The activist group that organized mass anti-Israel protests at Columbia University apparently isn’t a fan of the United States, either.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the coalition of 80-plus student groups behind the 2024 pro-Gaza encampment, drew heated condemnation after posting on X the phrase “Marg bar Amrika,” which means “Death to America” in Farsi, the national language of Iran.
The Saturday message, which appeared shortly after the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes on Iran, was deleted the same day, but the group was unrepentant.
“X forced us to delete our ’marg bar amrika’ tweet in order to gain back access to our account but the sentiment still stands,” the group said in a subsequent post. The account has since been removed.
Columbia University emphasized that CUAD is not recognized by the university and condemned the group’s “unequivocally reprehensible language.”
“The group that calls itself ’CUAD’ is not a recognized student group, or affiliated in any way with the University,” the university said Sunday in a statement. “There is no evidence that anyone currently in control of their account is a current Columbia student, staff, or faculty member. They are illegally using the Columbia name.”
The university said that it has referred the matter to law enforcement, adding that Columbia “does not know who comprises or leads this anonymous group.”
The response failed to assuage the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association, which called the situation “absolutely nuts” and demanded that the university fire “every single faculty member associated with CUAD.”
The association said that Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine at Columbia, Barnard and Teachers College, founded in January 2024, “publicly aligned with CUAD from Day 1,” and pointed to a May 2024 letter in support of CUAD signed by 30 faculty members.
Billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, a Harvard University graduate, called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to deport any Columbia students affiliated with the coalition.
“In no world should they be permitted to attend a taxpayer-funded university with their tuition funded with government guaranteed student loans,” Mr. Ackman posted on X.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said it was time to “disband the group, kick the students out of school cutting off any federal help they are getting, deport any of the group who are not American citizens,” as well as “make clear that we will not tolerate people in our country who believe in ’death to America.’”
.@SecRubio, these students should be expelled from @Columbia. And if they are here on visas, deported.
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) March 1, 2026
In no world should they be permitted to attend a taxpayer-funded university with their tuition funded with government guaranteed student loans. https://t.co/NmN7tbFKOd
The university said that it has referred the matter to law enforcement, insisting that Columbia “does not know who comprises or leads this anonymous group.”
“There is no evidence, at this point, that anyone currently in control of this social media account is a Columbia student, staff, or faculty member,” the Columbia statement said.
At one point, however, the group’s most prominent face was Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student who served as the encampment’s spokesperson and negotiator in 2024.
Mr. Khalil, 30, is scheduled to be deported to Algeria after losing his legal fight with the Trump administration over his March 2025 detention and arrest. A judge found that he “misrepresented” information on his green-card application for the “sole purpose of circumventing the immigration process.”
A New York state judge vacated last week the disciplinary measures against 22 students over their involvement in the 2024 pro-Gaza takeover of Hamilton Hall, which included suspensions and expulsions, calling the punishment “arbitrary and capricious.”
Columbia has been blasted over its handling of rising campus antisemitism triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, which prompted Israel to declare war.
The university agreed to pay $221 million to restore its federal research funding after an investigation found that Columbia acted with “deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Columbia announced in January that University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin will be installed as president in July, succeeding acting President Claire Shipman, who took over after the 2024 resignation of Minouche Shafik.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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