Four months after the disastrous antisemitism congressional hearing that led to the resignation of two Ivy League presidents, Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, president of Columbia University, will face the Committee on Education and the Workforce on Wednesday to explain how she’s handling “some of the worst cases of antisemitic assaults, harassment, and vandalism” on college campuses, according to a House press release.
The committee initially summoned Shafik to the floor in December, alongside Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, and Sally Kornbluth, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Shafik declined, citing a traveling conflict.
December’s hearing lasted nearly five hours and featured several now-viral debates between the presidents and Republican lawmakers. During one testy exchange, Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican of New York, continuously asked the presidents whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people is against each university’s code of conduct. None of the presidents answered directly, with Gay and Magill saying it “depend[ed] on the context” of the situation. Magill resigned shortly after the hearing, following heavy criticism from major donors, politicians, and the board chair of the university’s business school. Gay stepped down a few weeks later amid multiple plagiarism allegations.
Shafik will take the stand as protests against the ongoing violence in the Gaza strip become more combative and college administrators struggle to define the thin line between free speech and student safety.
At Columbia, Shafik has faced criticisms from all sides for her handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and student safety. And the congressional committee seems poised to offer the same line of questioning as it did in December. In a New York Post opinion essay, Stefanik said Tuesday she and the committee plan to hold Columbia’s administration accountable for antisemitic incidents on campus.
“Universities have a duty to keep their students safe,” she wrote. “And when they fail, Congress has the duty to conduct rigorous oversight of the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that support these higher-ed institutions. We will not rest until this unchecked antisemitism is stopped.”
In a statement Tuesday, Shafik announced plans to discuss with the committee the difficulties of identifying protected and unprotected speech as well as the ways Columbia has worked to preserve students’ safety and their First Amendment rights.
“Universities, the great purveyors of education, must be leaders in fighting all forms of discrimination,” she said in the statement. “That means shifting our focus from slogans toward education, community, compassion, and human decency so that we can shape citizens who will become exemplars of a better society.”
Here are four things to know in preparation for today’s hearing:
Columbia pro-Palestinian protests have spiraled
Since early October, pro-Palestinian demonstrations have spiraled on Columbia’s campus. The Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group made up of more than 100 pro-Palestinian student organizations, has held sit-ins, walk-outs, vigils, and other demonstrations demanding attention for the ongoing violence in Gaza.
Like on many other campuses, these protests have drawn criticism from Jewish and pro-Israel groups, which argue that they are pushing dangerous, antisemitic rhetoric.
Pro-Palestinian students, on the other hand, say their speech is protected under the First Amendment and the administration is failing to keep them safe. Some of the demonstrations have become heated, combative, and sometimes violent. During a January demonstration, protesters reported that an unknown, foul-smelling substance was sprayed on them, causing headaches, fatigue, and a burning sensation on the skin. The university banned the suspects from campus and is investigating the incident.
Read more: Columbia U. Investigates Reports of ‘Unknown Substance’ Sprayed at Pro-Palestinian Rally
Columbia has begun cracking down on student protests
In November, the university was one of the first colleges to suspend its Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters after the two groups led multiple protests that drew hundreds of people and allegedly violated the university-events policy, which requires students to seek prior approval for events that have a “high attendance,” a “potential for significant disruption,” are in an outdoor university space, or could cause “security concerns.” A month later, following Stefanik’s questioning at the December hearing, Columbia became one of many institutions to release a statement condemning calls for the genocide of Jewish people. Shafik reemphasized this in Tuesday’s statement.
“Calling for the genocide of a people — whether they are Israelis or Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, or anyone else — has no place in a university community,” she said. “Such words are outside the bounds of legitimate debate and unimaginably harmful.”
Administrators have also handed out disciplinary threats and tightened policies around demonstrations. In February, Columbia released an interim demonstration policy limiting protests to a list of specific areas and permitting them only during weekday afternoons. The policy also requires students to register events at least two days in advance. The university suspended four students earlier this month for their alleged involvement in Resistance 101, an event that featured Khaled Barakat, an alleged member of a pro-Palestinian terrorist organization (Barakat has denied any affiliation with the group). Shafik called the event “an abhorrent breach of our values” in a universitywide statement.
Read more: Private Colleges Hope New Speech Policies Will Keep the Peace
Jewish students say the campus is unsafe
The Committee on Education and the Workforce opened an investigation into Columbia in February, citing “grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of Columbia’s response to antisemitism on its campus.”
In a letter addressed to Shafik, Laura Rosenbury, president of Barnard College, and the chairs of the Columbia and Barnard Boards of Trustees, Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the committee, listed more than 30 alleged incidents of antisemitism, including social-media posts, student reports of harassment, and several of the pro-Palestinian rallies on campus. She also mandated that the university submit all reports of antisemitic acts since January 2021.
In the weeks following the investigation, Jewish students filed two lawsuits against Columbia, alleging that the university failed to protect Jewish students from discrimination and harassment. On February 12, the same day that Foxx opened the investigation, a student in the School of Social Work sued the university for discrimination after she was allegedly “forced out” of a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy program for filing a series of antisemitism complaints and requests to complete the program online given the “dangerous and hostile environment” on campus after October 7.
A week later, a group of five students and two outside organizations filed a 114-page complaint against Columbia and Barnard College, alleging that Columbia has been one of the “worst centers of academic antisemitism” for decades. The students listed several incidents dating back to 2004 as well as many of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which they say support the Hamas militant group.
“Mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty have marched by the hundreds through Columbia’s campus, shouting vile antisemitic slogans, including calls for genocide,” the complaint says.
Read more: Can Colleges Protect Jewish Students?
The university’s antisemitism task force is in disarray
Like many other colleges, Columbia’s administration has been grasping for ways to keep students safe while still upholding free-speech values. In November, the university set up an antisemitism task force to address complaints of discrimination and attacks on Jewish students.
The group released its first report in March, evaluating many of Columbia’s demonstration and harassment policies. It expressed concerns about the university’s enforcement of its rules, saying the university “generally has not tried to stop violations as they have occurred, and instead has focused on imposing discipline after the fact.” The group also called for larger restrictions on protests to prevent them from interrupting campus operations.
Following the report, though, the group faced backlash over its decision not to define antisemitism. Students and faculty have pressured members of the task force to adopt one of two controversial definitions of antisemitism. One, which is widely used by state governments as well as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, says that targeting the state of Israel could be antisemitic. The other, which has been adopted by the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, distinguishes between antisemitism and anti-Zionism and clarifies that supporting Palestinian movements, criticizing Zionism, and evidence-based critiques of Israel are not antisemitic.
Many free-speech advocates say defining antisemitism can quell speech and squash open dialogue that’s necessary on college campuses. Advocates for each definition argue that by neglecting to define the word, Columbia’s task force will be ineffective in fulfilling its mission of curbing antisemitism on campus.
Read more: Colleges Use His Antisemitism Definition to Censor. He Calls It a ‘Travesty.’
