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‘Resign or be fired,’ Coalition for Jewish Values tells Columbia president

“The bigotry and double standards are blatant,” the group said of four university officials who mocked concerns about Jew-hatred on campus.

Minouche Shafik
Minouche Shafik, president of Columbia University, testifies about campus antisemitism before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Credit: House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Minouche Shafik, president of Columbia University, should either step down or be fired by the school’s board, the Coalition for Jewish Values says.

The group, which represents 2,500 Orthodox rabbis, noted that Shafik allowed a dean to remain in his role after exchanging text messages mocking the panelists during an event on Jew-hatred. Three other Columbia officials involved lost their administrative roles, but remain on the payroll and the faculty.

“The bigotry and double standards are blatant, and entirely at odds with the experiences that I and others had at Columbia in the past,” said Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, an alumnus of the university and the coalition’s Israel regional vice president. “Imagine if something like this had happened during a session when black, Latino, Pacific Islander or LGBTQ faculty and students were speaking about hostility they faced on campus.”

The promotion of one of the president’s most partisan and hard-nosed lieutenants to one of the most powerful jobs in Washington may signal how Trump intends to respond to his party’s defeat in the midterms.
“It’s an evolving trend that shows greater signs of permanence than temporary quality,” Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs told JNS.
The president is continuing consultations with the newly elected factions scheduled through Thursday evening.
The move comes amid a sharp increase in Holocaust denial and distortion around the globe following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.