While most Columbia grads celebrated Alumni Day on Saturday, some chose the moment to rip their diplomas into pieces, destroying their parent’s investments of approximately $100,000 to $300,000 per graduate.

All meaninglessly in protest of the war in Gaza.

Throughout the afternoon demonstration, organized by the newly formed SIPA Alumni for Palestine group, protesters hoisted signs and chanted “Free Palestine” and “Free Mahmoud Khalil,” adding to the months of disruptive anti-Israel rallies that have plagued Columbia’s campus since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.

“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 addressed the crowd before dramatically tearing her master’s degree into shreds outside Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus.

“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.”

Khalil, a Columbia graduate student and green card holder known for his deep involvement in anti-Israel demonstrations, was arrested by ICE agents at his university-owned apartment on March 8. He’s currently detained in a Louisiana facility awaiting deportation proceedings.

On Friday, interim president Katrina Armstrong stepped down just days after striking a deal to restore over $430 million in federal funding that had been frozen by the Trump administration as part of its crackdown on rampant antisemitism. She’ll be replaced by Claire Shipman, former White House correspondent and board co-chair, making her Columbia’s third president in a year after Minouche Shafik resigned last June.

Shafik was under constant fire for her failure to address the mob of anti-Israel “activists” organized by the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP). It came as a shock to many that after calling on the NYPD twice to disperse the illegal encampment, she subsequently requested that they stay on campus for the next month.

According to the Washington Post, NSJP organizers sought guidance for months from former members of the Black Panthers. The students were allegedly shown cartoons that provided suggestions for “non-violent” resistance such as throwing smoke bombs, jumping over barriers, and lifting garbage cans.