Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) condemned the “inappropriate and unacceptable” scene at Barnard College on Wednesday night when anti-Israel demonstrators stormed the college’s main administrative building and assaulted a staff member, sending him to the hospital.

“It is inappropriate and unacceptable that masked intruders forcibly stormed a Barnard campus building, assaulted a college worker and blocked classroom access. All this in support of other protestors who are being justifiably disciplined for inappropriately disrupting fellow students from learning in a history class on Israel, while spreading antisemitic flyers that encouraged violence and more,” Schumer said in a statement to Jewish Insider.

“Barnard College must stand firm against this behavior and take prompt action to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for all its students,” the statement continued.

Schumer’s statement came as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle began to condemn the violent, six-hour protest, which was held in response to the college’s decision to expel two second-semester seniors who last month disrupted a History of Modern Israel class. 

A spokesperson for the NYPD told JI that a police report has been filed regarding the alleged assault itself, though no arrests have been made as of Thursday and the investigation remains ongoing. 

“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Pro-Hamas mobs have NO place on our college campuses. Barnard College & Columbia University must put an end to the antisemitic chaos on campus,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) wrote on X.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), President Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, wrote on the platform that, “On the same day that the world was mourning the burial of the Bibas family murdered by Hamas terrorists, an antisemitic pro-Hamas mob violently took over Barnard College.”

“Students committing these crimes should be immediately expelled and prosecuted by law enforcement. As President Donald Trump outlined in his executive order, any visa-holding student participating in these antisemitic acts must be stripped of their visa and be deported,” she continued.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), the Democratic co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, posted on X that, “This violation of university rules and city laws must stop. There should never be demands to follow rules and the law. Universities including Columbia must enforce their own rules so all students feel safe. I look forward to learning what consequences these students face.”

“Actions have consequences. Barnard was right to expel the students who disrupted class & distributed fliers calling for the death of Jews. Negotiating with pro-terror protesters who are breaking campus policies should be out of the question,” the House Education and Workforce Committee stated in a post.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the previous chair of the committee, wrote in a separate post on X: “Expel them all.”

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) called the situation “disgraceful.”

“Pro-Hamas protesters force their way into Barnard College, assaulting an employee in the process. This is not “activism” — it’s lawlessness and intimidation. Every student involved should face serious consequences. No excuses,” he said in a statement. 

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) said in a statement, “This is despicable: hate-filled anti-Israel protestors stormed a school building at Barnard and assaulted a staff member. The university must hold them accountable.”

A Barnard College staff member was assaulted and sent to the hospital on Wednesday evening by anti-Israel demonstrators who stormed the college’s main administrative building and remained there for several hours, chanting “resistance is justified when people are occupied” and “intifada revolution,” a spokesperson for the university confirmed to Jewish Insider. 

“Earlier today, a small group of masked protesters forcibly entered Milbank Hall and physically assaulted a Barnard employee, sending them to the hospital,” Barnard spokesperson Robin Levine told JI. “They encouraged others to enter campus without identification, showing blatant disregard for the safety of our community.” 

Levine said that the university has made “multiple good-faith efforts to deescalate.”

“Barnard leadership offered to meet with the protesters — just as we meet with all members of our community — on one simple condition: remove their masks. They refused. We have also offered mediation,” she said.  

Masked protesters left Milbank Hall around 10:30 p.m, after more than six hours, under the tentative agreement that Barnard President Laura Rosenbury and Dean Leslie Grinage would meet with the students Thursday afternoon. “The masked protesters left Milbank Hall after receiving final written notice and being informed that Barnard would be forced to consider additional necessary measures to protect the campus if they did not leave on their own. No promises of amnesty were made, and no concessions were negotiated,” Levine said. The original deadline the school had set for the protesters to vacate was 9:30 p.m.

A spokesperson for the NYPD told JI that a police report for the assault had been filed as of Thursday morning. According to the report, “a 41-year-old male stated he was shoved by numerous individuals and complained of pain about the body. The male was removed by EMS to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital in stable condition.” There are no arrests and the investigation remains ongoing, the NYPD said.

Yardena Rubin, a junior, told JI that she couldn’t access her classroom at the designated class time. “This is an interruption of my learning yet again and it feels like last year all over again. It’s really intense and doesn’t make me feel safe,” she said, referring to the chaos that ensued last April on Columbia’s campus, in which anti-Israel groups protesting the war in Gaza occupied Hamilton Hall and held a 14-day illegal encampment in the middle of campus. 

Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia University Hillel, told JI that he was “appalled that students once again stormed an academic building, prevented classes from taking place and, according to reports, violently assaulted a staff member.”

“This is a direct infringement on students’ right to enjoy an education without fear of harassment,” Cohen said.  

The demonstration was held in response to Barnard College’s decision three days earlier — in its most forceful response to anti-Israel activity on campus to date — to expel two second-semester seniors who last month disrupted a History of Modern Israel class. Flyers distributed by the protesters on Wednesday evening demanded “immediate reversal” of the expulsions and “amnesty for all students disciplined for pro-Palestine action or thought.”

The student group Columbia University Apartheid Divestment posted Wednesday on Instagram, “We have taken the administration completely off guard! They will have no peace until we have justice.” 

Barnard College has expelled two second-semester seniors who last month disrupted a History of Modern Israel class, banged on drums, chanted “free Palestine” and distributed posters to students that read “CRUSH ZIONISM” with a boot over the Star of David, Jewish Insider has learned, according to a source familiar with the matter. 

During the demonstration, which occurred on Jan. 21 — the first day of the spring semester — two Barnard students, a Columbia student and a fourth person who remains unidentified also tried to plaster the walls of the classroom with a sign featuring an illustration of Hamas terrorists pointing guns and the words “THE ENEMY WILL NOT SEE TOMORROW.” 

Columbia University suspended the Columbia participant on Jan. 23, “pending a full investigation and disciplinary process,” according to the university. The investigation remains ongoing. Students have the right to appeal suspensions under the guidelines to the Rules and the Anti-Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment Policies and Procedures for Students. Barnard College is an affiliate of Columbia University. 

In a statement to JI, Barnard President Laura Rosenbury declined to provide details about the expulsions. “Under federal law, we cannot comment on the academic and disciplinary records of students,” Rosenbury said. 

“That said, as a matter of principle and policy, Barnard will always take decisive action to protect our community as a place where learning thrives, individuals feel safe, and higher education is celebrated,” Rosenbury continued. 

“This means upholding the highest standards and acting when those standards are threatened. When rules are broken, when there is no remorse, no reflection, and no willingness to change, we must act. Expulsion is always an extraordinary measure, but so too is our commitment to respect, inclusion, and the integrity of the academic experience. At Barnard, we always fiercely defend our values. At Barnard, we always reject harassment and discrimination in all forms. And at Barnard, we always do what is right, not what is easy.”

As of Sunday, the expulsions had not been announced campus-wide. Upon learning of the crackdown from JI, Lishi Baker, a junior studying Middle East history and a student in the History of Modern Israel course, said he was “extremely happy” about Barnard’s decision and called for Columbia to do the same.  

“Accountability is the most important way to make sure that these kinds of disruptions that go against the university’s purpose — that threaten and intimidate Jewish students and undermine the learning environment — cannot go unpunished,” Baker said. 

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, lawmakers and Jewish students and faculty have frequently scrutinized Columbia University for what they called a slow, or nonexistent, response to the frequent antisemitism occurring on campus. The expulsions, Baker said, were “the most positive step that I’ve seen to date.” 

“I’m hoping that this indicates turning the tides in terms of the level of accountability that the school is willing to enforce, but if we’ve learned anything from the past year, we have to expect almost nothing,” he said. “The amount of accountability that we’ve seen has not been nearly as high as it should be.” 

Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia Hillel, applauded Barnard for “taking decisive action.” 

Cohen said in a statement that he hopes “Columbia follows suit with the other perpetrators who have infringed on student rights in the past year — from the encampments to the takeover of Hamilton Hall. This will send a clear message that the harassment of Jewish students and faculty will not be tolerated at Columbia.”

“When students have their right to get an education trampled on by masked protesters who burst into their classroom, those protestors need to be held accountable,” Cohen said. 

On Sunday, Columbia University Apartheid Divest doubled down by calling for more disturbances in Israel-related courses. 

“Students disrupted a zionist class, you should too!,” the coalition of student organizations — including Columbia’s suspended chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine — wrote on Instagram. “Every academic paper, course, interview, or book that legitimizes the zionist entity necessarily cosigns the genocide and occupation of Palestinians and necessitates disruption. They are the grease that keeps the war machine killing.” 

More than 1,000 new students kicked off their freshman year at Columbia University this week. But even with all the institutional changes that took place over the summer, including the naming of a new president, several aspects at the prestigious New York school are already reminiscent of the chaos last academic year — one that was marred by occasional violent anti-Israel disruptions, amid scrutiny of university leaders for not enforcing rules that would keep Jewish students safe. 

Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia Barnard Hillel, told Jewish Insider that he expects to see “plenty of activism again on campus, at least some of which will be highly disruptive.” 

The disruptions have already started, with a week left before classes begin. At a convocation event to welcome incoming freshmen on Sunday, about 50 members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, wearing masks and keffiyehs and holding megaphones and drums, disrupted the event from just outside of the campus gates with chants of “Free Palestine.” 

The group, which labels itself a “student intifada,” distributed fliers around the convocation that told students they were sitting “through propaganda being delivered to you by war criminals of an administration.” A Columbia University spokesperson told JI that the NYPD was present at the protest in case it was needed. The spokesperson did not respond to a follow up question about how the university is preparing to handle larger demonstrations this year. 

CUAD, a coalition formed in 2016 that has gained renewed support since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, with at least 80 student groups at Columbia joining the coalition, also published an op-ed in the Columbia Spectator on Sunday, attempting to rally freshmen to join in on the demonstrations. CUAD “will not sit quietly and watch our campus turn into a microcosm of the settler-colonial state we are protesting, and we need your help to prevent that,” the group wrote.  

CUAD wrote that it is “working toward achieving a liberated Palestine and the end of Israeli apartheid and genocide by urging Columbia to divest all economic and academic stakes in ‘Israel.’” 

Amid an “overall spirit of excitement for the coming school year,” the demonstration was “noisy and loud,” Julia Zborovsky-Fenster, whose son is a freshman at Columbia and daughter graduated from Barnard in the spring, told JI. Zborovsky-Fenster, who was walking on campus during the demonstration, said that she has “not seen anything that has given me a very clear message as to what we can expect” from university leadership this year.

“If I was to look at move-in day and the convocation, and base my judgment only on what happened on that one day, I would say I am optimistic,” she said, noting that law enforcement was abundant on campus and the protest remained relatively small, without turning violent.  

During summer break, Columbia made leadership changes and set new guidelines that some are optimistic will protect Jewish students. 

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation on Aug. 14, months after she testified before Congress about antisemitism and her handling of the disorderly fallout of the first anti-Israel encampment in the nation. 

Days before Shafik’s resignation, in an attempt to prevent activists from occupying buildings, destroying property and engaging in the kind of physical violence that overtook Columbia’s campus last year, the school’s COO, Cas Holloway, said that campus access will now be restricted to affiliates with a valid campus ID. Holloway said that this move would “keep our community safe given reports of potential disruptions at Columbia.”

Zborovsky-Fenster said the changes could lead to an “ushering in not only of a new year but a new era with this new leadership that would show we have learned lessons from a very challenging, divisive period last year.” 

But she added that parents and students deserve more transparency than they received last year. “I would love to see specific messaging as to what the policies are, specifically how they are going to be enforced, by whom, in what timeframe and how that is going to be communicated to the student body,” she said. 

As questions remain around whether the Columbia administration will crack down on disruptions from anti-Israel groups this year, outside organizations have already started doing so. On Monday, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine announced that its Instagram page had been permanently deleted.

A spokesperson for Meta, the company that owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, told JI that the account was disabled for repeated violations of Meta’s dangerous organizations and individuals policies. According to Meta’s policies, it does “not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on our platforms.” 

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has also raised concern about the climate on Columbia’s campus and unwillingness of the administration to enforce its rules. Last Wednesday, the committee issued six subpoenas to Columbia University officials for documents related to the committee’s investigation into campus antisemitism. 

According to a summary of Columbia disciplinary hearings from the end of last semester that was released earlier this month by the committee, of the 40 students arrested when Columbia brought police dressed in riot gear to the campus to remove a student encampment on April 18, just two remain suspended. The remaining students are in good standing and can enroll in classes while waiting for their disciplinary hearings, although roughly half are on “disciplinary probation.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the committee, said in a statement that the lack of consequences for students was “reprehensible.” 

“Following the disruptions of the last academic year, Columbia immediately began disciplinary processes, including with immediate suspensions,” a university spokesperson told JI last week. “The disciplinary process is ongoing for many students involved in these disruptions, including some of those who were arrested, and we have been working to expedite the process for this large volume of violations.”

The subpoena demands that Columbia provide, by noon on Sept. 4, all communications between the school’s leaders about antisemitism and the anti-Israel encampment since Oct. 7, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since April 17, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since Oct. 7 relating to antisemitism or Israel and any documents relating to allegations of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus since Oct. 7.

In a letter to Dr. Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, Foxx said the subpoenas were issued because “Columbia has failed to produce numerous priority items requested by the Committee, despite having months to comply and receiving repeated follow-up requests by the Committee.” Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed reporting.

When Jewish students in the University of Central Florida system return to school this month, there will be new rules in place to prevent occupied buildings, destroyed property, physical violence and anti-Israel coursework that marred campuses nationwide last year. 

Over summer break, UCF’s Board of Trustees, responding to protests spurred by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, approved a campus-wide ban on camping, months after dozens of students were arrested across Florida schools for participating in illegal anti-Israel encampment demonstrations. Meanwhile, the state’s university system sent orders to university presidents to flag any course descriptions and syllabi that might contain what it calls “antisemitic or anti-Israeli bias.” 

Beyond the Sunshine State, several schools nationwide have also used the relative quiet of summer break to institute new or clarify existing policies that deter encampments and other protest methods that could be used for anti-Israel demonstrations. On Monday, University of California President Michael Drake directed the chancellors of all UC campuses to establish and make public rules against encampments, unauthorized structures, restricting free movement and masking to hide identity. “These policies have generally been in place in various forms for many years, [and] warrant particular emphasis in light of recent campus protests,” Drake wrote to chancellors.

But experts remain skeptical that elite colleges will enforce their own rules. Mark Yudof, chair of the Academic Engagement Network, told Jewish Insider that he expects “the encampments, disruptions and other antisemitic or anti-Zionist behaviors will return on many campuses.” 

Adam Lehman, CEO of Hillel International, told JI that he “unfortunately anticipates continued drumbeat of disruptions on campuses this fall.”

“That is a simple function of reality. There remain pockets of students, and non-students, who are committed to using and abusing campus spaces,” Lehman said. 

As Jewish students began their summer vacations, many had hoped that a year marked by turmoil over the Israel-Hamas war was behind them. But as fall semesters commence throughout August and September, Israel’s war in Gaza shows no signs of slowing down and Jewish students say they have been given little indication that campus will feel safer than it did in the spring as colleges struggle to balance students’ right to express political speech with protecting Jewish students from intimidation.

“I am nearly certain that this year will be worse. Jewish students are rightly apprehensive about returning to campus,” Eliana Goldin, a rising fourth-year political science major at Columbia University who co-chairs the pro-Israel campus group Aryeh, told JI.

However, Lehman also expressed optimism that the upcoming semester could be “less problematic” for Jewish students compared to last year. Hillel has “pursued several initiatives in the last three months to try to improve the prospects for safe and sane Jewish student life on campus,” he said. 

At the urging of Hillel, Lehman said, many campuses have strengthened their policies when it comes to protest activity and have taken steps to prepare for “more aggressive enforcement of those policies.” Additionally, legal recourse that has taken place over the summer, including court cases and Title VI settlements, could lead to a safer campus climate, Lehman said. He added that Hillel is using a series of grants to kick off the year with “major welcome events” for Jewish students, such as “Fresh Fest” and Shabbat dinners, “so that it’s clear as they come or return to campus that our campuses are safe and welcoming environments.”  

Of the six elite universities that saw some of the highest profile anti-Jewish incidents last year — Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and University of Pennsylvania —  only Cornell, Columbia and Harvard responded to inquiries from JI asking what actions they will take to keep Jewish students safe.

“[Cornell] will enforce its content-neutral time, place and manner policies that protect the rights of all in our community. As we begin the new academic year, a wide range of programs, activities, and courses will promote these democratic principles,” Joel Malina, vice president for university relations, told JI. 

A spokesperson for Columbia pointed to an Aug. 9 announcement from the school’s COO, Cas Holloway, that campus access will now be restricted to only affiliates who have a valid ID “to keep our community safe given reports of potential disruptions at Columbia.”

Columbia University did not respond to a follow-up question from JI about how it plans to enforce rules this year compared to last year. According to a summary of Columbia disciplinary hearings from the end of last semester that was released on Monday by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, of the 40 students arrested when Columbia brought police to the campus to remove a student encampment on April 18, just two remain suspended. The remaining students are in good standing and can enroll in classes while waiting for their disciplinary hearings, although roughly half are on “disciplinary probation.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the committee, said in a statement that the lack of consequences for students was “reprehensible.” 

Goldin’s pessimism that the Columbia campus environment would improve comes as her school saw a major leadership change over the summer. Earlier this month, it was announced that the three Columbia deans who were placed on leave in June after exchanging antisemitic text messages would resign. 

Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, abruptly resigned last week, several months after the end of a chaotic school year that saw her testify before Congress about antisemitism and navigate the fallout from the first anti-Israel encampment in the nation. 

Dr. Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia’s Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president. Goldin said “the only hope” is that Armstrong will be “able to restore Columbia’s values and integrity and that she can put a strong foot down to return campus back to normal.” 

But some would-be Columbia students have given up on the prestigious New York school. For the first time in at least 20 years, Ramaz, a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school on the Upper East Side, is not sending any graduates to Columbia. (One Ramaz student enrolled in Columbia’s School of General Studies, but not at the college, while three Ramaz students are reportedly attending Columbia’s sister school, Barnard College. A Ramaz spokesperson declined to provide JI with Columbia enrollment numbers from previous years.)

Last month at Harvard, administration drafted a new set of rules, some of which are similar to the UCF orders. The Harvard guidelines would prohibit daytime and overnight camping, excessive noise, unapproved signage and chalk or paint displays on campus property — all of which overwhelmed the campus last spring amid anti-Israel protests. 

In a statement to JI, a Harvard spokesperson said that “Harvard is committed to ensuring that all of our Jewish and Israeli students can pursue their intellectual and personal interests, and feel a sense of belonging on campus.” The spokesperson said that the university has “taken numerous steps to maintain the safety and security of our campus community in the year ahead and will continue to take action so that every student can thrive at Harvard.” 

Most of the policies outlined in the new document draw on existing Harvard policies that went largely unenforced last semester, leaving the Jewish community skeptical that the policies will be enforced this year.

“Not only were most of these new policies not actually new, but have been repeatedly violated by students in an effort to harass Jews,” Shabbos Kestenbaum, a recent Harvard graduate who is suing the university over its handling of campus antisemitism, told JI earlier this month.

Yudof, the former president of the University of California and a law professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Shira Goodman, the Anti-Defamation League’s senior director of campaigns and outreach, both warned that the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks will likely be a particularly fraught period for Jewish students if administrators don’t start preparing now. 

“The key is to have reasonable rules and procedures and to enforce them,” Yudoff said.

Goodman said that even with university leadership changes, the ADL is “still very much concerned that we will see renewed efforts on these campuses and across the country to disrupt campus academic and extracurricular activities, especially as we move closer to the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.” She pointed to a four-page set of joint recommendations released over the summer by leading Jewish communal organizations, including the ADL and Hillel, in an effort to compel universities to enforce their own codes of conduct on campus. Goodman said, “We urge university administrators to follow the guidelines set forth.” 

ASPEN, Colo. — At the end of a school year marked by strife at campuses around the United States, few prestigious universities have managed to avoid the accusations of discrimination and harassment that have now become routine as higher education institutions grapple with the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war. 

Dartmouth College may be the rare exception. Speaking at a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday, Dartmouth President Sian Beilock was introduced with a rare accolade: Dartmouth is the only Ivy League college that has not faced a federal civil rights investigation over its handling of allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus. 

“I’m really proud of where Dartmouth is and what Dartmouth is, and I always go back to what the North Star of Dartmouth is,” Beilock said. “We are a different kind of Ivy, and we have one serious goal, which is to find students from the broadest swath of society, bringing them to campus, give them the tools to disagree with each other, to debate, to have civil dialogue, so they can go out and be the next leaders of our democracy.”

Dartmouth has earned national recognition for its approach to Oct. 7 and its aftermath, and the resulting campus protests. For two years, the university has offered a class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is co-taught by an Israeli professor and a former Egyptian diplomat who worked on the Middle East peace process. In Beilock’s first email to the Dartmouth community after Oct. 7, she clearly condemned the Hamas attack and spoke of the need for dialogue — a value touted at other universities, but one that Beilock quickly put into action by organizing two public forums on the conflict with professors from both the Middle East studies department and the Jewish studies department. 

Those public offerings “set the stage for a lot of what we’ve able to do,” Beilock explained, because “they showed what it’s like to have nuanced conversation across difference.”

The school saw more than 25 protests on the war, Beilock continued, but she made clear why no encampment was able to last at Dartmouth beyond a few hours.

“One thing that we were clear about from the beginning is that protests can be an important form of free speech. But there’s a difference between protest and then taking over a shared space for one ideology and excluding another. That is taking over someone else’s free speech. That is not at the heart of our academic mission,” Beilock said. “As such, we’ve been very clear about the consequences of having encampments on campus.” 

Her quick removal of the encampment earned condemnation from the university’s faculty, who voted to censure her for calling in the police after an encampment popped up in May. 

Beilock spoke alongside outgoing Colorado College President L. Song Richardson, whose handling of campus protests and an anti-Israel encampment differed starkly from what happened at Dartmouth. Richardson negotiated with campus protesters, who took down their encampment after she acceded to several of their demands. Among them was a concession that student activists can bring their demands for divestment from Israeli companies to the school’s investment committee.

“We allowed the encampment to remain in place. We had meetings with those who were camping out and reached an agreement to have conversations with our board, and then they voluntarily took down the encampment a few days before our graduation,” Richardson said. She said they followed the same playbook the university used when students sought divestment from fossil fuel companies.

At Dartmouth, Beilock said the university’s investment committee does consider ideas from Dartmouth stakeholders including students. But she cautioned against factoring in political considerations too strongly when it comes to shaping the school’s endowment.

“The endowment is not a political tool. I’ve said that very clearly,” Beilock said. “The goal of the endowment is to generate resources so that we can do things like financial aid.”

Without naming any other institutions, Beilock took aim at universities that have gone too far in considering politics in how they make decisions. 

“I’m really concerned about some of my peers and what they’ve done to circumvent the processes that they’ve had in place for many years,” said Beilock. “I don’t think that’s the best way to get to an outcome where you’re thinking about the longevity of an institution and creating a space where the institution is not the critic, but you support and foster critics on both sides themselves.” Among an audience of philanthropists and executives, Beilock earned loud applause. 

Beilock, who joined Dartmouth a year ago after six years as the president of Barnard College, blamed the campus turmoil at least in part on a lack of ideological diversity at elite institutions.

“We haven’t been good enough about making sure we have voices across the political spectrum on campus in enough of a way that allows them to constantly be practicing having these difficult conversations across difference,” Beilock said. “I’m recommitting to that.”

Columbia University declined to comment to Jewish Insider after 144 members of its faculty signed an open letter on Saturday that called Israel an apartheid state while referring to Hamas’ terrorist attacks as a legitimate “military action.”

The professors wrote that they are uneasy about students being deemed antisemitic if they “express empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians, and/or if they signed on to a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on Oct. 7 within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel.”

“In our view, the student statement aims to recontextualize the events of October 7, 2023, pointing out that military operations and state violence did not begin that day, but rather it represented a military response by a people who had endured crushing and unrelenting state violence from an occupying power over many years. One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation, something anticipated by international humanitarian law in the Second Geneva Protocol,” the faculty letter said. 

“In either case armed resistance by an occupied people must conform to the laws of war, which include a prohibition against the intentional targeting of civilians,” it continued. “The statement reflects and endorses this legal framework, including a condemnation of the killing of civilians.”

Even as some of the protests have turned violent, the letter defended the student demonstrators against the “egregious forms of harassment and efforts to chill otherwise protected speech on campus [that] are unacceptable.” Earlier this month, an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s main library after confronting a woman ripping down flyers with names and pictures of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas. 

Columbia’s faculty demanded that the administration “cease issuing statements that favor the suffering and death of Israelis or Jews over the suffering and deaths of Palestinians.” 

When asked whether administration condemns the letter and thinks it is antisemitic, a spokesperson for Columbia told JI, “on this, we have no comment.” 

About two dozen of the 144 signatories were faculty members at Barnard College, which is affiliated with Columbia but is a separate institution. Barnard did not respond to JI’s request for comment. 

Faculty members from Columbia and Barnard wrote in the letter that Hamas’ attack caused “very disturbing reverberations on our campus” and that they have “grave concerns about how some of our students are being viciously targeted with doxing, public shaming, surveillance by members of our community, including other students, and reprisals from employers.” 

The faculty went on to defend a ​​student-written “Joint Statement from Palestine Solidarity Groups at Columbia University regarding the recent events in Palestine/Israel: Oppression Breeds Resistance.” 

Columbia’s student body is roughly 22% Jewish. Around 20 Jewish Columbia and Barnard students spoke at a rally on campus on Monday, slamming the university’s lack of response to incidents including the assault of an Israeli student, online death threats and swastika graffiti.  

Barnard psychology student Jessica Brenner, 20, said she is now anxious while walking to class. “I feel walking on campus many people just want me to die,” Brenner reportedly said at the rally. “Now I get it, I actually understand how the Holocaust happened. When Columbia professors band together and sign a letter that basically justifies Hamas’ actions, I do not feel safe.”

Also on Monday, four Jewish faculty members published a letter rebuking the initial letter from Columbia professors. The open letter had an additional 94 signatures hours after it was published on Monday night. 

“There is no excuse for Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israeli civilians, which was an egregious war crime,” the letter said. “There is no justification for raping and murdering ordinary citizens in front of their families, mutilating babies, decapitating people, using automatic weapons and grenades to hunt down and murder young people at a music festival celebrating peace, burning families alive, kidnapping and taking hostages (including vulnerable populations of elderly, people with disabilities, and young children), parading women hostages in front of chanting crowds, and proudly documenting these nightmarish scenes on social media.”

“We are horrified that anyone would celebrate these monstrous attacks or, as some members of the Columbia faculty have done in a recent letter, try to ‘recontextualize’ them as a ‘salvo,’ as the ‘exercise of a right to resist’ occupation, or as ‘military action,’” the letter continued.”We are astonished that anyone at Columbia would try to legitimize an organization that shares none of the University’s core values of democracy, human rights, or the rule of law.” 

Several national Jewish leaders who have been focused on the rise of antisemitism on campus  condemned the Columbia faculty letter. 

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, told JI that the group calls “on university leaders to denounce this hate and take necessary action against those who signed it.” 

“Campuses, including Columbia and Barnard, must maintain a safe learning environment for Jewish students,” Greenblatt said. “With an increase in antisemitic incidents on college campuses across the U.S., Jewish students are feeling threatened just as they are grieving the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. This letter, signed by those who are supposed to be supporting all students, is completely unacceptable. There is no way to justify Hamas’ war crimes and unconscionable atrocities.”

David Bernstein, CEO of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values and author of Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews, told JI, “We don’t just have an antisemitism problem, we have an education problem.” 

“What we are witnessing at Columbia and Barnard among both the students and faculty is the product of a highly ideological education that divides up the world into oppressed and oppressors. These students lay the blame on Israel entirely for the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians. They cannot bring themselves to condemn the ‘Palestinian Fighters’ who massacred Israelis. It didn’t come from nowhere,” Bernstein said.