Columbia student banned from campus after remarks about 'murdering Zionists'

The Columbia University student who discussed "murdering Zionists" was "banned from campus" Friday, according to a university spokesperson.

Junior Khymani James expressed "regret" early Friday after he went viral online for previously suggesting people should be "grateful" he wasn't "murdering Zionists," whom he likened to "White supremacists" and "Nazis."

Without explicitly mentioning what they were, James copped to inflammatory comments that were first reported by The Daily Wire, during a livestream of an official Columbia inquiry in January.

"I actually kind of hope they do kick me out because I've been meaning to travel to South America," James said of whether he would remain on as a student at Columbia during the livestream. 

University sources told Fox News Digital disciplinary proceedings are now underway.

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Before the news James was banned, Columbia put out a campus update calling the video "extremely alarming and upsetting."

"Calls of violence and statements targeted at individuals based on their religious, ethnic, or national identity are unacceptable and violate university policy," the statement said. "When there are violations of student conduct policies, they are reviewed and disciplinary measures are applied."

"What is a Zionist? A White supremacist," James said in the resurfaced video.

"Be grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists," he said at another point. "I've never hurt anyone in my life, and I hope to keep it that way." 

"So let's be very clear here," James, now 20, also said in the video montage compiled by The Daily Wire. "I'm not saying that I'm going to go out and start killing Zionists. What I'm saying is that if an individual that identifies as a Zionist threatens my physical safety in person, i.e., puts their hands on me, I am going to defend myself. And in that scenario, it may come to a point where I don't know when to stop." 

In a speech to the camera, James said Zionists should "not exist."

"I feel very comfortable, very comfortable, calling for those people to die," James said at the time. "And with that being said, Khymani is signed out."

James was recently quoted in outlets such as CBS News and The New York Times as a spokesman for the anti-Israel protests at Columbia. In 2021, he was profiled in the Boston Globe at age 17 about his "confrontational" approach to fighting "injustice." 

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In a statement released to X Thursday, James expressed "regret" for some of the rhetoric in his video but also complained that "far right agitators" discovered his language in the first place.

"What I said was wrong," James wrote. "Every member of our community deserves to feel safe without qualification. I also want people to have more context for my words, which I regret. Far right agitators went through months of my social media feed until they found a clip that they edited without context."

"I am frustrated that words I said in an Instagram Live video have become a distraction from the movement for Palestinian liberation. I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize," James wrote. 

James had also claimed that Zionists have a hateful ideology, likening them to "Nazis." 

"There should not be Zionists anywhere. Zionists or Nazis," James said. 

"And so if we can agree as a society, as a collective, that people, that people, that persons, some persons, need to die if they have an ideology that results in the death of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, if there are people like that who exist, shouldn't they die?"

"Why would we want people who are supporters of genocide to live? I'm confused!" James said. 

"Zionists, along with all White supremacists, need to not exist, because they actively kill and harm vulnerable people," James said. "They stop the world from progressing." 

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Fox News' Jeffery Clark and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.