Columbia’s Hillel Exec. Dir. on pro-Palestinian protests

Do you think there is a a double standard when it comes to calls for violence or I don’t know how to put ostracization, ostracizing of Jewish students versus any other minority group. I think a lot of people were surprised, for example, to find out that that student who had said or I guess former student now who had said that Zionists don’t deserve to live. That those quotes were made in in months ago, I think in January in a conference call or a Zoom meeting with college administrators that they, meaning the student, simultaneously live streamed on on Instagram. I mean that I I was surprised to hear that because I would think anybody saying that any group of people based on their ideology don’t deserve to live would be a A1 way ticket back home for any student. But apparently that didn’t offend the University disciplinary committee or whomever they were talking to. Yeah, I think to some degree there’s a double standard, but there’s also a long history at Columbia of not wanting to discipline students for any reason. The University Senate, which is a a a body primarily of faculty members has been very hesitant to move forward with any type of adjudication process against our our students. We know that the faculty make everything incredibly difficult. What we’re seeing today on campus is the addition of the union being present and you know the large numbers that are surrounding the encampment are primarily from the union, But it’s the faculty who have nothing to lose. These tenured faculty who think that they’re not going to get fired, they’re not going to be suspended. And it’s these poor students who are out there who are inspired by their professors and risk being suspended and and eventually potentially expelled from Columbia University. Which faculty members are you specifically talking about? I I’m not getting into into names but but there you can see repeatedly on on on Twitter, on on PBS on on in their articles these are professors who have indicated publicly that Israelis don’t belong on campus that there is no place. Well I I’m about to say what few at the university are willing to the Israeli community. At Columbia University students, faculty, staff is incredibly important. We appreciate them. We love them. We admire them and they make Columbia University a better place. Do you have confidence in President Shafiq, the president of Columbia University to handle this campus and provide a safe environment for all students to learn as well as exercising their First Amendment rights? Jake. Yeah. This is goes way beyond President Shafiq. I had been sending messages to the administration, the entire senior administration at Columbia University since October 7th. It it was easy to see what would transpire. Anyone with any familiarity of the student activists on campus knew what would happen if the rules were not set, they were not clarified, and if they were not enforced. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing today. Do you think of the rules had been enforced? In other words, peaceful protest, but not protest. That goes into hate speech and not protest. That becomes, I guess, what the college considers trespassing. Do you think if those rules had been set early, things would be different on campus right now? Yeah. Well, what we asked the university to do from the very beginning was was twofold. One, to set the rules and two was to meet regularly, engage with the students who are impacted on all sides. We asked the university leadership to meet with Israeli students as well as students from Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. Not only would that be the right thing to do to say what do you need from us, but my hope was that if they met early and often there would be some accountability to our students. If they had to look the president or a vice president in the eyes once a week maybe they would be less willing to go and break the rules And and Jake I know your your reporter referenced this before in the in the earlier segment. This is not about free speech. This is about giving our students the right to an education. If the students packed up today and came back tomorrow at noon within the the, the, the, the, the rules of of safe demonstration, I’d have no problem. They could say whatever they want as long as they didn’t violate harassment law. If they want to hold up a sign saying Yaya Sinwar for President 2024, that’s fine. Most of those students should probably look them up on Google before they hold that sign up so they actually understand who he is and what he stands for. But that’s their business. This is not about that. This is about protests going on 24/7 for weeks and weeks and weeks. Our students are unable to study. They’re unable to enter their dorms right now. They’re unable to enter the library right now. Something has to give. The The last thing I just want to ask you about, Brian, and thanks so much for being so generous with your time is, I mean, this is a university setting. It seems like such an incredible opportunity for students to learn about the crisis in the Middle East, which predates October 7th, which predates 1972, which predates 1948, which goes back centuries and centuries. And yet when I hear, and I have no idea if it was a student or not, I hear somebody yell at Jewish students, go back to Poland, I think, wow, this person is ignorant. Not just anti-Semitic, but ignorant. That’s just the the demonstration that they don’t know what they’re talking about. If they think Israel is populated by Polish Jews, or if they think Poland before 1948 was a particularly hospitable place for Jews, why is that not happening? Why is the university not seizing this as an opportunity for students on all sides of this incredibly contentious issue to learn? I I think what’s happening is that a small group on campus is essentially hijacking the university’s ability to do anything productive. We’ve seen this time and time again with various university initiatives, programs, lectures that try to bring people together. I was in low library at Columbia University when an Israeli Dean was meeting with her counterpart, A Palestinian Dean from Princeton University, and they didn’t agree on on all issues or even close to that, but they were coming together to be in dialogue. I was at that session, and I can tell you that students stood outside the door, banging on the door, trying to get in to prevent that type of dialogue from happening on campus. Enough is enough. We cannot let a small group hijack this university. There’s such vitriol around this country today and around the world. Columbia University needs to return to what it once was, a place to engage, to discuss, to debate. We don’t need to agree with one another, but we need to listen and hear each other out and argue with one another in respectful ways.