Schumer said the school must ‘take prompt action,’ Stefanik called for participating students to be expelled and prosecuted

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U.S. Capitol Building on January 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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.”
The staff member was taken to the hospital as protestors refused to remove their masks to meet with university administration

Lishi Baker
Milbank Hall on Barnard College campus on February 26, 2025 as the building was occupied by anti-Israel protesters for six hours
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.”
Columbia University, of which Barnard is an affiliate, suspended a third student involved in the incident last month

Alon Levin
Columbia SJP protest, Barnard campus, Dec. 11, 2023
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.”
The protesters have become more extreme, often using violent rhetoric, but they’re not as widespread as they were in the spring

Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
On the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, USC students walk out of class and march around their campus in support of Palestinians and the divest movement on Monday, October 7, 2024 in Los Angeles.
As the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks approached earlier this month, Jewish students at American universities waited with trepidation — would their memorial events be targeted by anti-Israel demonstrators? Memories of encampments and chants of “intifada” from last spring lingered in the back of their minds as they came together to mourn and reflect with campus Jewish communities.
But if the early weeks of the academic year before Oct. 7 provided tentative cause for optimism at some schools that had faced major disruptions earlier this year, that day and the week that followed reminded Jewish students that the anti-Zionist and antisemitic rhetoric they came to fear last year are still present at many schools. In many cases, the activity has become more extreme and the language more violent, even if it is not as widespread as it was in the spring.
At the University of California, Berkeley, more than 1,000 students staged a walkout from their classes and gathered at the main campus quad, where flyers with the words “Long Live Al-Aqsa Flood” — Hamas’ name for their Oct. 7 attacks — were distributed. A banner reading “Glory to the Resistance” was hung from a famed tower on campus. At Swarthmore College, outside Philadelphia, the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine wrote on Instagram: “Happy October 7th!” and asked followers to donate money “in honor of this glorious day and all our martyred revolutionaries.”
“There has been a lot of justification of violence, and not even just justification, but glorification,” said Julia Jassey, CEO of Jewish on Campus. “You see this coming from a number of universities where you’re having student groups saying that the violence of Oct. 7 was OK, that it was justified, that it was moralized in some way.”
Some protesters more directly targeted Jewish students and institutions. Fifteen to 20 people demonstrated outside of the University of Minnesota Hillel on Oct. 7 during a “One year of Genocide” walkout sponsored by the campus pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions group. A group of protesters at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill chanted slogans condemning Hillel.
“There has been a lot of justification of violence, and not even just justification, but glorification,” said Julia Jassey, CEO of Jewish on Campus. “You see this coming from a number of universities where you’re having student groups saying that the violence of Oct. 7 was OK, that it was justified, that it was moralized in some way.”
As the war in the Middle East enters its second year, the story of life for Jewish students is not one clear-cut narrative.
Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman told Jewish Insider he sees a few key differences between the spasm of hate that erupted last week and what occurred on many of the same campuses during the spring semester.
“These activities are becoming more extreme while they’re attracting fewer total students,” Lehman said.
“Most students came into this academic year aware that some of their peers and many people from outside of campus would be continuing to try to hijack their campus environment to advance specific political goals and objectives. With that awareness, they are less surprised by the protest activities and disruptions they’ve seen,” said Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman.
Hillel International, which provides support to hundreds of university Hillel houses, has also observed a change in response from university administrators: “Many more administrations adopted stronger policies, and even this week, we have seen several administrations respond more forcefully in trying to address over-the-top protest and agitation disruptions,” Lehman explained.
For instance, after anti-Israel activists at Pomona College in Southern California blockaded a campus university building — prompting some students to resort to climbing out of windows to leave — the university suspended 12 students for their role in the takeover. At other universities, such as Stanford, administrators started the school year by revamping their policies governing protest and freedom of expression, as well as their handling of discrimination complaints.
Some students, too, appear to have tired of the divisive anti-Israel politics promoted by vocal activists on campus. Last week, the University of Michigan student government voted to restore funding to student organizations after anti-Israel activists succeeded in putting the funding on pause, in a move they said was meant to protest the war in Gaza. Upstate New York’s Binghamton University’s student government voted to overturn a resolution passed last year that expressed support for BDS. Yet at American University in Washington, D.C., 65% of students who participated in a campus referendum voted to divest from Israel.
One constant amid the whiplash from campus to campus — and from week to week — is that Jewish students have been forced to acknowledge that their universities could at any point become Ground Zero for Israeli-Palestinian politics to erupt in chaos. Even when that doesn’t happen, a sense of anticipation lurks in the background.
“Most students came into this academic year aware that some of their peers and many people from outside of campus would be continuing to try to hijack their campus environment to advance specific political goals and objectives. With that awareness, they are less surprised by the protest activities and disruptions they’ve seen,” said Lehman.
The other constant is that Jewish students continue to engage with the Jewish community. Oct. 7 memorials happened at universities across the country, generally without incident and with large attendance. Students report bustling Shabbat dinners and active Hillel and Chabad houses.
“Being a Jew at Columbia now is infinitely better than it was last year. I publicize antisemitism [because] the lack of loudness shouldn’t let us become complacent,” Eliana Goldin, a senior at Columbia, wrote on X last week. “The Jewish community at Columbia is thriving. We’ve just become desensitized.”
In a virtual event on Friday before Yom Kippur, the vice president described a need to balance students’ legitimate freedom of speech while also fighting hate on campuses

Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 7: Vice President Kamala Harris speaks before planting a pomegranate tree at the Vice President's residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory on October 7, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Second couple marked the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks in Israel by planting a memorial tree, a tradition done by second families on the grounds of the Vice President 's residence. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke out against the antisemitism on American college campuses, pledging in a Friday virtual event before Yom Kippur to “do everything in my power to combat antisemitism whenever and wherever we see it.”
“I know across the country, many Jewish parents and grandparents are worried for their children who are on college campuses, and I know many Jewish students have feared attending class in recent months,” Harris said. “When individuals participate in calls to violence and harassment against Jews, that is antisemitism, and I condemn it. When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or identity, and when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism, and I condemn it.”
She described a need to balance students’ legitimate freedom of speech while also fighting hate on campuses.
“In the United States of America, we can and we must ensure people can peacefully make their voices heard, while we also stand up for the rule of law and stand up against hate, and this is a priority for me,” said Harris.
Until now, Harris has said little about discrimination and hostility faced by Jewish students at U.S. universities. In September, former President Donald Trump threatened to cut federal funding to universities if they don’t address antisemitism, he told the Republican Jewish Coalition.
In July, Harris told The Nation that young pro-Palestine protesters are “showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza,” while drawing some distance from their extreme rhetoric: “There are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points,” she said. “But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it.”
Altman, a longtime progressive activist, is running against Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) in a battleground district

Courtesy
Sue Altman
On Friday morning, the National Republican Campaign Committee shared an audio clip on X that appeared to depict Sue Altman, the Democratic candidate challenging Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, endorsing antisemitic campus protests at Columbia University.
But the full clip tells a very different story, in which Altman clearly condemned the protests as antisemitic and unacceptable.
The post is the latest of Republicans’ efforts to portray Altman, a longtime progressive activist who led the Working Families Party in New Jersey, as too radical to represent the New Jersey swing district — a line of attack that has sometimes focused on questions about Altman’s record on Israel.
Based on a clip of the exchange obtained by Jewish Insider, Altman was asked at an event by a Jewish high schooler about how she would address antisemitism on college campuses and keep the Jewish community safe.
“I am extremely concerned and worried about the rise in antisemitism,” Altman said. She mentioned that she’d read a recent report by Columbia University’s antisemitism task force, which she described as “truly appalling. No student, Jewish or anything, should have to ever experience antisemitism or any kind of bias against them.”
Altman, a Columbia alumna, highlighted a Sept. 3 tweet she sent in response to that report, in which she said that “glorifying despicable acts of terror and subjecting Jewish students to harassment or intimidation does absolutely nothing to advance the interests of innocent Palestinians — nor does it advance the broader mission to secure peace.”
Altman, in the excerpt from the event posted by the NRCC said, in general terms, that “an anti-war movement is something that is honorable and part of Columbia’s history, and I’ve always respected good old protests.”
But she went on to say that at Columbia and many other schools, “what should have been an anti-war movement and a movement for [a] peace that is sustainable, which would have included returning the hostages, not just a one-sided unilateral peace had, in my opinion bled over into antisemitism.”
She said that she’s been “very disappointed and appalled” at the activity of the protesters at Columbia, describing their push to relitigate the founding of Israel and question the Jewish people’s right to a state as “a nonstarter for me.”
Altman’s campaign had, in its early days, drawn questions about her positions on Israel, given that the national Working Families Party has been a long-standing critic of the Jewish state.
Altman said at the event that she had publicly broken with the group on Israel “because I do feel as though the Israeli people have a right to defend themselves,” noting that Israel continues to face attacks by its neighbors.
The congressional candidate said she’s had conversations with local Jewish leaders about the fear that they are feeling, adding that she feels that antisemitism has long been “left unchecked and left unexamined,” going back to the time of the Holocaust and before.
She said that many in the U.S. have forgotten or glossed over the fact that the U.S. turned away Jewish refugees and turned a blind eye to the atrocities the Nazis were committing in the Holocaust, or in some cases attended pro-Nazi rallies.
“The conversation around antisemitism in our country has a long way to go, in scholarship, in popular culture, in the way we talk about the ways antisemitism affects regular people,” Altman said, arguing the U.S. hasn’t had a proper reconging with antisemitism in the way it has in recent years with racism and sexism.
“I would encourage us all, whether Republican or Democrat … or unaffiliated, to look very closely at the ways in which antisemitism exists in this country, alongside the other ills that we are more conversant around — gender and race,” Altman said.
Asked about its characterization and presentation of Altman’s remarks, the NRCC accused her of trying to disguise her record.
“Sue Altman has been trying to hide her radical past from voters this entire election cycle — from deleting tweets to a full on attempted rebrand that even leftists acknowledge,” NRCC spokesperson Savannah Viar said. “She has spent her career associating with anti-Israel activists and no number of rambling answers will cover that up.”
The NRCC has gone after Altman in the past for her ties to the WFP, for her support for former Ohio congressional candidate Nina Turner, a critic of Israel, and for taking endorsements from progressive Israel critics in Congress. Conservatives have also accused her of being slow to speak out in support of Israel and against the chaos at Columbia.
More broadly, Kean and the NRCC say Altman is trying to walk back her progressive record to win election in a swing district.
Altman fired back, “instead of recognizing an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to affirm our support for the Jewish people” at a time of heightened fear and antisemitism, “Kean and the NRCC have deceptively manipulated a recording of me to lie to voters — because their only goal is to win an election at any cost.”
Kean’s campaign reposted the NRCC video on its X account. It declined to comment.
“The insinuation that I have anything less than absolute contempt for antisemitism and hate in all its forms is disgusting,” Altman continued. “As my record clearly shows, I have and always will stand with the Jewish community — and unlike Tom Kean Jr., I’m not looking to score cheap political points by spreading dangerous and false lies.”
Dozens of anti-Israel students disrupted a convocation for incoming freshmen with chants of ‘Free Palestine’

Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Students participate in a protest in support of Palestine and for free speech outside of the Columbia University campus on Nov. 15.
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.
Jewish leaders expressed skepticism that university officials will enforce the new rules

JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
Tents and signs fill Harvard Yard in the pro-Palestinian encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 5, 2024.
Following months in which anti-Israel protests overwhelmed Harvard University’s campus, the school’s administration has drafted a new set of rules that would prohibit daytime and overnight camping, excessive noise, unapproved signage and chalk or paint displays on campus property, the elite college announced earlier this week in a draft document first obtained by the Harvard Crimson.
The six-page document, which was approved by Harvard’s Office of General Counsel and the Working Group on Campus Space, comes months after illegal anti-Israel student encampments overtook the campus for several weeks in the spring. Most of the policies outlined in the new document draw on existing Harvard policies that went largely unenforced last semester.
“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 Jewish Insider.
“These rules mean little when there is neither enforcement nor discipline for those breaking them,” said Kestenbaum, who spoke last month at the Republican National Convention about his experience with antisemitism on Harvard’s campus.
Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, in a statement, echoed Kestenbaum’s skepticism that the school will enforce the new policies.
“These policies, like many that have been promulgated, are fine and reasonable,” Summers said. “The issue is that the university, over the last year, has consistently failed to act and impose sanctions when policies are violated and has been slow to implement policies on behalf of Jewish student groups. That is why it is subject to multiple federal government investigations and civil suits.”
The draft document, a copy of which has been obtained by JI, has not been finalized or broadly shared with the Harvard community. Jason Newton, a university spokesperson, emphasized to the Crimson that the university is still finishing writing the policies and the document is subject to change. “Once the document is finalized, it will be shared with the Harvard community,” he said.
The initial document says that it is designed to “foster the well-being of community members and to preserve these resources for future generations” and warns that violations of the policy could result in punishment.
According to the draft policy, students or groups that fail to comply with the campus use guidelines “may be held financially responsible for any resulting costs incurred and may be subject to other consequences for noncompliance, including referral for discipline.”
The Biden administration has offered no plans to crack down on the alleged foreign interference

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
Anti-Israel demonstrators leave a statue covered in graffiti in Lafayette Park across from the White House.
An unexpected announcement earlier this week from the top U.S. intelligence official that Iranian government-aligned actors are infiltrating, stoking and even funding anti-Israel protests in the U.S. raised alarm bells among members of Congress and foreign policy experts.
But while Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, warned of Iran “becoming increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts,” she included little in the way of a policy response, beyond urging “all Americans to remain vigilant as they engage online with accounts and actors they do not personally know.”
After Haines’ warning, Biden administration officials speaking about the Iranian threat have been careful to combine their concerns with statements affirming activists’ right to protest and arguing that they have been doing so “in good faith.” None of them have raised concerns about the protesters’ conduct, despite remarks from President Joe Biden in May calling out violence and antisemitism at some campus protests. Nor have the administration officials who spoke publicly about the alert expressed fear that protesters may have been compromised by Iranian actors seeking to exert influence in the American democratic system.
“I want to be clear that I know Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza – this intelligence does not indicate otherwise,” Haines said. “Moreover, the freedom to express diverse views, when done peacefully, is essential to our democracy, but it is also important to warn of foreign actors who seek to exploit our debate for their own purposes.”
This statement was echoed almost verbatim by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and White House national security spokesperson John Kirby on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
“Americans across the political spectrum, acting in good faith, have sought to express their own independent views on the conflict in Gaza,” Jean-Pierre said.
Kirby, when asked by a reporter to describe Iran’s tactics, responded with a similar comment: “I want to start by being very clear that we respect the right of peaceful protest, and we recognize that there’s a lot of passionate feelings about the war in Gaza,” Kirby said. “Many, many Americans are going out into the streets and making their opinions known, and we respect that. That’s what a democracy is all about, and I want to make it clear that we recognize those are genuine protests.”
When Jewish Insider reached out to the White House on Thursday, asking how the Biden administration can be certain that the protests are, in fact, entirely genuine, a spokesperson declined to comment.
But Kirby noted that “what’s really alarming” about Iran’s actions “is that the Iranians aren’t being transparent” — a point that seems to suggest it also isn’t possible to know if everything about the protests really is genuine.
The White House appears to be arguing that the extent of Iran’s influence operation is that Americans who genuinely care about the war in Gaza may have been duped by Iran without their knowledge. “Those who may have been influenced by Iranian information activities or even offers of financial assistance may not even know that it’s coming from Iran,” Kirby said.
Two Democratic lawmakers told JI on Thursday that the news about Iran’s interference in the Gaza protests didn’t come as a shock.
“I’m not surprised at all. It’s been very clear that they were organized. It wasn’t some kind of organic situation, and it was always mostly rooted in antisemitism. Of course that’s where it could be coming from,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said in response to Haines’ statement.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he wasn’t aware of the statement ahead of time but wouldn’t dispute Haines’ assessment.
“I wouldn’t be surprised by that. If I was somebody just watching from the outside and the DNI put out a statement like that, it shouldn’t be shocking,” he told JI.
Still, no one in the Biden administration has yet spoken publicly about whether Washington will respond in any way. Questions about the funding of Gaza encampments on university campuses dogged the protests this spring. Now, the White House has acknowledged that Iranian funds are reaching American protests, but it is not offering specifics as to where Iranian money is going.
The White House spokesperson declined to comment when asked about how Biden might respond to the Iranian influence campaign. A State Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Jewish Insider congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed to this report.
The Ivy League school diluted the punishment for anti-Israel activists who broke campus rules

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Tents and signs fill Harvard Yard in the pro-Palestinian encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 5, 2024.
Harvard’s decision on Tuesday to reverse the suspensions of five students for participating in the illegal anti-Israel encampments earlier this year on the Cambridge, Mass., campus was met with “disappointment” by two leaders of Harvard’s Jewish community.
“I’m disappointed in this action. I’ve heard the phrase ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ but it seems in this case that no good deed goes unreversed,” Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Divinity School who stepped down from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee after a short stint, told Jewish Insider. “Punishment is a lesson — reversing it is a permission.”
Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, who leads Chabad on Harvard’s campus, said the reversal was “revealing and deeply disturbing.” Zarchi added that it’s “sadly clear” the move will embolden anti-Israel demonstrators.
That may have already taken place, judging by a joint Instagram post from the Palestine Solidarity Committee, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine and the African and African American Resistance Organization. “After sustained student and faculty organizing, Harvard has caved in, showing that student intifada will always prevail,” the groups wrote on Wednesday.
The suspensions and other disciplinary charges — which included the withholding of degrees for 13 seniors because of their involvement in the encampment — were initially announced in late May ahead of graduation. Hundreds of students and faculty members walked out of Harvard’s commencement ceremony in solidarity with the punished students.
According to the Harvard Crimson, the university informed students on Tuesday of their updated disciplinary charges, which saw the suspensions downgraded to probations of varying lengths and came as a result of the Faculty Council’s criticism of how the Harvard College Administrative Board dealt with the cases.
The most severe probation charge will last for just one semester, a drastic change from the initial punishments that required at least one student to withdraw from Harvard for three semesters. Some students who were initially placed on probation in May also had the length of their probations shortened.
A Harvard spokesperson told JI that the university does not comment on individual disciplinary cases. According to the policy outlined in the Harvard College Student Handbook, students in the disciplinary process who seek to challenge the outcome have two options: “reconsideration,” which is adjudicated by the administrative board and is for new and relevant information that was not initially made available; or “appeals,” which is adjudicated by the Faculty Council.
According to the handbook, “appeals” is for situations where the Administrative Board or Honor Council made a procedural error that may impact the disciplinary decision or when the punishment was determined to be inconsistent or inappropriate compared to past sanctions.
Wolpe, along with other Harvard Jewish leaders and alumni, expressed disappointment to JI last month as well, when a six-page set of preliminary recommendations released by the university task force focused on combating antisemitism at the school fell short of their expectations.
Agreements reached with the University of Michigan and the City University of New York are the first to address campus antisemitism since Oct. 7

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A protestor creates a pro-Palestine chalk mural on the ground as anti-Israel protestors continue protesting at the encampment of the University of Michigan on May 13, 2024.
Administrators at the University of Michigan and the City of University of New York failed to adequately investigate students’ reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia, the U.S. Department of Education announced on Monday.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights, known as OCR, released the findings of its investigations into how both Michigan and CUNY handled antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents dating back to 2020, culminating in resolutions reached with both universities to end the investigations in exchange for the administrations promising to do more to take students’ complaints seriously.
The agreements were the first to resolve investigations related to discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry — including antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Israel discrimination and anti-Palestinian racism — on college campuses since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel sparked a wave of antisemitism and ushered in a slew of more than 100 new investigations into potential civil rights violations.
“There’s no question that this is a challenging moment for school communities across the country. The recent commitments made by the University of Michigan and CUNY mark a positive step forward,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights continues to hold schools accountable for compliance with civil rights standards, including by investigating allegations of discrimination or harassment based on shared Jewish ancestry and shared Palestinian or Muslim ancestry.”
Jewish community advocates praised the department for resolving the complaints. In recent months, Jewish leaders have called on Congress to increase funding for OCR, which has been unable to hire additional attorneys to handle an immense increase in its caseloads since Oct. 7. More than twice as many shared ancestry investigations have been opened since Oct. 7 than in the previous seven years combined.
“The findings are sobering, but not surprising. Both schools must take their obligations to protect students seriously,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a post on X.
Investigators found that at Michigan, there was “no evidence” that the university complied with federal civil rights requirements mandating that the school assess whether 75 incidents of shared ancestry discrimination reported from late 2022 to early 2024 created a hostile environment for students. Because the university failed to determine whether Jewish and Muslim students faced a hostile environment, investigators also raised concerns that the university did not act “to end the hostile environment, remedy its effects and prevent its recurrence.”
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon, who oversees OCR, said she was “grateful to the University of Michigan for its speedy commitment to course correct following the volatile campus conditions since October 2023.” The university pledged to review each report of discrimination from the 2023-2024 school year and to report on its progress assessing harassment over the next two years, as well as to better train employees to comply with federal civil rights guidelines.
In a statement, Michigan President Santa Ono said the university “condemns all forms of discrimination, racism and bias in the strongest possible terms.” The agreement, Ono added, “reflects the university’s commitment to ensuring it has the tools needed to determine whether an individual’s acts or speech creates a hostile environment, and taking the affirmative measures necessary to provide a safe and supportive educational environment for all.”
The resolution reached between CUNY and the Education Department combined nine open investigations alleging antisemitism and Islamophobia or anti-Arab discrimination at several CUNY campuses, including Hunter College, Brooklyn College and Queens College. The department specifically criticized the university for failing to investigate and address an alleged antisemitic incident that occurred in a 2021 class at Hunter College, and called on CUNY to reopen investigations into antisemitic or Islamophobic harassment.
“The good news is that they are finally issuing resolution agreements for universities to make changes to address discrimination against Jewish students,” Ken Marcus, chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which helps students file civil rights complaints against universities, said of the agreements. Adding a note of caution, Marcus, who headed OCR in the Trump administration, said he had hoped for “more specificity and detail” in the agreements. “Instead, the Education Department has kicked the can down the road, requiring [CUNY] to make some vaguely described changes to its policies.”
In a statement, William C. Thompson Jr., the CUNY board of trustees chairman, promised the university would work closely with the Education Department. “We look forward to working with the Office of Civil Rights to ensure that all members of our community feel safe and included in the CUNY mission of equal access and opportunity,” said Thompson.
That both agreements included mentions of both antisemitism and Islamophobia — even though the two OCR complaints against Michigan only referred to antisemitism — reflects a common Biden administration practice of linking the two forms of hatred, even when the incidents are not connected.
“We all want universities to provide equal protection for all of their students, including Jewish and non-Jewish students alike. But it’s unusual for the agency to address claims by one group by insisting that multiple groups be treated in a different way,” said Marcus. “When women come forward and say that an institution is discriminating against women, the agency doesn’t come up with an order saying that both women and men need to be treated better in the future.”
The amendment requires schools to better publicize their procedures for investigating discrimination complaints and name an employee to coordinate them; it also changes investigative procedures at the Department of Education

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Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) arrives at a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on November 2, 2023 in Washington, DC.
The House Education and Workforce Committee voted 25-15 on Thursday to advance the Civil Rights Protection Act, a bill that places new requirements on universities and the Department of Education relating to investigating complaints of discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion or shared ancestry under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Lawmakers supporting the bill said it was aimed at addressing rising antisemitism on college campuses.
Democrats, arguing that the bill, which was introduced last Friday, had been moved too hastily and adds onerous new requirements on the Department of Education, voted nearly unanimously against the legislation. Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) was the only Democrat who supported it.
The bill, led by Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), would require schools receiving federal funding to make public and distribute to students and their families their procedures for investigating complaints of discrimination and information on how to file complaints with both the school and Department of Education.
Schools would also have to designate an employee to coordinate efforts to comply with Title VI and implement procedures for timely communication with and notifications for complainants.
Any school that does not comply with these provisions for two consecutive years would become ineligible to receive aid for at least the next two years.
The bill would additionally change Department of Education procedures such that cases under investigation would not be closed or delayed if they become the subject of a lawsuit or a complaint with another agency.
It would also require the Department of Education to brief and provide monthly reports to Congress on the number of complaints it has received and how it is addressing them.
Chavez-DeRemer said the recent rise in campus antisemitism has “exposed a dire need for transparency and common sense standards for these institutions to follow when addressing discrimination.”
The committee approved by a voice vote an amendment from Manning that would require the Office of Civil Rights to launch a campaign to ensure that students and schools are aware of legal protections against antisemitism on campuses.
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the committee’s ranking member, said that the Office of Civil Rights has a backlog of 11,000 pending cases, and that the changes to Department of Education procedures could exacerbate that backlog and further slow down resolutions of cases. But, he said, he was willing to work on improving the bill.
The committee rejected along party lines an amendment from Scott that called for a significant increase in funding for the Office of Civil Rights to $280 million — double the administration’s budget request — to address the new requirements.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the committee’s chair, highlighted that the proposal well exceeded the administration’s own stated needs, and would be symbolic given that the committee does not control funding for the Department.
It also rejected, again on party lines, an amendment from Manning that pushed for additional funding to implement the legislation’s new requirements, without providing a specific funding request.
Manning proposed, but ultimately withdrew, an amendment requiring the secretary of education to designate an official at the department to lead efforts to combat campus antisemitism. The provision is also included in her Countering Antisemitism Act.
Chavez-DeRemer highlighted the Orthodox Union as a particularly important backer of the bill.
“The introduction of The Civil Rights Protection Act comes at an important time, following a surge of antisemitic protests on college campuses across the nation,” Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy at the OU, said in a statement. “This is a critical step toward protecting Jewish students and reinforcing the values that define our country. This bill represents a crucial turning point in our fight to vindicate the rights of Jewish students to live and study without fear of discrimination or hostility at their chosen university. ”
The Committee also voted unanimously to pass a bill extending the Never Again Education Act’s Holocaust education programming through 2030, past its current expiration in 2025. The bill incorporates elements of the HEAL Act, ordering a study by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum of Holocaust education programs across the country.
The education committee voted 23-16 for the Transparency in Reporting Adversarial Contributions to Education (TRACE) Act, which would require public schools to notify parents about foreign funding in elementary and secondary schools.
It would allow parents to review and make copies of materials funded by foreign countries and require schools to inform parents, when asked, how many personnel are compensated by a foreign country, what donations they have received, what agreements exist with foreign countries and what financial transactions have taken place between schools and foreign countries.
The regulations would also apply to foreign entities of concern — companies that are owned or controlled by Iran and other foreign adversaries.
Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL), the bill’s sponsor, highlighted concerns about the Qatar Foundation’s funding for public schools as one of the motivations for the bill.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) described the bill as a “solution in search of a problem” which could also have unintended consequences for language education and other cultural exchange programs in schools, and impose burdensome and unclear new requirements on them.
More than 150 students and more than 200 faculty and staff signed open letters criticizing the environment on campus and school leaders’ failure to enforce the rules

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Old Queens building, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Ahead of testimony on Capitol Hill on Thursday by Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway, hundreds of Jewish Rutgers students, faculty, administrators and staff signed onto a pair of letters condemning the school’s handling of antisemitism on campus.
Rutgers’ administration agreed to many of the demands put forward by anti-Israel protesters on campus, but refused to divest from companies linked to Israel or cut ties with Tel Aviv University. Lawmakers, including Gov. Phil Murphy, have condemned the university’s handling of the situation.
The more than 150 students who signed the student-led letter wrote that they “would like to share our experiences of the past academic year in the hope of conveying the hurt, pain, and isolation that many of us have suffered and suggesting ways that the entire university community might do better in the future, not just to support its Jewish students, but to create a more tolerant climate for all its members.”
The students said that anti-Israel demonstrators had “in short… taken over our university,” including by forcing the delay of final exams, taking over building and blocking events.
They said they felt “abandoned” by people they considered friends in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, some of whom defended the Hamas massacre and “quickly mobilized in support of terror, conveying to us that we would not be safe and welcome at the university many of us called home.”
The students further accused “many faculty and staff” of having “guided [protesters] in tactics of intimidation and menacing protest,” helped the students negotiate with administrators and in some cases “allowed for and perpetuated antisemitic behavior in their own classrooms.”
They said that they have “no objection” to pro-Palestinian protests, but said that student groups that have actively violated others’ rights to free expression have faced no punishment, and that the university has failed to enforce its own rules.
“Our desire is nothing more than for our university to once again become a place where all peoples are welcome and treated equally, in a tolerant environment where we can all pursue knowledge in a spirit of peace and empathy for others,” the letter continued.
The second letter, signed by more than 200 faculty, staff and administrators, highlights more than a dozen incidents, including celebration of the Oct. 7 attack and the use of university resources to promote anti-Israel propaganda, some of which have gone unpunished.
“The administration’s decision to accede to the demands of the encampment protesters undermines the principles of shared governance, and it elevates the voices of a radical few above those of the more reasonable whole,” they wrote. “It does a disservice not just to Jewish students, faculty, and staff, but to the entire university community.”
They said Rutgers had failed to act proactively to respond to and make clear its rules and policies with regard to demonstrations and, “As a result, the entire university community has suffered through the disruption of normal university operations and an often chaotic and intimidating environment on our campuses.”
The Tides Foundation and its affiliated entities have a budget of nearly $1 billion, focused on left-wing causes

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Anti-Israel students and faculty of Drexel University, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania
The Tides Foundation, which backs several organizations involved in anti-Israel protests on college campuses and beyond, is facing scrutiny from the House Ways and Means Committee for serving as a conduit to hide the identity of donors to its grantees.
Tides’ entities – the foundation, as well as the Tides Network, Tides Center, Tides Inc. and Tides Advocacy – have a combined budget of almost $1 billion to support progressive causes, NGO Monitor, which researches nonprofits, found. In many respects, they operate as a dark money group, allowing other organizations to hide sources of funding and expenditures.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) pressured the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to disclose the ultimate sources of its foundation’s receipt of $12 million from Tides, arguing that funding from the progressive donor-advised fund may conflict with its tax-free status.
“Getting $12 million from Tides and then trying to say it’s really not from Tides, it’s from someone else, that makes me want to look harder,” Smith told The Hill.
The Tides Foundation did not respond to a request from Jewish Insider for comment.
The probe is one of many nonprofits whose tax-exempt status Smith has been examining, including to determine whether universities are failing to prevent antisemitic activities.
According to its 2022 tax filings, Tides entities contributed to nonprofits involved in recent campus and other anti-Israel activism, including Jewish Voice for Peace, Council on American Islamic Relations chapters (CAIR) in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Minnesota, IfNotNow, CODEPINK and others, as well as WESPAC (Westchester County Peace Action Committee), which, in turn, supports National Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine.
Tides also supports Palestine Legal, which has sued universities for cracking down on anti-Israel protests, and the Adalah Justice Project, which began organizing protests within days of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, through a fiscal sponsorship since 2013 and 2016, respectively.
This arrangement obscures NGOs’ financial operations, including their donors, donation amounts, staff, salary and other expenditures, and makes it nearly impossible to trace sources of funding or whether donations are being used for their intended purpose.
Legally, the fiscal sponsorship means that Palestine Legal and Adalah Justice Project are part of the Tides Foundation, which files tax documents on their behalf, even though the former presents itself as “an independent organization” and the latter says it is “a Palestinian-led advocacy organization.”
Nonprofits that receive “Model A Fiscal Sponsorship” manage their entire backends through Tides; they fall under Tides’ 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, Tides does their financial accounting, payroll processing and human resources management, provides benefits to employees and administers grants, among other services, and collects a 9% fee.
In 2022, the last year for which Tides’ IRS disclosures are available, the five entities reported spending $158,217,539 on salaries. Yet the reported “officers, directors, key employees and highest compensated employees,” as well as the major independent contractors of Tides entities, add up to $36,554,485. The remaining $121.6 million is unexplained. Tides pays the salaries of employees of fiscally sponsored organizations, such as Palestine Legal and Adalah Justice Project.
Fiscal sponsorship allows NGOs like Palestine Legal and Adalah Justice Project not to disclose their donors, though in their case, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund contributed close to $1 million to Tides in 2023 and earmarked more than half for them.
George Soros’ Open Society Foundations contributed $25.8 million between 2020 and 2021. In 2019, $225,000 of its donations to Tides were for pro-Palestinian causes.
Other notable Tides donors include a foundation funded by Susan Pritzker, wife of Hyatt Hotel heir Nick Pritzker, a relative of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, and, in the past, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation (WESPAC) received $97,000 from Tides in 2022, nearly half of its funding that year, and reported spending almost $1.5 million on “office expenses,” in an office with just one part-time employee, The Washington Free Beacon found.
WESPAC is the fiscal sponsor of National Students for Justice in Palestine, which victims of the Oct. 7 attack are suing for allegedly being “collaborators and propagandists for Hamas.”
The lawsuit states that “the financial interactions between WESPAC and its anti-Israel clientele is intentionally opaque to largely shield from public view the flow of funds between and among them.”
A group of 16 Republican senators called last week for the IRS to investigate WESPAC and other groups for supporting terrorism. Their letter noted the “heinous support [National Student for Justice in Palestine] chapters across the country have supported for Hamas, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
WESPAC does not disclose its fiscal sponsors, but the Anti-Defamation League reported that “most of WESPAC’s current or former fiscal sponsorships goes to support anti-Israel projects and groups,” such as Within Our Lifetime, which has been a major driver of anti-Israel protests in New York.
NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg said that “the hidden funding for the carefully planned ‘spontaneous protests’ needs to be addressed urgently.”
“The leaders of the network manipulated huge IRS loopholes that allow for secret payment of salaries, rent and other major costs for what are supposed to be transparent ‘civil society’ groups,” Steinberg added. “By funneling their money via Tides and other fiscal sponsors, the donors, possibly including foreign entities, remain hidden, in contrast to basic democratic norms.”
CORRECTION: Open Society Foundations contributed $25.8 million to the Tides Foundation in 2020 and 2021 combined; an earlier version of the story wrote the contributions were only in 2021.
Carol Christ said her engagement with the protesters was ‘quite valuable’ and praised the group’s ‘efforts to maintain a professional, organized, and productive approach during a very difficult time’

Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ speaks alongside NASA Ames Research Center director Eugene Tu and Daniel Kingsley of SKS Partners as they announce the creation of the 38-acre Berkeley Space Center at NASA Research Park at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., Monday, Oct. 16, 2023.
University of California Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ is retiring in just over a month, but nothing about her job is quieting down in her final days. Instead, the English professor is facing blowback from some in the local Jewish community regarding a series of actions she took this week to try to end the school’s Gaza solidarity encampment.
On Tuesday, Christ sent a letter to the “Free Palestine Encampment” outlining an agreement she had reached with the protest leaders in exchange for them ending their encampment. The letter quickly raised eyebrows among Jewish leaders for its concessions to the protesters and language it used around antisemitism. The next day, after the tents were taken down, several dozen pro-Palestine activists occupied a campus building that was not in use. They hung up the Palestinian flag and drew antisemitic graffiti that said “Zionism = Nazism” and equated the Jewish star to the swastika.
Amid all of the tumult, Christ reached out on Wednesday to the members of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Jewish Life and Campus Climate, a group consisting of Jewish faculty members, students and local leaders, to schedule a meeting for Thursday. The advisory committee had not been consulted in the course of Christ’s negotiations with the anti-Israel protesters, despite several reported instances of antisemitism on campus, one person who was at the meeting told Jewish Insider.
The person who attended the meeting, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the conversation, said it “went badly,” with “students crying [and] professors angry.”
“She started the meeting by saying our primary objective was trying to not disrupt the semester, to make sure people continue to study and take their finals. But what about the Jewish students whose lives had been upended by this?” the attendee told JI. “It felt like we were slighted. And then the public statements that she’s made, and the way that we were engaged, was just really a lack of respect.”
In Christ’s Tuesday letter to the encampment leaders, she described their conversations as “quite valuable” and recognized the group’s “efforts to maintain a professional, organized, and productive approach during a very difficult time.” She responded politely to the protesters’ demands while seeming to absolve them of the antisemitic behavior that university officials acknowledge took place.
She said the university is prohibited from divesting from Israeli businesses by state law, but that she will investigate whether the school’s investments “continue to align with our values.” She also said she opposes academic boycotts, but that she will review the school’s academic partnerships and ensure that none exhibit anti-Palestinian discrimination. (The protesters, in their own public post explaining what happened, call this provision a “pathway to boycott of Israeli university programs on grounds of anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab discrimination,” a charge that a university spokesperson denied.)
Christ’s letter did not refer to any of the protesters’ hardline language targeting Zionists, or instances of antisemitism perpetrated by the activists. She told the encampment leaders that she plans to make a public statement “sharing my personal support for government officials’ efforts to secure an immediate and permanent cease-fire. Such support for the plight of Palestinians, including protest, should not be conflated with hatred or antisemitism.” The letter made no mention of the Israeli hostages, Hamas’ attack, or any Israeli victims of the current conflict.
Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor for communications, told JI on Thursday that “there’s no doubt that there were individuals in the encampment who engaged in antisemitic expression, and that some of the signs that went up were antisemitic expression.” But, he added, choosing not to engage with the group because of “antisemitic expression emanating from certain individuals” would have “amounted to collective punishment.”
In another Tuesday letter, to the university’s academic Senate, Christ said she was “greatly relieved that we were able to bring this protest to a peaceful end.” But less than a day later, a group of anti-Israel demonstrators had taken over Anna Head Alumnae Hall. Mogulof insisted that the protesters in the occupied building were not the same ones that Christ had negotiated with.
“All the information we have [is] we don’t see the same people. We’ve spoken to them and they say we didn’t have anything to do with getting this started,” said Mogulof, who called the incident a “crime scene.” Police were dispatched there on Thursday night.
The leaders of the encampment took to Instagram to cheer on those who had occupied the building and called on supporters to go defend it from police. Berkeley’s graduate student chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which was also heavily involved in the encampment, expressed a “statement of solidarity” with those at the occupied building, and explicitly condemned Mogulof’s language, calling his separation of the two groups “inaccurate, untrue, and destructive.”
Christ, who has served as chancellor at Berkeley since 2017, has enjoyed a close relationship with the Bay Area Jewish community for much of that period. The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area honored her with their “Courageous Leadership Award” at the group’s 2020 gala.
She faced a different reaction from the group this week. After the Thursday meeting with the Jewish life advisory committee, the JCRC released a statement expressing “no confidence” in Christ’s leadership. “We call on the UC Board of Regents to take swift action amid this leadership vacuum to restore order to campus, and safety for Jewish campus life,” the statement said.
“She’s retiring at the end of this academic year, so she only has a few weeks left,” JCRC executive director Tyler Gregory told JI. “I think our statement would have been different if she weren’t leaving already.”
'Given the growing number of radical encampments on college campuses and the harassment of Jewish students, we are concerned about their safety and ability to freely voice their views and practice a faith of their choice,' the lawmakers write

Colin Myers/Claflin University/HBCU via Getty Images
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
A group of Idaho Republicans is seeking answers from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona about how his department is shielding Jewish students from harassment on college campuses following months of protests against the war in Gaza.
Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Reps. Russ Fulcher (R-ID) and Mike Simpson (R-ID) penned a letter with three GOP colleagues to Cardona on Wednesday asking the education secretary to explain how he is “protecting Jewish and pro-Israel students from persecution on college campuses nationwide, amid growing protests.”
“Given the growing number of radical encampments on college campuses and the harassment of Jewish students, we are concerned about their safety and ability to freely voice their views and practice a faith of their choice,” the letter, obtained exclusively by Jewish Insider, reads.
“Not all campuses have failed to enforce the law. While we strongly disagree with the sentiments of many of these protests, several campuses have seen protests that abided by both state and federal laws and did not result in discriminatory behavior from its participants,” it continues.
The letter also called for the Department of Education to establish “a best practices guide for universities showcasing the schools that have appropriately handled the recent increase in protests on their campuses.”
“The Department should compile a list of suggested policies and actions of universities that have safely protected the rights of all students and release best practices nationwide in order to encourage all universities to take the correct approach to this surge in protests,” the lawmakers wrote.
The four lawmakers listed a series of questions for Cardona about his department’s response up to now on the campus protests. They requested responses by the first of next month.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education did not respond to JI’s request for comment on the letter, which comes following months of anti-Israel protests — some of which have turned violent — that occurred on dozens of university campuses across the country.
Congressional Republicans have been pushing the Biden administration and Senate Democrats to take more aggressive action to tackle the protests, which the House GOP majority is investigating through multiple committees. Senate Republicans have urged their Democratic colleagues in the upper chamber to hold hearings of their own on the topic, some of which are privately under discussion, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
President Joe Biden has condemned the acts of antisemitism and harassment that took place at the demonstrations, saying in a White House address earlier this month that, “Violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is. It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation — none of this is a peaceful protest.”
“Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law,” the president said.
Many campus leaders are now conceding it is easier to give in to protesters than to stand firm against their rule-breaking

Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images
Students and residents camp outside Northwestern University during a pro-Palestinian protest, expressing solidarity with Palestinians with banners in Evanston, Illinois, United States on April 27, 2024.
It’s spring in Cambridge, Mass. — graduation season — which means that large white tents have started to appear on the leafy quads throughout Harvard Square.
Until Tuesday, a different kind of tent was still visible in Harvard Yard: small camping tents housing the stragglers who remained in Harvard’s anti-Israel encampment even after final exams wrapped up several days ago. Last week, Harvard suspended student protesters who refused to abide by campus administrators’ orders to disband the encampment, blocking access to their dorms.
But now, just a week from the start of official university commencement festivities, Harvard has backtracked on its disciplinary action, ahead of the arrival next week of thousands of graduates’ family members, alumni and honorary degree recipients to the Ivy League university. University officials seemed to be saying that Harvard cannot get ready for commencement if Harvard Yard is still gated and locked, accessible only to university affiliates and the handful of people still camped out in protest of Harvard’s alleged “complicity in genocide.”
In making a deal with the protesters, Harvard interim President Alan Garber joined a growing number of leaders at elite universities who are incorporating protesters’ voices into major university investment decisions and allowing student activists to get off with few, if any, repercussions after weeks of disciplinary violations. Harvard’s dean of the faculty of arts and sciences wrote in a Tuesday email that the outcome “deepened” the university’s “commitment to dialogue and to strengthening the bonds that pull us together as a community.”
The path Garber took is now a well-trodden one — remove the threat of disciplinary consequences and allow protesters to meet with university trustees or other senior leaders to pitch them on divesting their schools’ endowments from Israeli businesses, a concession that before last month would have been unthinkable at America’s top universities.
In a matter of days it has become commonplace. Just two years ago, Harvard’s then-president, Lawrence Bacow, responded to the campus newspaper’s endorsement of a boycott of Israel by saying that “any suggestion of targeting or boycotting a particular group because of disagreements over the policies pursued by their governments is antithetical to what we stand for as a university.”
Northwestern University set the tone two weeks ago when President Michael Schill reached an agreement with anti-Israel protesters in exchange for them ending their encampment. Jewish leaders on campus found the agreement so problematic that the seven Jewish members of the university’s antisemitism committee — including Northwestern’s Hillel director, several faculty members and a student — stepped down in protest. Lily Cohen, a Northwestern senior who resigned from the committee, summed up their concerns: “It appears as though breaking the rules gets you somewhere, and trying to do things respectfully and by the books does not.”
Her observation has proven prescient as universities negotiate with anti-Israel protesters who break campus rules while they slow-walk reforms long sought by Jewish students — or even avoid meeting with Jewish community members altogether.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone signed onto a far-reaching agreement with protesters this week that calls for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, condemns “genocide” and denounces “scholasticide” in Gaza and cuts off ties between a university-affiliated environmental NGO and two government-owned Israeli water companies. Meanwhile, Hillel Milwaukee said in a statement that Mone has refused to meet with Jewish students since Oct. 7. Where universities fumbled over statements addressing the Oct. 7 attacks last fall in failed bids to satisfy everyone, many campus leaders have now conceded it is easier to give in to protesters than to stand firm against their rule-breaking. (The president of the University of Wisconsin system said he is “disappointed” by UWM’s actions.)
Princeton University and Johns Hopkins University made concessions to encampment leaders this week. At Johns Hopkins, the school pledged to undertake a “timely review” of the matter of divestment, and to conclude student conduct proceedings related to the encampment. Hopkins Justice Collective, the group that organized the protests, characterized the agreement as “a step towards Johns Hopkins’ commitment to divest from the settler colonial state of Israel.”
In a campus-wide email on Monday, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber said all students must vacate the campus quad where they had organized an anti-Israel encampment. He offered the campus protest leaders an audience with the body that reviews petitions for divestment. Other student groups can also petition for a meeting, he wrote.
Students who were arrested during the course of the protests may have a chance to take part in a so-called “restorative justice” process, whereby the university “would work to minimize the impact of the arrest on the participating students.” If protesters take responsibility for their actions, Eisgruber wrote, the school will conclude all disciplinary processes and allow the protesters to graduate this month.
At many more universities, top administrators — including university presidents — have met with demonstrators, giving them a chance to air their concerns even when they didn’t reach an agreement. University of Chicago administrators held several days of negotiations with encampment leaders before the talks fell apart and police cleared the protesters. The George Washington University President Ellen Granberg met over the weekend with student protesters who lectured her about “structural inequality” at GW and likened the university’s code of conduct to slavery and Jim Crow-era segregation, according to a video recording of the meeting.
College administrators’ negotiations to end the protests might bring a wave of good headlines and promises of quiet at campus commencements, the largest and most high-profile event of the year for most universities. But students haven’t said what they’ll do when school is back in session next year.
By promising meetings with university investment committees, the administrators are almost certainly guaranteeing that campus angst over the war in Gaza will not die down. Brown University President Christina Paxson pledged that protest leaders can meet with the university’s governing body to discuss divestment from companies that operate in Israel — in October, a year after the Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,200 people and ignited the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East.
Correction: This article was updated to more accurately reflect negotiations between Princeton’s president and the protesters.

George Washington University Students continue pro-Palestinian demonstrations at George Washington University in Washington DC, United States on May 07, 2024.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on today’s House hearings on antisemitism in K-12 schools and D.C.’s response to The George Washington University encampment, and talk to congressional lawmakers about the U.S. delay of weapons transfers to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Emerson College President Jay Bernhardt, Sen. Joni Ernst and Kevin McCarthy.
On the heels of two blockbuster hearings with university presidents, and amid an expansive ongoing investigation into antisemitism on college campuses, the House is set to turn its attention today to how officials in Washington, D.C., have responded to the ongoing anti-Israel protest encampment on The George Washington University’s campus, as well as K-12 schools, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Rep. James Comer’s (R-KY), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, scheduled a hearing on the D.C. government’s handling of the GW encampment, which was finally taken down this morning after repeated public requests from GW’s administration. The Oversight Committee called D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Pamela Smith, the district’s chief of police, to testify.
Around 3 a.m. this morning, D.C. police began clearing the encampment and made arrests, according to authorities. The D.C. police department said in a statement that “a gradual escalation in the volatility of the protest” led to the police action. Big picture: Today’s congressional oversight hearing likely played a role in forcing Bowser’s hand.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, visited the encampment on Tuesday and met with Jewish students at GW Hillel, describing the scene as “shocking” and “reprehensible.” He said that political leaders across the spectrum need to offer “full-throated condemnation,” that Congress should consider cutting off federal funding to universities where antisemitism is running rampant and that Bowser needs to take action.
Daines also suggested the encampments could be a political wedge issue. “This should not be a partisan issue. And sadly it seems it’s mostly the Republicans who are condemning the actions of these encampments,” Daines alleged. “I wish there were strong bipartisan condemnation, but if we don’t see the bipartisan condemnation, I think it will turn into a political issue.”
Separately, the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education is holding a hearing today with public school officials from New York City, Berkeley, Calif., and Montgomery County, Md., on antisemitism in their districts. An attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union is also set to testify.
Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL), the subcommittee chair, told JI on Monday that Jewish students, faculty and employees “don’t feel safe right now” and that he plans to press the leaders on what they’re doing to ensure Jewish students’ safety. “What we’re seeing is there’s been no consequences,” Bean said. “We have to hold people accountable, and right now our biggest power is shining the spotlight.”
Bean said that some have claimed that ongoing antisemitic incidents on college campuses have their origins in primary and secondary education, where “these kids are being taught to hate, the teachers are teaching the hate — so let’s go to the roots and see where the trail leads.” New York City schools face a lawsuit over antisemitism, while Berkeley’s school district is being investigated by the Department of Education. Read the full story here.
Elsewhere in Washington, the Biden administration was expected to issue a report today on Israel’s compliance with U.S. humanitarian aid efforts and international law, amid ongoing intense debate over Israel aid on Capitol Hill. Any finding that Israel is not in compliance could prompt penalties, including the possible suspension of U.S. aid.
But that report is now delayed for an uncertain period of time. Lawmakers who had been driving forces for the policy say they don’t expect an extensive delay, however: Francesca Amodeo, a spokesperson for Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), told JI that Van Hollen “has been assured the report is forthcoming.”
The administration is facing significant political pressures, in multiple directions.
Progressive Democrats have said repeatedly that they believe Israel to be in violation of U.S. law — which they believe the report will reflect — and they expect the administration to respond. On Tuesday, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) and eight other Senate Democrats accused the administration of failing to apply U.S. humanitarian law to Israel over the course of years, and Israel of repeated gross violations of human rights.
Progressives are likely to use the report to push for conditions to or a suspension of U.S. aid to Israel, or to criticize the administration if the report finds Israel in compliance with U.S. aid provisions.
Meanwhile, Republicans are expressing anger over delays in arms transfers to Israel. Some have urged the administration to repeal the policy memo that mandates the new report. Pro-Israel Democrats have also said they oppose any effort to delay or suspend aid. Any effort to further penalize Israel would likely meet opposition from both groups.
In election news, Indiana state Sen. Mark Messmer comfortably defeated former Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) by 19 points (39-20%) in the GOP primary for an open Indiana congressional seat — in a race where pro-Israel groups poured several million dollars to oppose Hostettler.
“Tonight, we succeeded in keeping a vocal anti-Israel candidate out of the Republican conference. This is a major victory for the RJC, the Jewish community, for all pro-Israel Americans, and for common sense,” Republican Jewish Coalition National Chairman Norm Coleman and CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement.
speaking out
Biden condemns violent campus protests, Oct. 7 denialism and defenders in Holocaust remembrance speech

In a forceful speech on Tuesday at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on Capitol Hill, President Joe Biden delivered some of his strongest denunciations of antisemitism and Hamas in months, denouncing violent anti-Israel protests on college campuses, harassment and violence targeting the American Jewish community and ongoing efforts to deny, downplay or move past the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Campus concern: The president said that the right to hold strong beliefs about world events and to “debate, disagree, protest peacefully” is fundamental to America, but that there is “no place on any campus in America, any place in America for antisemitism, hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.” Biden emphasized that attacks and destruction of property — which have happened on a number of campuses — are not protected speech and are illegal. “We are not a lawless country, we are a civil society. We uphold the rule of law,” Biden said. “No one should have to hide or be afraid just to be themselves.”
Pushing back: Biden also condemned those who have already moved past the Hamas attack on Israel or are seeking to deny, downplay or justify the attack. “Now, here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven and a half months later,” Biden said. “People are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis, it was Hamas that took and that continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten and neither have you. And we will not forget.”
Making connections: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) drew direct connections between the Holocaust, and the events that led up to it, and current events on U.S. college campuses, highlighting the role of German universities in perpetuating antisemitism and ultimately atrocities during the Holocaust. “We remember what happened then, and now today, we are witnessing American universities quickly becoming hostile for Jewish students and faculty,” Johnson said. “The very campuses [that] were once the envy of the international academy have succumbed to an antisemitic virus… Now is the time for moral clarity, and we must put an end to this madness.”