Columbia Failed to Stop Hate, Violence Against Jews on Campus, New Report Says
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Jewish students at Columbia University were threatened, attacked, shunned and harassed on campus last school year, and many faculty refused to believe their complaints or act to stop the problem, a new report said.
A task force of faculty members set up to address rising antisemitism on campus sharply criticized the school for failing to end widespread antagonism against its Jewish students. The group has offered a new definition of antisemitism, which includes celebrating violence against Jews or Israelis and discriminating against them based on their ties to Israel. If adopted, it could create new avenues to discipline pro-Palestinian protesters. It also recommends bias training to recognize and prevent antisemitism in the future.
The report is intended to protect Jewish students, defend viewpoint diversity and reverse some of the Balkanization on campus. It arrives as students return to school, a U.S. House of Representatives committee continues looking into antisemitism at Columbia, and faculty and students around the country gird for more disruptions associated with protests against Israel.
Earlier this month Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned after a little more than a year on the job, citing the toll it had taken on her family. Three deans were dismissed earlier this summer after they were photographed belittling student concerns about antisemitism on campus.
“This is an opportunity to acknowledge the harm that has been done and to pledge to make the changes necessary to do better,” Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, said in a statement.
Schools around the country are trying to avoid a repeat of the chaos that accompanied last year’s pro-Palestinian protests. Harvard University and Stanford University have also produced reports on antisemitism on campus. Schools are refining codes of conduct to protect students and maintain order. This month, New York University said anti-Zionist discrimination could violate student rules and generate disciplinary action.
Campus in crisis
The task force interviewed nearly 500 students across 20 meetings and found antisemitism against students pervasive on the campus grounds—in dormitories, clubs and classrooms—and on social media.
One student, who had placed a mezuza on her dorm room doorway in accordance with Jewish law, was targeted starting in October when people began banging on her door at night, demanding she explain Israel’s actions. She moved out of the dorm, the report said.
Jewish students walking on or near campus reported being followed, stripped of necklaces and pinned against walls. Some were forced out of nonpolitical social and athletic clubs when leaders signed a petition condemning Israel’s war in Gaza.
Ester Fuchs, a professor of international and public affairs and political science, co-chaired the task force and attended some of the listening sessions.
“The kids were frustrated, they were sad, they were angry and they were disappointed,” she said. “Not only did they have these experiences, but what it revealed was a lot of broken systems in the university.”
In the classroom, reports of threats, ridicule and exclusion prompted some Jewish students to avoid particular majors and teachers. At the School of Public Health, a faculty member called Jewish Columbia donors “wealthy white capitalists” who “laundered” money at the university, the report said.
One faculty member told an Israeli veteran she had served in an “army of murderers,” the report said. Another suggested Israeli military veterans shouldn’t be allowed to study on campus. Military service is mandatory for most Israelis.
In April, after pro-Palestinian supporters pitched an encampment on the campus, Jewish students reported the antagonism worsened.
Protesters shouted “October 7th is going to be every day for you,” in reference to the killing of about 1,200 people by Hamas militants on that day last fall.
“People that you sat in class with, you had drinks with, you had lunch and dinner with, the next day they say they hope your entire family dies,” one student told the task force. “If I can put it in one word, it is heartbreaking.”
Defining antisemitism
Different definitions of antisemitism and their inclusion of anti-Zionism have been hotly debated on campuses across the country. People who oppose Israel’s policies and its invasion of Gaza argue the criticism is based on politics—not prejudice.
Joseph Howley, a professor of classics at Columbia and a critic of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, condemned what he called the conflation of Zionism with all Jews. “The easiest way to avoid this,” he wrote in an email, “is to remember that one of them is a specific modern political ideology and one of them is a large, ancient and very diverse and heterogeneous group of people united by common ties of religion, ethnicity and culture.”
The Columbia task force said Zionist is often used as a proxy for Jew and recommended a definition that encompasses antisemitism to include “celebrating violence against Jews or Israelis; exclusion or discrimination based on Jewish identity or ancestry or real or perceived ties to Israel.”
In addition, the task force recommended advising student clubs to avoid issuing statements unrelated to their missions, and training faculty, resident assistants and staff about antisemitism. Fuchs likened it to the training that has helped alleviate sexual harassment for women on campus. The task force also suggested that Columbia re-evaluate the oppressor-oppressed narrative that it says has taken root on campus, is often reinforced by offices of diversity, equity and inclusion, and labels Jews as privileged and therefore not vulnerable.
As for the pro-Palestinian supporters among the university’s student body, Howley wrote in his email, “I hope we will be able to have a serious conversation about the climate for those students as well.”
Tags
Who is online
36 visitors
The report is in.
It is damning.
for a long time, apparently. is this another flip flop by trump supporters? oh well, it won't matter soon...
Ah, the obligatory whataboutism..............
Yeah, that's not going to happen.
Nope, not from the very people who have been teaching kids that Israel is an oppressor.
I just want to know if the students hiding in their rooms are going to keep voting for democrats.
Jewish podcasters call for the deaths of everyone in Gaza (and the "territories")
Terror on the Streets of Israel, England Ablaze and John Oliver Hates Jews || Israel Weekly Recap (youtube.com)
really relevant there’s a mother of a um a wife and a mother of October 7th
27:10
victims uh who’s uh said this and I think she’s a lefty right because just
27:18
of what she says in the video but it’s in Hebrew but we’ll translate
27:36
she says the the reporter asks her will you return to ber and she says I will
27:43
return to B when the last of the Palestinians is annihilated the last of
27:49
the Palestinians there is annihilated there’s more yeah okay
28:17
she’s she’s stuttering and she’s saying you know I’m I’m completely shaking because she just said uh I don’t care if
28:23
it’s kids if it’s women if it’s people on uh crutches
28:28
uh if it’s elderly people I don’t know if she said women but she said whatever elderly people people on crutches I
28:35
don’t care and she then she says I’m all shaking because this isn’t the house I was educated in that’s why I’m assuming
28:41
she’s a she was educated in like a left leaning house but it just goes to show you like
28:47
people want us to people want fullscale war and we’re not
28:53
we’re full scale War wouldn’t mean that we’re just in Gaza
28:59
yeah and it wouldn’t it also unfortunately wouldn’t mean that we’re uh doing what we’re doing in Gaza
29:07
because in Gaza maybe there’s mass destruction but there’s not massive death or deportation or
29:16
deportation anyway so um you know when you sit on your high horse and you know I I’m sure I don’t
29:23
mean to belittle our listeners we love you guys uh but if you’re listening to
29:29
our words and saying how could they be advocating to you know do massive bombing indiscriminate bombing you know
29:36
how could they talk about killing children we’re not advocating to Target
29:41
children but forgive us if we don’t give a [ __ ] if you know everybody there
29:48
dies it’s just the way we feel it’s just the way Israelis feel yeah because and
29:53
this is this is what I you know that’s the that’s what the kulon attack did I wrote to shaon and my wife I was like
29:59
it’ll be you or me tomorrow or D orai God forbid y uh and so I would if you gave me a
30:07
button to just erase Gaza every single living being in Gaza would no longer be
30:14
living tomorrow I would press it in a second that’s just I think I mean I I
30:19
think most Israelis that’s the choice yeah yeah mhm no even if it’s not like
30:26
right now yeah yeah no press it right now MH yeah same with the territories I
30:32
would press it right now no choice no you know shaon is safe at home God
30:38
willing I don’t know I haven’t spoken to her in like an hour uh no I’m saying for the
30:43
chance yeah yeah I would press it right now give me that button i’ press it
30:48
right now there you go and I think most Israelis would yeah most Jewish they
30:54
wouldn’t post they wouldn’t talk about it like I am they wouldn’t post they wouldn’t say I pressed it yeah but they
30:59
would PR they don’t have balls of steel like you they but they would press it right like if they were in a closet
31:05
alone they would they wouldn’t even hesitate MH someone came to them and a d said no one will know you press this all
31:13
the Palestinians are gone you’d be like [ __ ] hey is there another
31:21
one because that’s the reality we live in it’s us or them and it has to be them
Last Spring, a Pew Research Center survey finds that 39% of Israelis say Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, while 34% say it has not gone far enough and 19% think it has gone too far.
26% of Israelis think that Israel and an independent Palestinian state can coexist peacefully with each other. That's down from 35% who said the same last year, and about half as many as when asked ten years ago.
That's what Intifadas and 7 Oct have done to Israeli public opinion. They hate Netanyahu but hate Palestinians even more.
I think a couple of well placed lead will alleviate some of this domestic democrat hamas loving terrorist activity.