“If the students want to even see the evidence against them, they have to sign a restrictive privacy agreement, and the OIE has thus far been unwilling to amend or alter the contract in order to make it less restrictive. Essentially this agreement amounts to both a gag order and a contract of adhesion—sign or lose your ability to meaningfully participate in the process.”
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, enacted in 1964 to prevent institutions that engage in discrimination from receiving federal funds, states that “no person shall be subject to discrimination because of race, color, or national origin.” The OIE’s guidelines expand who is protected significantly to cover “citizenship or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity,” as well as “veteran or active military status,” as elements of membership in a “protected class.” In this interpretation, negative statements about Israel, or even membership in the Israeli military, could count as prohibited speech resulting in sanction by the university – even if no specific person is being discriminated against.
As an administrative body run by the university, the OIE has the power to both investigate and render verdicts against students based on its findings. If the OIE finds the student is guilty of discriminatory harassment, the OIE and the dean of the school will then convene separately to determine what type of punishment the student will face—outside of their presence. Students can also be subjected to provisional punishments like withholding of diplomas or suspension from campus before a finding is even made on their case.
The use of the OIE comes at a time when the Trump administration is escalating threats against schools where large protests have been led by students since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza. On Tuesday, Trump posted on Truth Social that, “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”
In addition to creating a mechanism for anonymous complaints about individuals on campus to be submitted, the OIE’s expansive definition of discrimination can also target faculty, staff, and student workers for “failure to report”—meaning that even failing to a report an incident to the OIE that another party later deemed discriminatory could result in disciplinary measures. Students who have been called into hearings with the office say that they have been pressured to give names of other students that the office suspected to be involved in campus protest activity.
Individuals who have had disciplinary records created by the office could also have that information turned over to law enforcement and even the U.S. Congress, which has indicated an interest in regulating pro-Palestinian speech on campus and even seeking deportations and other measures against students who have engaged in speech deemed hostile to Israel. Congress has demanded that schools hand over disciplinary records of students involved in protests, amid growing pressure on schools to comply.
In recent weeks, Columbia has announced the expulsion of a number of students for participating in protests at the school. The expulsions come amid announcements by the Department of Justice’s new task force on antisemitism that it plans to visit Columbia and several other universities that were sites of anti-Israel protest over the past year. That effort has also been supported by private sector actors that have made surveillance and targeting of students over their speech on the subject a priority.
“Anybody can go on the website of the OIE and file a complaint. They can take screenshots of posts from Instagram, photographs of art pieces, submit social media comments out of context, and even quote people without actual proof other than that someone alleges they said something,” added Greer. “We have seen a proliferation of these cases since the OIE office was opened, the complaints are just flooding in.”