Columbia University in New York City continues to come in for criticism on charges that it has failed to adequately address an increasingly hostile environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus.
The House’s Education and the Workforce Committee presented information on Monday acquired from the school, documenting disciplinary decisions by the administration regarding students who broke into and occupied Hamilton Hall on April 30.
“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the committee chairperson, in a statement. “More than three months after the criminal takeover of Hamilton Hall, the vast majority of the student perpetrators remain in good standing.”
Information the committee released showed that of the 22 students arrested, 18 remained in good standing, three received interim suspensions, and one earned probation. According to the committee, other anti-Israel protests on April 18, April 29 and May 1 resulted in similar degrees of punishment for their participants.
This failure of the school to apply its own policy amounted to what Foxx called waving a “white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in these unlawful actions.”
She said “breaking into campus buildings or creating antisemitic hostile environments like the encampment should never be given a single degree of latitude—the university’s willingness to do just that is reprehensible.”
The Coalition for Jewish Values also censured Columbia following the recent resignation of its president, Minouch Shafik, noting that one of four administrators remained in his job after participating in a text-message exchange during an antisemitism panel that mocked Jewish students and their experiences.
“President Shafik’s resignation is only the first step towards a safer college experience for Jewish and pro-Israel students, and Columbia’s renewed compliance with anti-discrimination laws,” stated the group’s president, Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld.
Its managing director, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, said of dean Josef Sorett: “We believe it appropriate that he face consequences, at least at the level of no longer being the dean of Columbia College, but more properly to be fired.”
He continued, saying “Sorett found it funny to mock the Hillel director as he was describing antisemitic bigotry at Columbia. Imagine that he laughed as the head of the African studies department was describing racism at Columbia. Would he still be on the payroll? Of course not.”
Columbia, the rabbi concluded, “cannot maintain a double standard regarding Jews and claim not to engage in discrimination.”
