said at Saturday’s protest.
She did not give her last name out of fear for her safety.
“I think Minouche Shafik did an awful job. I think the interim President Armstrong did an awful job. 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,” she added.
Hannah also ripped up her diploma.
“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 said.
Columbia is not the only school that has had students detained. Foreign-born students at Tufts University, Georgetown University and the University of Minnesota have been taken into federal custody.
Some current students at the Columbia University protest Saturday said they have lost faith in their school.
“Students are terrified to set foot on campus. I’m one of them, so just the fact that I’m here is scary because the way that our colleagues have disappeared,” Jasmine Sarryeh said.
Sarryeh is studying for a masters of public affairs at SIPA and is friends with Khalil.
“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,” she said. “It’s hard to go to class, it’s hard to come here and not think of him.”
Sarryeh said she has also lost faith in the value of the education she’s getting from Columbia.
“Columbia University used to be a bastion of freedom of speech and academic freedom, and it’s headed in a really dangerous direction,” she said. “And if they don’t start standing up for Mahmoud and all the protesters that were basically enacting their constitutional freedom of speech and right to freedom of assembly, that will set them down a very dark path that I hope the university doesn’t go down.”
Education
Trump administration revokes visas of 10 Colorado international students, universities say

Several international students at Colorado universities have had their visas revoked by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the universities.
Between the University of Colorado and Colorado State University, 10 students have had their F-1 visa, which allows foreign students to study at universities in America, rescinded as of Tuesday evening.
The University of Colorado said four international students were impacted. Meanwhile, six students at Colorado State University had their visas terminated, according to the school.
“We are focused on supporting the success of all of our students, including international students. Each one of our students are seeking to advance their careers and the lives of their families, and we understand the anxieties that visa revocations cause to impacted students,” the University of Colorado said in a statement.
The school added, “We urge any international student with questions or concerns to reach out to their campus’ international student office.”
Colorado State University said the “affected students are advised to immediately contact the embassy of their home country” and “we are working with our state and federal elected officials to ensure that our students are informed of all their options.”
The universities declined to provide additional information or the students’ identity, citing privacy reasons.
The revocation of nearly a dozen visas in Colorado comes after a wave of high-profile arrests of international students across the country in March. The Trump administration has justified its decision to deport the students based on a provision in immigration law. It allows the secretary of state to deport someone if it is determined that the person “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
In March, Mahmoud Khalil, a student who took part in the protests at Columbia University, was apprehended by federal immigration officials in New York for allegedly leading activities “aligned to Hamas,” which the United States has designated a terrorist organization.
Another student at Tufts University, Rumeysa Ozturk, was grabbed off the street by federal officers in plain clothes while on her way to break her Ramadan fast with friends over allegations that she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”
A year ago, Ozturk co-wrote a student newspaper op-ed criticizing the university’s response to demands that it “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.”
Authorities also detained Badar Khan Suri, a graduate student from India, who was teaching at Georgetown University on a student visa.
Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and had “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”
Khalil, Ozturk and Suri do not face known criminal charges.
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the State Department had revoked 300 or more student visas.
“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” he said. “I think it’s crazy to invite students into your country that are coming onto your campus and destabilizing it. We’re just not going to have it. So we’ll revoke your visa.”
Rubio added, “Once your visa is revoked, you’re illegally in the country and you have to leave.”
Education
Nashville school shooter sought fame in 2023 attack that left 6 dead, report finds

The 28-year-old who fatally shot six people at a Tennessee Christian school was primarily motivated by “notoriety” in the planned 2023 attack, police concluded in a final investigative report released on Wednesday.
Audrey Hale “bore no grudge against the school or staff” of The Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023, when three 9-year-olds and a trio of adults were killed, according to the 48-page Metropolitan Nashville Police Department report.
“In short, the motive determined over the course of the investigation was notoriety,” investigators concluded after two years of examining how and why Hale opened fire that day.
Hale was killed by responding police officers inside the school.
“Hale longed for her name and actions to be remembered long after she was dead. She wanted absolute control of the narrative surrounding the attack, particularly her motives,” the report states.
“She saw herself as a victim in the attack, and even though at times she saw herself equal to those she would kill, there were occasions she considered herself to be ‘the true victim’ in the attack.”
Police detailed Hale’s minute-by-minute actions that day when she left her house at 8 a.m. CDT and went to a gun range, carrying “a duffle bag and backpack, which contained three different firearms, ammunition, and equipment.”
After loading weapons and donning a tactical vest, Hale arrived at the school at 9:53 a.m. and “remained inside her vehicle for the next several minutes and sent a goodbye message to her friend.” Hale used an AR pistol to blast into the school at 10:10 a.m. and killed custodian Mike Hill a minute later. Hale then killed students Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs and substitute Cynthia Peak at 10:12 a.m.The first 911 calls from staff were made at 10:13 a.m. at about the same time headmaster Katherine Koonce left her office to investigate a fire alarm, set off by the smoke of Hale’s shooting. Koonce was killed a minute later.Nashville police arrived at 10:19 a.m. and Hale reached a second-floor lobby minutes later to see responding officers pulling into the parking lot. Hale “took up a firing position at the window and opened fire on the officers exiting their vehicles, forcing them to take cover.” That gunfire helped officers identify Hale’s location and upon “finding her in the second-floor lobby firing upon police officers, they shot and killed her” at 10:24 p.m.
Police credited school staff and students for quickly hiding in rooms to prevent even more bloodshed.
“Despite all her research, she never realized schools have developed active killer response plans, which include them barricading within classrooms in a manner which would make it difficult for her to kill others,” the report said. “Once she failed to find easy targets, she appeared to wander the hallways of the building, angry and confused about her lack of success in meeting her goals.”
Police spent the last two years talking to school staff and those close to Hale in addition to poring over the shooter’s devices, writings and online activity.
Hale was fascinated by mass shootings, none more than the attack at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Fourteen people were killed when two students stormed the school near Denver on April 20, 1999, a massacre that has inspired a wave of copycat school shootings.
Shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed themselves at the scene of what was then the deadliest K-12 shooting in U.S. history.
“Yet even though she reviewed information for every mass killing she could find regardless of their motives or the targets they selected, she kept returning to Columbine as her true source of inspiration,” according to the police report.
“She did extensive research into the offenders, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and considered them worthy of emulation. She focused on how their documented mental health history and societal views were similar to her own and how the notoriety they achieved following their deaths led them to becoming ‘gods.’ ”
Hale appeared to be a happy middle school student but struggled transitioning to high school and college as old friends developed new interests and social sets, police said.
At the urging of a therapist, Hale began keeping a journal in 2017, which eventually helped police understand the shooter’s state of mind.
“From 2018 forward, she began to insert her anger more and more into each entry,” police said. “She began to write ‘rage storms,’ which consisted of long, expletive-filled entries devoted to topics that greatly angered her.”
After the shootings, officers found several stuffed animals in the front seat of Hale’s car.
Police would later conclude that those toys might have been, in Hale’s viewpoint, the shooter’s only trusted pals.
“Her isolation and loneliness led Hale to begin believing the only true friends she could confide in were her stuffed animals, who she felt would never abandon her,” police said.
“She assigned them names and personalities, took them with her whenever she travelled, and began creating cartoons and digital media, including stories where they demonstrated some of the same emotions she felt.”
Education
A trans teacher in Texas resigns after being targeted by conservatives online

A transgender teacher in Texas resigned on Monday, less than a week after a state lawmaker called for her to be fired over a social media video in which she talks about feeling supported by her students.
“I am heartbroken,” said Rosie Sandri, who taught sophomore English at Red Oak High School, just south of the Dallas metro area, for three years. She said she has wanted to be a teacher since she was 5 years old. “When I signed that resignation, it felt like my dream was being taken away from me.

Sandri, 33, came out as a trans woman about seven months ago and said her colleagues at school and the Red Oak Independent School District were very supportive. She said she never got up in front of her class and came out, but instead just started dressing differently. When students noticed and asked if they should call her by a different name or use different pronouns, she told them they could call her “whatever they were comfortable with.”
She did tell them that she preferred she/her pronouns, but added, “If you don’t agree with that, or you feel uncomfortable with that, you’re not going to hurt my feelings by calling me whatever you want.”
After she came out, Sandri started sharing videos of her experiences as a trans woman and teacher on TikTok. She said she filmed some of the videos in her classroom after school hours. She had about 150 followers prior to last week.
Last Wednesday, the social media account Libs of TikTok, which has millions of followers and singles out LGBTQ people and their employers for promoting inclusivity, shared one of Sandri’s TikTok videos in which she talks about gender euphoria, or the positive feelings trans people experience when their gender identity and expression align.
“At school today, I’m surrounded by kids, I teach sophomores, and I have these 15-, 16-year-olds who are completely on board, who when I told them I had changed my pronouns, jumped right into it,” Sandri said in the March 18 video. “They call me ‘ma’am.’ They call me ‘Miss.’ They use my correct pronouns and know my correct name, and it is incredibly affirming.”
In its post about Sandri, Libs of TikTok used her previous legal name, a practice called “deadnaming” that is widely considered offensive among the trans community, and also misgendered her and asked, “Would you feel comfortable with this person teaching your kid?” The account also shared a screenshot of one of Sandri’s posts about the different kinds of LGBTQ Pride flags, saying she was “pushing” the content on her public TikTok where students can follow her.
State Rep. Brian Harrison, who represents Red Oak, where the school is located, shared Libs of TikTok’s post on X and demanded that Sandri be “immediately terminated.”
“Public schools (and the property taxes that fund them) are for education … not leftist indoctrination!” Harrison said.
Chaya Raichik, the far-right activist who runs the Libs of TikTok account, did not return a request for comment.
Harrison said he is “proud to have helped deliver this victory to protect Texas students.”
“Public schools are for education, not indoctrination,” he said in an emailed statement. “Any teacher who claims to get ‘gender euphoria’ from their minor students and teaches them that boys can become girls should be terminated immediately.”
Sandri said she never taught her students about transitioning, and Harrison did not return a request for additional comment about whether he believes trans educators are teaching their students about transitioning just by being openly transgender.
Sandri said that she was out sick last Wednesday, when Libs of TikTok initially shared her video, but that she started receiving threats and harassment to her personal and school email accounts and on social media shortly after.
That same day, she said, she called the human resources department at Red Oak Independent School District, and the deputy superintendent told her the school had received threats as well. She said the deputy superintendent told her she would be placed on administrative leave for two days while the school investigated.
On Monday, she said she came to an agreement with the school that she would resign. She said that she can’t discuss the details of the conversation as part of the agreement, and that the school didn’t tell her she had violated any policy.
In an email sent to school staff Monday and obtained by NBC News, Beth Trimble, the chief communications officer for the district, reminded educators of the district’s social media policy.
“Your freedom of speech is not free of consequences if it results in a disruption of your ability to do your job,” the email said. It also directed staff to refrain from posting during school and work hours.
In an email to NBC News, Trimble said the message sent to staff on Monday was not related to Sandri’s resignation. She did not answer questions about whether Sandri violated any of the district’s policies, Sandri’s account of events or whether the school asked Sandri to resign.
“I decided yesterday that my best option was to resign for the safety of myself and even for the safety of the school,” Sandri said, adding that she doesn’t hold any ill will against the school or district, which were supportive throughout her transition.
“I was out [as transgender] for seven months, and parents, staff, admin, nobody had a problem,” she said. “I wasn’t causing a disruption. It was not people in the school or directly in the community that were causing a problem. It was these outside people.”
Libs of TikTok has repeatedly posted about teachers who have shared LGBTQ-inclusive content on social media, igniting harassment against those teachers and their schools. Last year, an Oklahoma teacher who performed in drag outside of work resigned after Libs of TikTok posted about him and the local superintendent subsequently called for him to be fired.
Monday, March 31, the day Sandri resigned, was coincidentally Trans Day of Visibility, an annual awareness day dedicated to celebrating trans people’s accomplishments and acknowledging the violence and discrimination the community faces. It was Sandri’s first Trans Day of Visibility as an out trans woman.
People who said their children were in Sandri’s class commented on her post about her resignation saying they supported her. One person said Sandri was one of her son’s favorite teachers.
Sandri said she’s unsure whether she’ll be able to get another job as a teacher in Texas due to Harrison’s post and the public attention she’s received. As a result, she said she’s considering taking legal action against Libs of TikTok and people she said disparaged her and threatened the school. Libs of TikTok posted about Sandri’s resignation, calling it a “big win.”
“My message to Libs of TikTok is, ‘You picked the wrong one,’” Sandri said. “The whole community stands behind me, and they don’t care, and I am lucky enough to have that privilege that a lot of trans people don’t have. So my message to everyone is, ‘Don’t just make this about me. Go out there and help the trans people and the LGBTQIA community, because there are Black and brown trans people, there are trans youth, there are gay and lesbian people who are having their right to marriage threatened right now. Go out there and help these people.”
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