Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said on Wednesday she is issuing six subpoenas for Columbia University officials amid her panel’s antisemitism investigation, The Hill reported.
The only name listed in the release announcing the subpoenas is Columbia’s interim President Katrina Armstrong. The committee said subpoenas would also be sent to the co-chairs and vice chairs of the school’s board of trustees.
“Columbia should be a partner in our efforts to ensure Jewish students have a safe learning environment on its campus, but instead, university administrators have slow rolled the investigation, repeatedly failing to turn over necessary documents,” Foxx said.
“The information we have obtained points to a continued pattern of negligence towards antisemitism and a refusal to stand up to the radical students and faculty responsible for it. The goal of this investigation has always been to protect Jewish students and faculty, and if compulsory measures are necessary to obtain the documents the Committee requires, so be it,” she added.
“Columbia is committed to combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination. We have provided thousands of documents over the past seven months in response to the committee’s dozens of ongoing requests, and we remain committed to cooperating with the committee,” a spokesperson for the school said in response to the subpoenas.
The university has until September 4 to turn over the requested documents.
Columbia University has seen an uptick in antisemitism and anti-Israel protests on campus since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 and the war in Gaza which followed.
Pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrators at Columbia set up dozens of tents in April, demanding that the university divest from its Israeli assets. The university administration called in police to dismantle the encampments.
On April 30, at the request of university leaders, hundreds of officers with the New York Police Department stormed onto campus, gaining access to the building through a second-story window and making dozens of arrests of the pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrators who had taken over Hamilton Hall.
Before the anti-Israel encampment on campus, the Chabad rabbi of Columbia University and a group of Jewish students were forced to leave the university campus for their own safety during a pro-Hamas demonstration.
Two weeks ago, three Columbia University deans resigned from the school, after it was discovered that they had exchanged “very troubling” texts that “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes”.
Last week, Columbia University President Dr. Minouche Shafik announced her resignation, following months of criticism for her handling of campus antisemitism.
Shafik came under fire, among other things, after she refused to condemn the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" as antisemitic during a hearing on campus antisemitism at the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Wednesday is the second time the House panel has subpoenaed a university, with the first happening earlier this year against Harvard as part of an antisemitism investigation