Columbia University President Condemns Antisemitism on Campus

Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik told members of Congress on Wednesday the school is doing everything it can to confront antisemitism on campus while trying to balance free-speech rights of students, as demonstrations against Israel and the war in Gaza have escalated at universities around the country.

“Columbia strives to be a community free of discrimination and hate in all its forms and we condemn the antisemitism that is so pervasive today,” Shafik told the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “Antisemitism has no place on our campus and I am personally committed to doing everything I can to confront it directly.”

At the outset of the hearing, committee chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), said that antisemitism has spread across universities around the U.S. and that Columbia University is one of the hotbeds. “Columbia stands guilty of gross negligence, at best, and at worst has become a platform for those supporting terrorism and violence against the Jewish people.”

The hearing comes four months after heated exchanges before same committee prompted the resignations of then-Harvard President Claudine Gay and then-University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill.

That hearing reached a flashpoint when Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) asked each campus leader if student protesters calling for the genocide of Jews violated the codes of conduct at their respective schools. Both responded with some variation of—it depends.

The lawyerly answers sparked a backlash from politicians, alumni and donors. Magill resigned Dec. 9. Gay stepped down a month later following accusations of plagiarism. Of the three university presidents at the hearing that day, only Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sally Kornbluth has retained her position.

Shafik was invited to the Dec. 5 hearing but was speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai. She appeared Wednesday morning with the co-chairs of the school’s board trustees, Claire Shipman and David Greenwald, and David Schizer, a law professor and former dean of Columbia’s law school.

The four elite schools—Harvard, Penn, MIT and Columbia—all had experienced unrest on campus following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. But so had many others. The committee didn’t make clear why it called those four specific schools to testify.

Jewish students at Columbia have alleged incidents of assault, antisemitic graffiti such as swastikas, calls for the destruction of Israel at rallies and speaking invitations from student groups to members of foreign terrorist groups.

Shafik and the other Columbia representatives had the advantages of hindsight and months to prepare but also the added pressure of contending with increased anger at Israel, fueled largely by the growing civilian casualty count in Gaza.

During testimony Wednesday, Shafik and others emphasized the steps the school has taken since Oct. 7 to clamp down on antisemitism. Shafik said the school has revised its policies on student behavior and had suspended 15 students and put six on disciplinary probation for violating them.

They also conceded the school wasn’t prepared to deal with the fallout of the last several months. “I can tell you plainly that I am not satisfied with where Columbia is at the moment,” said Shipman. “The last six months on campus have served as an extreme pressure test. Our systems clearly have not been equipped to manage the unfolding situation.”’

In their questions, some committee members focused on statements by professors attacking Israel, how they were hired and retained in positions of leadership.

Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Mich) singled out Prof. Joseph Massad, who teaches modern Arab politics at Columbia. According to Walberg, Massad called Israelis “cruel and bloodthirsty colonizers” and said the foreigners who join the Israeli military are “baby killing Zionist Jewish volunteers for Israeli Jewish supremacy.”

Prof. Massad didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Stefanik asked whether Massad was still the department chair. “Do you stand behind Professor Mossad remaining Chair of the Academic Review Committee, giving his support for terrorism and harassing Jewish students?” she asked.

Shafik said that many of the faculty were hired before she arrived.

“We have we have mechanisms that are now being enforced, and on my watch, they will be enforced,” she said. “I think many of these appointments were made in the past in a different era.”

Antisemitic activity reported on college and university campuses increased by 321% from 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Students and alumni groups say anti-Jewish antagonism has increased amid the rising tensions, prompting calls for schools to do more to protect Jewish students from bigotry.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations reported a 56% increase in anti-Muslim incidents, the highest in its 30 year history.

Palestinian advocates say Columbia has been heavy handed in dealing with them—including suspending pro-Palestinian student groups. Across the country advocates for Palestinians say schools are infringing on their speech rights for expressing their anger at Israel as the death toll in Gaza rises.

This month Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in Geneva, N.Y., temporarily removed a tenured professor from the classroom because of a recent blog post she wrote celebrating Palestinian resistance on Oct. 7, when militants killed 1,200 Israelis.

On Monday the University of Southern California cancelled its valedictorian’s speech, to be given by a pro-Palestinian Muslim woman, citing security after she posted views opponents called antisemitic and anti-Zionist.

Testimony on Capitol Hill coincided with rallies around the country organized by local chapters of the American Association of University Professors.

Irene Mulvey, president of the AAUP said faculty members around the country are fearful that congressional interference with university conduct runs the risk of infringing on free speech and compromising the academic freedom of professors. Those safeguards for faculty have helped make American universities the envy of the world, she said.

Mulvey called the Dec. 5 hearings a “performative spectacle” organized by conservative politicians who are trying to interfere in campus affairs to achieve political advantage. “This is McCarthyism 2.0,” she said. “Instead of going after Hollywood, partisan actors in the government are going after higher education.”

The House committee has cast a wider net since its first hearing. It held a roundtable with Jewish students from nine schools in February, and in recent weeks sent letters requesting information on how the University of California, Berkeley, and Rutgers University have handled antisemitic incidents on their campuses.

A representative from Berkeley didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway said in a letter last week to the committee that the school “remains committed to creating and maintaining a community that embraces our shared humanity,” and has worked to respond to all reported incidents of antisemitism, including with increased police patrols. He said the school produced 44,000 pages of documents in response to the committee’s inquiry.

Leaders of public-school districts in New York City, Berkeley and Montgomery County, Md., are expected to testify at a hearing on antisemitism in K-12 education next month.

Write to Douglas Belkin at [email protected]

Melissa Korn contributed to this article.