The House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing today (Wednesday) on antisemitism on the campus of Columbia University.
During the hearing, Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx accused Columbia University president Minouche Shafik of “gross negligence at best” in failing to protect Jewish students, and said that the university has "at worst has become a platform for those supporting terrorism and violence against the Jewish people."
“That a taxpayer-funded institution become a forum for the promotion of terrorism raises serious questions,” she added. “I need not remind you that this is not just a moral duty, but a legal duty set forth in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
Jewish students testified at the hearing about the antisemitism they have experienced since the Hamas massacre of October 7. Board of Trustee co-chair David Greenwald and law and economics professor David Schizer also addressed the committee.
"The last six months on our campus have served as an extreme pressure test," Shipman said. "Our systems clearly have not been equipped to manage the unfolding situation."
University president Shafik refused to condemn the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" as antisemitic during the hearing, or to say that it violates university policy. Instead, she called the chant "hurtful" and said that she would rather not hear it uttered on campus.
Calling it a "difficult issue," Shafik said that “some of those expressions that you have said — ‘River to the sea,’ ‘Intifada’ — are incredibly hurtful.”
Shafik said that “the events of October 7 brought to the fore an undercurrent of antisemitism,” but maintained that Columbia has properly responded to this phenomenon.
Claire Shipman, the co-chair of Columbia's Board of Trustees co-chair, said that "we have a moral crisis on our campus" and that "our systems clearly have not been equipped to manage the unfolding situation."
Wednesday's hearing followed a similar hearing in December in which the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT testified on the antisemitism on their campuses. The presidents controversially refused to say that calls for genocide against Jews violated university policy. Then-Harvard President Claudine Gay and then-University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill resigned in the aftermath of that hearing.
In February, antisemitic flyers showing a skunk emblazoned with the Israeli flag were posted on the campus of Columbia University.
A week before that, Israeli firearms model Orin Julie and fashion model Natali Dadon were accosted at the University of Columbia by one of the central figures of the anti-Israel protests on campus.
Amid the antisemitism on campus, Columbia University's administration shut down a December discussion by the pro-Palestinian Arab student group "Columbia Social Workers 4 Palestine" after it was discovered that the discussion aimed to justify Hamas' October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians.
An Israeli student was attacked by another student with a stick days after the Hamas massacre.
One day after the massacre, Columbia professor Joseph Massad published a piece in Electronic Intifada in which he called the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust “astonishing,” “astounding,” “awesome” and “incredible.” The school resisted calls to fire Massad over his celebration of the massacre.
Shafik stated during today's hearing that Massad and another professor are "under investigation for discriminatory remarks.