Minouche Shafik, then president of Columbia University, sent a text message to university co-chairs and trustees on Jan. 4 about her and co-chair David Greenwald’s meeting with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), as the university faced charges of widespread antisemitism, including from House Republicans.
The senator’s staff “recommended the ‘best strategy is to keep heads down,’ and when asked, Schumer and his staff indicated they did not believe it was necessary for the university’s leaders to meet with Republicans,” according to a new report from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “Greenwald echoed this, writing in response, ‘If we are keeping our head down, maybe we shouldn’t meet with Republicans.’”
Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, has said that his last name refers to being a “guardian” of the Jewish community, and he frequently describes himself as history’s highest-ranking U.S. Jewish official.
The 122-page report—which has an additional 203 pages of appendices—is based on interviews with administrators from those universities and an examination of more than 400,000 documents.
According to the report, Schumer told Shafik that Columbia’s “political problems are really only among Republicans.”
Shafik announced her resignation as Columbia’s president on Aug. 14. She did so amid widespread antisemitism on and near the New York City campus, including students and anti-Israel protesters yelling at Jewish students to “go back to Poland” and high-ranking administrators mocking campus Jew-hatred during an event.
The new House report comes days after Schumer promised Jewish leaders that he would introduce a bill addressing college Jew-hatred. The senator has been criticized for failing to bring the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which passed the House overwhelmingly, to a vote in the Senate.
“Israel was created after the Holocaust so that the Jewish people would never have to hide again. Jewish Americans deserve better than university leaders who ‘keep heads down’ and treat virulent antisemitism on campuses as merely a PR problem,” wrote Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-Ala.), sharing a Washington Free Beacon article about Schumer’s reported remark.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) wrote that Schumer’s reported remarks were “disgusting.”
“Democratic Senate Majority Leader Schumer told the disgraced ex-president of Columbia that antisemitic violence was a problem ‘only among Republicans,’” the congressman said. “Chuck, defeating antisemitism is an American prerogative, not a partisan one.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, has held several congressional hearings on Jew-hatred on campus. The committee’s report concluded that university administrators across the country failed to enforce rules and “deliberately chose to withhold support from Jewish students.”
