Columbia leaders face scrutiny from lawmakers on campus antisemitism

Columbia University leaders faced scrutiny from lawmakers Wednesday about what they have done to combat campus antisemitism since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war, which has touched off intense protests at colleges across the country.

Some of the most pointed questions centered on individual faculty members and remarks they had made in support of Palestinian rights and Hamas before and after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the militant group - and what the university had done in response.

In one case, Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, said that a faculty member had been terminated. “He will never teach at Columbia again.”

But many of the members of Congress expressed incredulity and disdain as they read statements made by faculty members, and cut university leaders off as they tried to respond.

University leaders repeatedly expressed concern and contrition, and they vowed that they were working to make changes, including making it easier to report incidents and enforcing rules.

The hearing was contentious, but much less so than an earlier hearing; several committee members complimented the witnesses on answering more directly.

In December, the presidents of MIT, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania testified on campus antisemitism before the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Lawmakers repeatedly asked whether calls for the genocide of Jews violated their campus policies, and the presidents’ cautious, legalistic responses shocked many when they declined to say yes. Within weeks, the presidents of Penn and Harvard, under pressure on various fronts, had resigned.

“Certainly, that hearing touched a nerve in the public and elevated the issue,” said Jonathan Fansmith, a senior vice president at the American Council on Education.

What had been a policy discussion in higher education abruptly became part of the popular conversation, he said — complete with a “Saturday Night Live” skit mocking the spectacle. People debated free speech on campus and the political context, with questions about whether colleges are excessively left-leaning or whether conservative critics had chosen elite private schools as an easy target.

Six months after the war began, many colleges are still struggling to find the balance between students’ right to speak out and protest with the need to ensure campuses are safe, welcoming environments.

The House committee opened an investigation into campus antisemitism, demanding information from Harvard, Penn, MIT, Rutgers, the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia.

Outside the closed doors of the packed House committee hearing room, Columbia University students shouted, “Let the students in! Let the students in!”

After the hearing ended, a student burst in with hands painted red, and called out, “Being pro-Palestinian is not antisemitic!”

At Columbia, pro-Palestinian students erected tents before dawn at the center of campus.

Inside the hearing there were Jewish students, listening and occasionally reacting to the testimony. Afterward, several said they were pleased with much of what they had heard. Maya Platek, a junior, came from New York despite a broken leg that requires crutches, because the issue is so important to her, she said; she started a petition against a professor at Columbia and was pleased to hear Shafik and the other university leaders condemn the rhetoric he had used about the Oct. 7 attack in an article.

“I was hoping that today might actually change things,” she said, and she is hopeful that the hearing marks a turning point after which the university takes stronger action to protect Jewish and Israeli students.

Joseph Massad, the faculty member Platek had objected to, contested the characterization by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and others of his article about the Oct. 7 attack in an email to The Washington Post. He said he has never supported terrorism and has not been notified by the university that he is under investigation.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chair of the House committee, said that “the raw, visceral reaction of the nation to the unveiling of antisemitism at so-called elite institutions is indicative of the growing disconnect between the people and those universities,” and loss of public trust in higher education.

Foxx questioned the enforcement Columbia leaders said they had implemented, and at the end of the hearing she said that while some changes had occurred, there was still much work to be done - and that the committee was prepared to bring them back if they didn’t see tangible progress.

Fansmith said afterward that university leaders had been able to convey urgency and detail many of the changes they have been putting in place, as well as some of the complexities of altering policies around speech and faculty and student discipline. “They were pretty open about where they’ve had failures, where they’ve had difficulties, where they’re still working to resolve things, and where things are underway to address those failures,” he said.

Shafik had been asked to testify in December as well but had a prior commitment.

Last month, Foxx summoned Shafik and the co-chairs of Columbia’s board of trustees, Claire Shipman and David Greenwald, to answer questions before the committee, saying the university has not enforced its policies to protect Jewish students despite severe and pervasive antisemitism.

David M. Schizer, dean emeritus of Columbia’s law school, who is helping lead the university’s antisemitism task force, was a witness at the hearing Wednesday, as well.

Schizer opened with his own family history. His grandfather’s grandfather was killed in a pogrom in Ukraine, and his grandfather was put against a wall “by a bunch of antisemitic thugs,” who threatened to shoot him, Schizer said. He fled and, ultimately, was able to attend Columbia. “That changed his life,” Schizer said.

For well over a century, he said, “Columbia has been a welcoming place for people of diverse backgrounds from all over the world, including Jewish families like mine.”

He said he has heard heartbreaking stories, including from a student wearing a shirt with an Israeli flag who was surrounded by protesters and pinned against a brick wall. Schizer’s first thought, he said, was of his grandfather.

Incidents this year include Jewish students reporting being cursed at, assaulted and spat upon. Pro-Palestinian protests have included calls such as “Death to the Zionist state!” and for globalization of the intifada.

Earlier this month, the university suspended some students for participating in an event billed as “Resistance 101″ held in student housing that the university had barred. Shafik said the event included speakers known to support terrorism and promote violence.

Shafik declined an interview before the hearing. But in an essay in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, she wrote about how deeply and personally the war has been felt by thousands of people on campus.

She wrote about the difficulty of balancing the free speech rights of pro-Palestinian protesters and the impact their demonstrations have had on Jewish students, and she said the university is figuring out boundaries, such as designating appropriate space for protests.

Columbia’s website already states the answer to a question that tripped up the other presidents: “Calls for genocide against the Jewish community or any other group are abhorrent, inconsistent with our values and against our rules. Incitement to violence against members of our community will not be tolerated.”

When Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) asked for a yes-or-no answer to the question, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Columbia’s code of conduct?” each of the witnesses quickly and succinctly answered that yes, it does.

After some other questions — including, at times, regarding specific sanctions against individual faculty members — Shafik hesitated and said she needed to confirm information.

The university is being scrutinized on several fronts. Lawsuits have been filed by both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups, and the Education Department has an open investigation, as it does into numerous schools.