Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley; Portland State University; Northwestern University and University of Minnesota, Twin Cities are the first targets of the new Department of Education

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U.S. Department of Education headquarters building in Washington, DC.
The Department of Education is taking its first major action under the new administration to combat antisemitism, launching investigations into alleged antisemitic discrimination at Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley; Portland State University; Northwestern University and University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
The Department of Education under the Biden administration pursued antisemitism cases after complaints had been filed by students and organizations representing them. These new cases, however, are being launched proactively, giving the Department of Education broader investigative latitude.
“Too many universities have tolerated widespread antisemitic harassment and the illegal encampments that paralyzed campus life last year, driving Jewish life and religious expression underground,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of education for civil rights, said in a statement. “The Biden Administration’s toothless resolution agreements did shamefully little to hold those institutions accountable.”
Trainor said the announcements serve to put “universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses, nor will it stand by idly if universities fail to combat Jew hatred and the unlawful harassment and violence it animates.”
In a press release, the Department of Education described the new investigations as a response to the Trump administration’s executive order last week on combating antisemitism, and said they would “build upon the foundational work” done by the House Education and the Workforce Committee since the Oct. 7 attack.
In a letter to the interim president of Columbia University obtained by Jewish Insider, Trainor noted that the university has been accused of a “longstanding pattern of tolerating antisemitic harassment, intimidation, and acts of violence” and of failing to implement disciplinary policies. He noted that Columbia faculty allegedly had “extensive” involvement in campus encampments and the break-in at the school’s Hamilton Hall.
A Columbia spokesperson said in a statement that the school is reviewing the letter and that the school “strongly condemns antisemitism and all forms of discrimination,” adding that “calling for, promoting, or glorifying violence or terror has no place at our University.”
“Since assuming her role in August, Interim President Armstrong and her leadership team have taken decisive actions to address issues of antisemitism, including by strengthening and clarifying our disciplinary processes,” the spokesperson said. “Under the University’s new leadership, we have established a centralized Office of Institutional Equity to address all reports of discrimination and harassment, appointed a new Rules Administrator, and strengthened the capabilities of our Public Safety Office. We look forward to ongoing work with the new federal administration to combat antisemitism and ensure the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff.”
Kenneth Marcus, the founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and a former assistant secretary of education for civil rights in the first Trump administration, told JI that the investigations are “a big deal … every bit as important as the executive orders.”
He said he repeatedly pressured the Department of Education under the Biden administration to open such proactive cases, to no avail.
“There’s a world of difference between simply waiting for complaints to pile up versus proactively announcing initiatives,” Marcus explained. “They’re viewed very differently within the higher education community and also among OCR investigators. When the secretary of education decides to highlight an issue by developing a proactive initiative, it sends a clear message that the department is prioritizing the matter.”
He said that opening a proactive investigation also gives the department more latitude to pursue its case “in any way that it thinks is appropriate,” instead of relying on the sometimes-incomplete information presented by individual complainants.
He added that administration’s choice of schools to investigate signals it will be scrutinizing both elite institutions with highly publicized antisemitism issues and less prominent ones such as Portland State and the University of Minnesota.
“This is a way of making sure that every university president realizes that if they don’t clean up their act, they could be next,” Marcus said.
Prior to the announcement, the Department of Education had open investigations into alleged antisemitism at the University of Minnesota, as well as alleged anti-Palestinian discrimination at Columbia, Portland State and Northwestern. It previously dismissed an antisemitism case at Berkeley, deferring to pending litigation on the subject in federal court.
Marcus said he anticipates the administration will open more proactive investigations, as well as potentially seek to renegotiate some of the “controversial” settlement agreements the Biden administration inked to close antisemitism cases before the end of its term.
The announcements of new investigations come even as Trump administration officials are reportedly considering pathways to shrink or eliminate the Department of Education entirely.
He said the Department of Justice may also get more involved in campus antisemitism — it has the ability to join pending lawsuits against schools, can file its own complaints against schools, can go to court to enforce existing settlements with schools and can get more involved in a law enforcement capacity on campuses.
In a possible sign that the Department of Justice does plan to be more aggressive, the Department of Justice announced on Monday that it was launching an interagency task force, to include the Department of Education, which would focus on campus antisemitism.
A group of protesters clogged the sewage system of Columbia’s international affairs school, and spray painted the business school with an antisemitic slur

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Students protest against the war in Gaza on the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel at Columbia University in New York, New York, on Monday, October 7, 2024.
Columbia University’s administration has launched an investigation — together with law enforcement — to identify the perpetrators of an act of vandalism on Wednesday in which anti-Israel demonstrators clogged the sewage system in the School of International and Public Affairs building with cement and sprayed the business school with red paint.
Columbia defined the spray-painting as an “act of vandalism” in a Wednesday statement, adding that the graffiti “included disturbing, personal attacks.” It said it was “acting swiftly to address this misconduct” and “to identify the individual perpetrators and address their actions.”
“The university has done a better job [responding to antisemitic incidents] compared to in the past year, but at the same time, the actions of these perpetrators has gotten a lot worse,” a second-year graduate student in SIPA who requested to remain anonymous told Jewish Insider. “This went from antisemitic vitriol to cementing toilets and causing staff to be there overnight scrubbing fecal matter out of the toilets.”
In a Wednesday night email to SIPA students, the school’s dean, Keren Yarhi-Milo, wrote that the women’s restrooms on four floors of the building were “vandalized with a cement-like substance causing the toilets to clog.” The walls of the 15th floor restroom were also spray-painted, as was the business school’s Kravis Hall, according to the email.
The Columbia Spectator reported that the graffiti included the phrase “Keren eat Weiner,” a reference to Yarhi-Milo and Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, as well as “5.3.2018-1.29.2024 Hind called we must answer” and “Im scared please help – HIND AGE 6,” a reference to Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl killed during the war in Gaza.
In April of last year, at the start of the illegal anti-Israel encampment movement, protesters occupied Hamilton Hall and unfurled a banner that read “Hind’s Hall,” announcing that they had renamed the building in her honor. New York City Resists with Gaza, Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Students for Justice in Palestine claimed responsibility for the vandalism in a social media post.
Columbia’s response comes as the university has reacted more quickly to antisemitism in recent weeks — a sharp contrast compared to what lawmakers and Jewish students and faculty have called a slow, or nonexistent, response to the frequent antisemitism occurring on campus since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Last week, the university suspended a university affiliate for participation in a masked demonstration in which four people barged into 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.
Columbia’s Office of Student Affairs also mandated on Wednesday that a SIPA group chat, intended to distribute campus-related information to students, be restricted to “administrator-only” mode after several incidents of students espousing antisemitic rhetoric in conversations, a student familiar with the situation told JI.
“We have been monitoring the chats closely and while the discussions are warranted, we have been mandated by the OSA to pause all cohort group chats temporarily till we convene to find a resolution to the ongoing discussions. … I would urge everyone to reflect on how we can reinforce civility in our discourse as we navigate this,” an administrator wrote in one cohort chat, according to messages obtained by JI.
The SIPA graduate student described antisemitic rhetoric in the students’ chat to JI as “a constant stream of pretty outrageous messages.”
“It quickly devolved into the same two or three students from our cohort invoking the Holocaust,” he said. “OSA is getting the handcuffs on these [perpetrators] more quickly than they were last year.”
Asked whether the perpetrators of Wednesday’s vandalism would be suspended or expelled once identified, a spokesperson for Columbia told JI that the university won’t comment further.
The Senate minority leader said universities must earn back trust over handling of anti-Israel protests

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WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 13: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speak to reporters following the weekly Senate policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol on June 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. The Republicans spoke on the war in Ukraine, China and the economy. McConnell was joined by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT).
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called on Columbia University and other elite academic institutions to tackle the “great deal of work to do to earn back the trust of students, parents and alumni, alike” over the handling of last year’s anti-Israel campus protests.
Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, McConnell urged university faculty and administrators not to tolerate “the tantrums of campus radicals” this fall that “made some elite schools so inhospitable to learning – particularly for Jewish students.” The top Senate Republican said that “[a]s students head back to school, college campuses across the country are hoping this academic year begins more calmly than the last one ended.”
“Unfortunately, what used to be a reliable path to the middle class appears to have turned into breeding ground for childish radicalism,” McConnell said.
McConnell said he welcomes the resignations last month of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik and three deans who were placed on leave after exchanging antisemitic text messages, describing them as “steps in the right direction for an Ivy League institution that professes a commitment to thoughtful, rigorous debate and a campus culture free of bigotry, intimidation, and harassment.”
Still, McConnell expressed concern that Columbia was taking counterproductive measures, citing the school’s decision to allow a Marxist doctoral student to teach contemporary Western civilization to undergraduates despite her role in occupying Hamilton Hall alongside violent anti-Israel protesters.
“The decline in the Ivy League’s academic rigor is well-documented,” McConnell said of Columbia doctoral student Johannah King-Slutzky. “But it would seem that at a bare minimum, its instructors ought to be able to distinguish between civilization and barbarism, and to act accordingly.”
He also pointed to a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression survey conducted over the summer that found a rise in support from students for establishing encampments and defacing school property.
“I have to wonder whether a survey of the parents of college students, or for that matter, the campus staff who clean up after their misbehavior, wouldn’t paint a different picture,” McConnell mused.
Dozens of anti-Israel students disrupted a convocation for incoming freshmen with chants of ‘Free Palestine’

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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.
The issuance of a new round of subpoenas comes just days before Columbia begins classes for its fall semester

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People rally on the campus of Columbia University which is occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters in New York on April 22, 2024.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued six subpoenas to Columbia University officials on Wednesday for documents related to the committee’s investigation into campus antisemitism.
This is the second round of subpoenas issued by the committee in its antisemitism investigation, coming just days before Columbia begins classes for its fall semester, and as the campus prepares for renewed anti-Israel protests.
The committee chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), threatened such a move on Aug. 1, accusing the school of failing to provide documents the committee had requested in spite of repeated warnings.
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.”
Foxx’s letter also instructs Columbia to preserve all documents created or held by former Columbia President Minouche Shafik, who abruptly resigned last week, that relate to the antisemitism investigation.
A recent report by the committee, based on some documents provided by Columbia, revealed that most students involved in the occupation of Hamilton Hall in late April had not been disciplined, despite Columbia’s public threats of expulsion.
“Columbia should be a partner in our efforts to ensure Jewish students have a safe learning environment on its campus, but instead, university administrators have slow rolled the investigation, repeatedly failing to turn over necessary documents,” Foxx said in a statement. “The information we have obtained points to a continued pattern of negligence towards antisemitism and a refusal to stand up to the radical students and faculty responsible for it.”
The committee has, to date, not publicly taken action to implement or enforce its first subpoena, to Harvard University.
Shafik is the fourth Ivy League president to step down in the last year amid growing antisemitism and anti-Israel activism at elite universities

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Columbia University President Minouche Shafik visits Hamilton Hall on the campus of Columbia University on May 1, 2024 in New York City.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation on Wednesday, days before the start of the school year — and months after the end of a chaotic school year that saw her testify before Congress about antisemitism and navigate the unruly fallout of the first anti-Israel encampment in the nation.
Dr. Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia’s Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president, a university spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider. A source familiar said Armstrong has already been in touch with Hillel leadership at Columbia.
News of Shafik’s resignation was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon’s Eliana Johnson. Shafik is the fourth Ivy League president to step down in the last year amid rising anti-Israel activism on campuses, following the University of Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Magill, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Cornell University’s Martha Pollack.
“I have had the honor and privilege to lead this incredible institution, and I believe that — working together — we have made progress in a number of important areas,” Shafik, who only started in the role in July 2023, wrote in an email to the Columbia community.
“However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community. This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead,” she wrote.
Following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Columbia, like other American universities, saw an uptick in antisemitism and targeting of Zionist students. But in an April hearing before the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Shafik avoided the kind of viral moment that dogged her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But when she went back to Manhattan, she faced the first anti-Israel encampment at an American university. Her decision to call in the police to break up the demonstration set off a wave of anger among many students and faculty members on campus and sparked dozens of other solidarity encampments at other universities.
From there, her leadership was under a microscope. Following a number of antisemitic incidents related to the encampment, several members of Congress from both parties went to Columbia to speak to Jewish students and show solidarity.
In a statement, the Anti-Defamation League said it is “saddened that the leadership of another flagship university has crumbled under the weight of antisemitism on its campus,” calling on the school to move quickly to fill the leadership vacancy before the fall semester.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), in a statement first shared with JI, cheered Shafik’s decision to step aside: “As a result of President Shafik’s refusal to protect Jewish students and maintain order on campus, Columbia University became the epicenter for virulent antisemitism that has plagued many American university campuses since Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel last fall.”
“I stood in President Shafik’s office in April and told her to resign, and while it is long overdue, we welcome today’s news. Jewish students at Columbia beginning this school year should breathe a sigh of relief…We hope that President Shafik’s resignation serves as an example to university administrators across the country that tolerating or protecting antisemites is unacceptable and will have consequences,” Johnson added.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said that, under Shafik’s leadership “a disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and disorder engulfed Columbia university’s campus” and students were allowed to break the law with impunity.
“Columbia’s next leader must take bold action to address the pervasive antisemitism, support for terrorism, and contempt for the university’s rules that have been allowed to flourish on its campus,” Foxx continued,
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a prominent member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, crowed, “THREE DOWN, so many to go,” adding that her “failed presidency was untenable and that it was only a matter of time before her forced resignation.”
She added, “We will continue to demand moral clarity, condemnation of antisemitism, protection of Jewish students and faculty, and stronger leadership from American higher education institutions.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told JI that the resignation was “long overdue.”
“I have been calling for President Shafik to be ousted or resign ever since her abysmal failure to condemn Columbia’s antisemitic outbursts or ensure the safety of Jewish students on her campus,” Lawler said. “Let this be a lesson to all who waver in the face of evil.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said that “when President Shafik failed to enforce the code of conduct and protect Jewish students just trying to walk to class safely, she failed at her job and allowed a hostile, antisemitic environment to escalate.”
He asserted that similar treatment of any other minority group would have been quickly stopped by school administrators and that signs reading “go back to Poland” displayed just outside Columbia’s gates when he visited the campus have stuck with him.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called Columbia “ground zero for campus antisemitism in NYC,” urging the new leadership to “summon the moral clarity and the moral courage to confront the deep rot of antisemitism at Columbia’s core.”
But Columbia’s problems didn’t stop with the encampment. In late April, student protesters occupied a campus administrative building, leading to hundreds of arrests by police. (The charges have since been dropped against most student protesters.)
Two days later, President Joe Biden condemned unlawful protests at U.S. universities. “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,” he said in a White House address in May. “It’s against the law.”
In May, the faculty of arts and sciences — which was mostly supportive of the anti-Israel encampment — approved a vote of no confidence in Shafik.
Columbia made news earlier this month when three deans who had been placed on leave over exchanging antisemitic text messages resigned.
And as recently as this week, lawmakers demanded that the school reimburse the New York Police Department for costs incurred in clearing the encampment on the Columbia campus.
Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, declined to comment on Shafik’s departure but praised Armstrong’s appointment as interim president.
“I think very highly of Dr. Armstrong and I know many colleagues feel the same way,” Cohen told JI. “She is a strong leader — when there were issues that needed to be addressed at the Medical Center, Dr. Armstrong was quick to respond and to address the issues.”
Jewish Insider Congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed to this report.
The Education and Workforce Committee chair gave Columbia a week to fulfill document requests before she considers a subpoena

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Rep. Virginia Foxx, (R-NC)
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, threatened to subpoena Columbia University on Thursday, accusing the school of failing to provide documents the committee requested as part of its antisemitism investigation.
“In many cases, these items were requested months ago. Columbia’s continued failure to produce these priority items is unacceptable, and if this is not promptly rectified, the Committee is prepared to compel their production,” Foxx wrote in a letter to Columbia President Minouche Shafik and board of trustees co-chairs Claire Shipman and David Greenwald.
Foxx said that if the school does not fulfill her requests by noon on Aug. 8 — one week from Thursday — the committee “is prepared to issue subpoenas.”
A Columbia spokesperson told JI that the school has “received the Chairwoman’s letter and we are reviewing it. We are committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of hate.”
The letter outlines a series of document requests and warnings provided to Columbia, which Foxx said the school has repeatedly failed to properly fulfill.
Foxx said the school has only provided text messages from two of the eight administrators and two of the 10 trustees the committee had designated as priorities, and that the provided messages did not cover the requested time period. She said Columbia has also refused to confirm whether it has collected messages from the other individuals.
She said Columbia has also failed to produce records from board of trustees meetings and a list of disciplinary cases relating to antisemitism, instead largely providing information that is already public, which Foxx described as of “limited value.”
Columbia would be the second school after Harvard University to receive a subpoena from the committee. Foxx said that Harvard had failed to properly fulfill that subpoena, but no further public action has been taken in response to that alleged obstruction.
After the three administrators were removed from their jobs for text messages, Jewish students still believe university avoiding responsibility given ‘ambiguous’ wording of announcement

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: President of Columbia University Nemat “Minouche” Shafik (L), and David Schizer (R), Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, testify before the House Committee on Education & the Workforce at Rayburn House Office Building on April 17, 2024 in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing on “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism.” (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Jewish student leaders at Columbia University were flummoxed on Monday following a “confusing” and “intentionally ambiguous” announcement by President Minouche Shafik that three administrators had been removed from their posts for text messages that veered into antisemitism during a May panel on Jewish life at the university.
The statement from Shafik and Provost Angela Olinto referenced the “permanent removal” of the three — Susan Chang-Kim, vice dean and chief administrative officer; Cristen Kromm, dean of undergraduate student life; and Matthew Patashnick, associate dean for student and family support — but added that they “remain on leave.”
Eliana Goldin, a rising fourth-year political science major pursuing a dual degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary, told Jewish Insider that the wording “was intentionally left ambiguous so that students would think some sort of concrete action was being taken by the university.”
“This mirrors the lack of equivocal condemnation of the antisemitic condemnation of the antisemitic administrators,” Goldin, co-chair of Aryeh, a pro-Israel club associated with Hillel on campus, continued. “In reality, the university is trying to skirt responsibility and using bureaucratic measures to avoid taking real responsibility.”
A Columbia University spokesperson told CNN that the three officials are still employed by the university.
The controversial texts occurred during a May 31 panel titled “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future,” and in the exchange the administrators seemed to belittle the concerns of Jewish students amid a sharp rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment on campus.
The text messages, which have since been published by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which has opened an investigation into the incident and demanded a full transcript of the texts, included a message from Chang-Kim at 1:46 p.m. reading, “Comes from such a place of privilege… hard to hear the woe is me, we need to huddle at the Kraft center. Huh??” At 2:06 p.m., Kromm wrote, “Amazing what $$$$ can do” during a speech about an October 2023 Columbia Spectator op-ed by a campus rabbi.
A fourth administrator, Dean of Columbia College Josef Sorett, also participated in the exchange but to a lesser extent. Shafik said that disciplinary action would not be taken against Sorett, as “he has apologized and taken full responsibility, committing to the work and collaboration necessary to heal the community and learn from this moment, and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.” The other three administrators were placed on leave on June 20 and were under university investigation for their participation in the exchange.
A spokesperson for Columbia University declined to elaborate to JI on the wording of Shafik’s statement.
“This incident revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” Shafik wrote on Monday. “Whether intended as such or not, these sentiments are unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community that is antithetical to our University’s values and the standards we must uphold in our community.”
Shafik also wrote that the university “will launch a vigorous program of antisemitism and anti discrimination training for faculty and staff this fall, with related training for students under the auspices of University Life.” The university will release more information about the training throughout the summer, Olinto wrote.
“I am encouraged that President Shafik removed the deans, but I am confused by the wording,” Noah Lederman, a rising sophomore studying philosophy and pre-law who was part of the delegation of Jewish students who attended a Congressional hearing on antisemitism at Columbia in the spring, told JI.
In February, Lederman was heading back to his dorm from a pro-Israel demonstration, wearing a shirt with an Israeli flag, when he was “physically assaulted by a masked individual right outside of the Northwest Corner Building on Broadway and 120th Street,” he told JI at the time.
Lederman, who is the student president of Columbia’s Meor chapter, which runs campus social events tied to study of traditional Jewish texts, added of Monday’s announcement, “This reads to me as every other email has; very performative. It sounds like this was phrased in a way to make people believe the administrators were being fired… the ambiguity is unprofessional. Be forthright about what’s going on.”
A spokesperson for Virginia Foxx, (R-NC) who oversaw the House Committee on Education and the Workforce investigation into the texts, told the Columbia Spectator on Monday that the removals are “not enough” and that Columbia is “far from off the hook.”
Christen Kromm, the school's dean of undergraduate student life, texted fellow administrators, 'amazing what $$$$ can do'

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Anti-Israel students occupy a central lawn on the Columbia University campus, on April 21, 2024, in New York City.
Columbia University administrators mocked concerns in the Jewish community about antisemitism and anti-Israel activity on campus, as well as accused the community of using the issue for financial and other gain, in private text messages released on Tuesday by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Some of the text messages, exchanged between administrators during a panel on Jewish life on campus, were revealed last month in a Washington Free Beacon report, which included images of the text chat captured by an onlooker. The full text chat, requested by the committee, reveals a further level of vitriol.
Speakers on the panel included former Columbia Law School Dean David Schizer, who leads the school’s antisemitism task force; Brian Cohen, the executive director of Columbia’s Kraft Center for Jewish Life; Ian Rottenberg, the school’s dean of religious life; and Rebecca Massel, a journalist with the Columbia Daily Spectator.
The exact context of some of the messages, many of which appear to be in response to specific comments made by members of the panel, is not clear.
Susan Chang-Kim, the chief administrator of Columbia College; Cristen Kromm, dean of undergraduate student life; and Matthew Patashnick, associate dean of student and family support, have all been placed on leave following the Free Beacon’s original report regarding the messages. The texts from the officials appeared to downplay and denigrate the concerns expressed by the Jewish campus leaders and students. Josef Sorett, the dean of Columbia College, was also involved in the chain, and remains in his post.
“Comes from such a place of privilege… hard to hear the woe is me, we need to huddle at the Kraft center. Huh??” Chang texted the group.
Kromm agreed, emphasizing the needs and interests of anti-Zionist Jews. “Yup. Blind to the idea that non-Israel supporting Jews have no space to come together.”
Chang responded that she was “trying to be open minded to understand but the doors are closing.”
At the end of the panel, Kromm sent two vomiting emojis into the chat, to which Chang-Kim responded, “I’m going to throw up.”
Kromm added, “amazing what $$$$ can do.”
Kromm and Patashnick mocked at least one of the speakers for, they suggested, trying to portray himself as a “hero,” a notion that Sorett laughed at.
The administrators also dismissed the concerns raised by Columbia Hillel’s Cohen as disingenuous or a ploy for other interests.
“He knows exactly what he’s doing and how to take full advantage of this moment. Huge fundraising potential,” Patashnick said, a sentiment that was endorsed by Chang-Kim and Kromm.
“He is such a problem!!!” Chang-Kim said of one of the speakers. “Painting our students as dangerous.”
Patashnick also complained that speakers were “laying the case to expand physical space!” adding, “they will have their own dorm soon.”
Kromm lamented, “if only every identity community had these resources and support.”
The officials also dismissed the notion that Jewish students were expelled from clubs for their identities, and largely brushed off accusations that some Columbia students had expressed support for Hamas.
Chang-Kim called the panel “difficult to listen to,” with which Sorett agreed, while Kromm called one of the speakers “strategic” in his portrayal of events on campus.
Chang-Kim also appeared to question why the issue was a subject of discussion for Columbia’s board of trustees.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the House committee, condemned the officials in a statement.
“Jewish students deserve better than to have harassment and threats against them dismissed as ‘privilege,’ and Jewish faculty members deserve better than to be mocked by their colleagues,” said Foxx. “These text messages once again confirm the need for serious accountability across Columbia’s campus.”
The Massachusetts Democrat said he’ll walk out of Netanyahu’s congressional speech if he attacks Biden, and discussed his concerns about the Antisemitism Awareness Act

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Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA)
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), closing out his second term on Capitol Hill, has emerged as a prominent, pragmatic voice among younger members of the Democratic caucus, and is seen as a potential leader on key issues.
Jewish Insider’s Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar and senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod sat down with Auchincloss, who is Jewish, for nearly an hour in his Capitol Hill office last week to discuss the state of the Democratic Party, the situation in the Middle East, antisemitism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to Congress — and more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Insider: What [lessons] do you read from that pretty decisive victory from George Latimer [over Rep. Jamaal Bowman] in New York?
Auchincloss: I would caution any pundit from extrapolating from that race to broader dynamics. There was a lot going in there that is idiosyncratic to that district. There is Jamaal’s break with the president on [the] bipartisan infrastructure [bill]. There’s obviously some of his own unforced errors in regards to both constituent communications and engagement, and also actions here on the Hill. It’s got a big Jewish community there, very engaged Jewish community. You’ve got Oct. 7 as a catalyzing agent, a challenger who is already very well-vested in the community. I know it’s an attractive proposition to take a single primary with — how many people voted, like 30,000? — I would caution against extrapolation.
JI: It seems like rock-solid support for Israel is at a low point in the Democratic Party, at least in [the time you’ve been on the Hill]. Is it possible to get back, in the Democratic Party, to the pre-Oct. 7 point and what would have to happen to make that happen?
JA: Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, the three most prominent Democrats on Capitol Hill, in Washington — strongly pro-Israel. The Democratic Party remains a pro-Israel party.
We have an under-30 problem, for sure. So I worry more about Congress 20 years from now than I do Congress today — you saw the vote tally for Israel … But I do worry about the next generation, and that is going to require addressing not just Gaza, but also the West Bank. And in some ways, the West Bank is going to be equally as important as Gaza, because much of Netanyahu’s strategy over the last decade was about destabilizing both … The Israelis need to stop with expansion of settlement activity … In terms of antisemitism, as I’ve said before, the Democratic Party can’t have double standards on antisemitism, and we should look at the Labour Party in Great Britain as a warning.
JI: Is the [Democratic] party headed in that direction?
JA: No, the mainstream of the party is not. And yet, I will say that your values are communicated by the fights that you’re willing to pick … Just because the mainstream of the Democratic Party, I believe, solidly understands and opposes antisemitism, does not mean that that value gets communicated effectively if we do not condemn, name, shame antisemitic elements, and that includes what’s happening on college campuses.
JI: Rashida Tlaib spoke at a conference where there was promotion of terrorism, PFLP affiliates in Michigan. Very few Democrats — a couple spoke out — but very few wanted to comment, that we talked to. Do Democrats need to speak out when there are these episodes within the party?
JA: It’s unacceptable, yes. And I think we also, though, have to be cautious that we are not injecting oxygen in a way that takes a spark and makes it into a fire, right?… Some things we’re going to say, ‘Hey, this is best just marginalized by silence.’ But I think other things, like when individuals are claiming that allegations of rape or sexual violence after Oct. 7 are propaganda — that’s unacceptable, that needs to be said.
JI: What are you looking at and thinking about ahead of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s] congressional speech? What are you hoping to hear from him? What are you afraid that [he’ll say]?
JA: What I’m hoping is that he’s going to tell us he’s going to call elections. That’s what I’m hoping for … What I want to hear is a concrete proposal for day-of governance to defeat Hamas. The president’s 10 points that he put forward a month ago, month and a half ago — [including bringing the] hostages home [and the] permanent defeat of Hamas — those two remain the objectives, and I think the prime minister needs to articulate how he does that and and not do hand-waving of ‘Military now, governance later.’ It’s got to be how we’re going to do military and governance intertwined.
JI: What is your sense of how [Netanyahu’s speech is] going to play on Capitol Hill, and could this hurt the cause of support for Israel, within your party especially?
JA: It’s up to how the prime minister addresses Congress. If it’s a repeat of 2015, yeah, it’s going to hurt. I’m attending out of respect for the U.S.-Israel relationship, which I think is critical … but if the prime minister criticizes Joe Biden directly, I’m walking out of that speech … and I would encourage Democrats broadly to make that our approach.
JI: Hamas has repeatedly turned down this [cease-fire] deal, has repeatedly shifted the goalposts … If there isn’t a deal that is achievable here, what does the path forward look like? Do you think that the administration should be supporting Israel continuing its military operations, at that point, until it feels that it’s done? Or do you think that there needs to be sort of a movement by Israel to unilaterally start winding things down at this point, regardless?
JA: I’m not sure it’s a binary like that. Actually, I would argue that they have to be synthesized. My criticism of Netanyahu has never been that he argues that military force is necessary in Israel. I have, to date, still not said that there should be a permanent cease-fire there, because I continue to believe that Israel needs to use military force to degrade Hamas’ capabilities, to control the security perimeter around Gaza, to put pressure on Hamas to negotiate, right? So I think all those things are true.
My criticism of Netanyahu has always been that he has not twinned that military pressure with a governance strategy. And people call it, oftentimes, the day-after approach. I actually reject that term because it implies a sequentiality that I don’t think exists. It is parallel. It is day-of. You’ve got to be attacking Hamas and, same day, in north, central, even south Gaza, empowering elements of — and it will be probably the Palestinian Authority — to provide security, economic development, infrastructure maintenance.
JI: Do you think Hamas can be, in the language of Netanyahu, defeated in Gaza?
JA: Yes, is the short answer. People like to say, ‘Oh, you can’t defeat an ideology,’ as though we should just all just throw up our hands and be like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Hamas should just get to do whatever they want.’ No, we can. We can defeat Hamas. Does that mean that there is no human being in Gaza who subscribes to Islamist terrorism? No, of course, not … If you go back to the classic definition of a state as having a monopoly on the organized use of violence and depriving Hamas of the levers of statehood, of having a monopoly on the organized use of violence, 100% we can defeat Hamas. We will not defeat Hamas purely with [bullets] or [bombs]. We will defeat Hamas because there will be an alternative that the people of Gaza find more compelling.
Part of defeating them is also looking at the education system in Gaza, [which] I think is really critical. People are looking for this easy, knee-jerk bow tie: ‘Oh we’re going to recognize Palestinian statehood, be able to walk away and we’ve done it.’ I think it’s a lot harder. It’s incremental gains in security, infrastructure, economic development, education that just increase standards of living for Palestinians so that they are not being educated into or subscribe to a death cult’s ideology.
JI: This Saudi deal that’s being talked about, they’re apparently asking a lot of the U.S.: more advanced weapons, defense guarantees, domestic nuclear enrichment. Are those things that you’d be amenable to the U.S. providing, if it [helps achieve] regional normalization?
JA: I strongly support the Abraham Accords. I strongly support, obviously, Saudi recognition of Israel and Saudi entrance into the Abraham Accords. I am deeply skeptical of a defense guarantee [from] the United States for Saudi Arabia. I understand what Saudi Arabia gets out of that. I’m not totally sure [what] we get out of that, what Israel gets out of that … I would want to see, also, significant capital, both financial and political, from the Saudis for Gaza as well. The Arab states have done nothing for the Palestinian people for a century. It’s time for that to change, and that needs to be part of a deal.
JI: How are you looking at Qatar right now?
JA: A necessary evil. They’re the interlocutor, obviously, between us and Hamas. I’m not, obviously, in the conversations about the exact ways to calibrate pressure on Hamas’ political arm in Qatar; I agree that we should put more pressure on them, to the extent that we can, to accept the deal, the temporary cease-fire. I also understand that if you do it too much, and they end up in the Sahel [in Northern Africa], and we lose all contact with the political wing of Hamas, we don’t have an interlocutor. I’m not sure that serves the purposes of the hostages, either.
JI: The foreign funding from Qatar has been reported as sort of a leading driver for some of the problems of antisemitism on campus? Is there anything legislatively that can be done to address foreign interference or foreign money going into universities?
JA: I think that needs to be explored as part of the tax deal [in the] next Congress about tax treatment for universities that take significant amounts of or have significant connections to Islamist ideology.
JI: On the taxes issue — does the administration need to start really putting teeth into these investigations and start threatening or actually taking away tax-exempt status and federal funding from these schools?
JA: Obviously there’s a range of repercussions available as part of OCR investigations. Today, I couldn’t point to an example where I say, ‘Oh, the administration should have been tougher in this sense.’ And so I am reluctant to say that. I will say, as part of the tax deal, that needs to be part of the conversation … We benefit from immigration, we benefit from the fact that other countries want to invest in and send their students to our universities. I’m very liberal on this concept. We also have to recognize that in this there are a couple of bugs in that operating system, and one of them is that, in the same way that Saudi and Qatar are trying to launder their money through golf or through other outfits, they’re trying to do it through education as well, and we do have to be cognizant of that. The same way that I was a co-lead of the TikTok bill we can’t allow the next generation of Americans to be inculcated in a fundamentally anti-American ideology.
JI: You’ve got a lot of colleges and universities [near] your district … What do they need to be doing over the summer, proactively to prepare for [the fall semester] and to, you know, have better responses ready to go in the fall [to antisemitic activity]?
JA: At a high level, enforce their own rules and boundaries. And this was one of the reasons I voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act. These colleges already have time, place and manner restrictions. They already have Title VI compliance rules that they just under-enforced or downright ignored. I talked about this with … a president of a prominent university who has done a good job. I was like, ‘What’s your secret?’ And he was like, ‘I just enforced what the rules are.’
JI: Your vote against the [Antisemitism Awareness Act] stood out — tell us a little bit about your thinking on that front?
Auchincloss: It opens a constitutional can of worms. It codifies cancel culture on campus. And I’m opposed to cancel culture. And it solves no problem … We don’t need to update congressional statute. We need these faculty and university leadership to enforce their own time, place and manner restrictions, and then we need to fund OCR at the Department of Education to prosecute universities that are failing…
I saw the potential downside of it being misappropriated to chill speech. And you can see that happening. No other protected class has a single and solitary definition … I think that facts and context and evolving societal understanding should matter in this … What we need these universities to be is ‘small l’ liberal. The Jews have thrived in liberal, open, meritocratic environments. What we do not want to do is double down on, I think, is identitarian politics. I do not think that in the long run, that is going to serve the Jewish people.
JI: That loops into this debate that is happening in the Jewish community about [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs], which is, do DEI programs need to be expanded to better include Jews, or should they be dismantled because they’ve been shown to have, it seems like, ingrained bias or failure to recognize the situation of Jewish people?
JA: I prefer the word pluralism, because it’s really what we’re talking about — at least how I interpret the intentions behind DEI. Pluralism is a very old American idea. If you read the 2018 Harvard statement on inclusion and belonging that [Harvard political science professor] Danielle Allen wrote — that version of I think she called it pluralism, but probably today would be called DEI — that version, to me, is conducive to a suitable learning environment.
JI: We saw in New York that the people who occupied Hamilton Hall [at Columbia University] were not charged, most of them at least, at the White House vandalizing statues — I don’t think any of them have been charged. Are you concerned about that?
JA: More broadly about property and violent crime being under-enforced — I’ve always been opposed to that. I disagreed with the decision by a previous Boston [district attorney] to blanket take 20 property crimes and say she proactively was not going to prosecute … I’m a law-and-order liberal. I believe that we should be prosecuting property and violent crime assertively, including this.
Israeli students who spent the year on U.S. campuses describe it as toxic, warning future Israeli academic fellows, doctoral and postdoctoral students to stay home

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Students at Columbia University have a demonstration near Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 25, 2024 in New York City.
It was meant to be the most exciting year of her life, but for Amit, an Israeli student now wrapping up a yearlong fellowship at Columbia University, it was an experience that she described as “toxic” and one that she would not recommend to future applicants from her country.
“We were supposed to be these very prestigious students that the university is happy to have, they even gave me a big scholarship and so theoretically my program should have been very proud to have me,” Amit, who asked that her real name not be used for fear of retribution from the department and faculty assessing her final research paper, told Jewish Insider. “But it has not been a good experience at all, and if another Israeli applicant came to me to ask if they should do this, I would tell them not to.”
A graduate student in the School of Arts and Science at the Ivy League college that has been an epicenter of anti-Israel activity since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, Amit said the negative experience stemmed from “a whole dynamic of covert and overt situations.”
Those situations have ranged from threatening demonstrations on campus to hostile and ignorant peers to faculty who essentially erased her and her experience as an Israeli. Now that the year is over, Amit said, “I feel like the acid is leaving my system, it was just so toxic, and I am very disappointed.”
Amit is one of hundreds of Israeli students who traveled to the U.S. in the last year to enrich their academic knowledge and enhance their professional skills, but who found themselves the targets of fierce anti-Israel activists, as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza played out.
Beginning on Oct. 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel from the Palestinian enclave, murdering, raping and taking hostage hundreds of people, mostly civilians, and through to the hostile anti-Israel encampments that sprung up on campuses during the spring semester, many Israelis studying in the U.S. have experienced both the pain of the attacks and the negative climate on campus.
Experiences like that of Amit, who told JI that she felt “canceled” by the director of her department and had been denied the chance to engage in open dialogue with those attacking Israel, and her, have cast a dark shadow — especially over high-level programs — giving pause to future Israeli fellows, doctoral and postdoctoral students who are considering studying in the U.S.
“I really hope that what we’ve been seeing on social media is an exaggeration,” Yana, an Israeli who is heading to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government this summer on an Israeli Policy Fellowship, told JI. She also asked that her real name not be used out of concern that it could impact her experience.
“I feel confident that the majority of the people I meet there will see me face to face and maybe we’ll have tough and challenging conversations, but I’m pretty sure that I will at least be able to talk to them,” she said, admitting that as much as she is excited about the program, she is also nervous.
“I haven’t done all the things I did to get accepted in order to be low-profile or hide at the side of the road,” said Yana, an Israeli who is heading to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government this summer on an Israeli Policy Fellowship. “It’s very easy for Israelis to say, ‘This is too hard, they hate us, they are all antisemites, so we are letting go of these platforms,’ but I think we have to keep making efforts to convince Israelis that these programs are important, they are important for us now and important for our future.”
“I hope that when I say I served in the IDF, people will not cancel me, but I’m not sure,” Yana continued, describing how she has already been deliberating whether she should stay away from studying subjects that might cause friction.
“I hope it won’t be like that, but I am still being cautious,” she said, pondering how free she will be to express herself and how her future professors might respond.
Yana said that studying at an Ivy League college in the U.S. was a long-term dream, but that she has also received a mixed response from family and friends in Israel.
“Two years ago, even one year ago, people would have been so proud of me for being accepted to Harvard,” she recounted. “But even while I was going through the application process, I got a lot of criticism. My closest friends were not pleased about it and my father was really angry with me. He said, ‘You’re going to pay them so much money and they’re against you – why would you do that?’ He did not understand why I wanted to go there.”
Her family and friends also expressed concerns for her safety on a campus that has become increasingly hostile to Jews, and Israelis in particular, she said.
“As an outspoken Israeli student who supports my country, over time, I had to deal with a level of social isolation,” said Barak Sella, who recently completed the mid-career Masters Degree in Public Administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “This wasn’t from antisemitism but mainly because most people just wanted to avoid the conversation.”
But, Yana added, that she would not be deterred by the anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric.
“I haven’t done all the things I did to get accepted in order to be low-profile or hide at the side of the road,” she said, adding, “It’s very easy for Israelis to say, ‘This is too hard, they hate us, they are all antisemites, so we are letting go of these platforms,’ but I think we have to keep making efforts to convince Israelis that these programs are important, they are important for us now and important for our future.”
Barak Sella, who recently completed the mid-career Masters Degree in Public Administration, also at Harvard’s Kennedy School, similarly described his experience as toxic.
“I went to Harvard to experience an international cohort and expand my network and intellectual horizons,” Sella, previously the executive director for the Reut Institute, an Israeli strategy and leadership think tank, told JI. “I aimed to gain skills and insights that would help enhance my leadership skills and impact within Israeli society.”
While he described his American campus experience up until Oct. 7 as “fantastic,” as one of around 20 Israelis in a program of some 200 students, Sella said it soon became very difficult.
“There were many sessions and protests against Israel, and being visibly Israeli was a burden,” he said, describing how the debate over Israel, its actions, and its right to exist ended up permeating into every subject – even topics that were totally unrelated to the Middle East.
Whenever he tried to speak up and defend Israel, Sella said, “I was rudely shut down.”
“As an outspoken Israeli student who supports my country, over time, I had to deal with a level of social isolation,” he continued. “This wasn’t from antisemitism but mainly because most people just wanted to avoid the conversation.”
“Most students at Harvard are not antisemitic or anti-Israel – that is just a loud but small minority – the majority of students are thoughtful and moderate people who are interested in creating relations with Israeli students,” Sella added.
While the protests were noisy, Sella said the main problem with them was that they “see Israeli identity as illegitimate … that is why Israelis must continue to apply and participate in these programs.”
“We just can’t give in to this type of behavior,” he emphasized. “We need to double down and ensure a solid and high-quality Israeli presence on campuses.”
While a new batch of Israeli students is set to arrive in the U.S. over the summer, some prestigious programs – and donors supporting these programs – have already been impacted by antisemitic and anti-Israel activities on campus and the failure by some schools to confront it.
In October, the Wexner Foundation abruptly announced the end of a 30-year relationship with Harvard and its Kennedy School, citing the university’s failure to condemn Hamas’ barbaric attacks on Israel. Its statement described an environment in which Israeli students – emerging leaders there to study a mid-career master’s degree and forge important relationships with other local and international fellows – were increasingly being marginalized.
Elad Arad, an Israeli studying for a post-doctorate in chemical engineering at Columbia, said it was critical for Israelis to remain present at top U.S. academic institutions, not only to act as ambassadors for their country, which is feeling more and more isolated, but also to ensure the future of Israeli academia and research, particularly in the field of science.
Not having the opportunity to study abroad, he noted, would contribute to a reduction in academic levels within Israel’s higher education system.
“No one will give me a faculty position without having a postdoc from an Ivy League institution or a well-known institution or university,” Arad said, explaining, “I need to be here for two reasons, the first is prestige and the second that it is much easier to get my [research] work published and make an impact, if it is coming out of a place like these universities.”
He said he had heard about other postdoctoral students rethinking the option of studying abroad, deciding that it might be best to wait until the war ends or to study in Europe, instead of the U.S.
“The main problem is that many of the postdocs already here are afraid to go back to Israel because they think that from there, they will not be able to publish any papers at all and that will end their academic career,” Arad said, adding that could have an impact not only the future of Israeli academia but also on its thriving innovation sector.
Sender Cohen, chairman of the board of the Fulbright Fellowship in Israel, told JI that all these programs were “critically important because they build academic bridges,” in both the short and long term across disciplines.
“It would be heartbreaking for Israelis to miss the opportunity to study in the U.S. and for American universities to lose the intellectual contribution that Israelis offer. We just cannot let that happen,” Professor David Schizer, who served as the dean of Columbia’s Law School from 2004-2014, told JI. “I recognize that some Israelis may be hesitant to come to the U.S., but I would encourage them to come.”
“History has shown that a lot of the Fulbrighters have gone on to great things in universities or in government or in research institutions, and they utilize the relationships formed on the program,” he said.
“For example, those who go to military colleges, the officers get to know each other and then they become generals, they build personal relationships,” Cohen added. “It’s the same with the Fulbright fellows, you have all these brilliant academics spending time together in these departments and then they might end up leading research or becoming the president of a university or even a secretary of education.”
Professor David Schizer, who served as the dean of Columbia’s Law School from 2004-2014, told JI that “it would be heartbreaking for Israelis to miss the opportunity to study in the U.S. and for American universities to lose the intellectual contribution that Israelis offer.”
“We just cannot let that happen,” Schizer, who is now a co-chair of the university’s task force on antisemitism, said. “I recognize that some Israelis may be hesitant to come to the U.S., but I would encourage them to come.”
He said that American universities, including Columbia, needed to be doing much more to ensure that Israeli students feel “safe and welcome on their campuses.”
“Unfortunately, it has been a difficult year,” Schizer explained. “There have been a number of absolutely unacceptable instances in which Israeli students have experienced discrimination based only on their country of origin, and that problem has to be fixed.”
“Israeli students are enormously valuable as members of the Columbia community,” he said, referring to his own institution. “It’s critical that the university ensures that they have the excellent experience that they deserve.”
Schizer, who lectures in law and economics, said that this was not only “a moral obligation because Columbia is committed to the idea of not discriminating based on national origin,” but also a legal one.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “universities that accept federal funding are not allowed to discriminate based on race, color, or national origin,” he said. “Israeli students are entitled to the same experience that any other student is entitled to have.”
Both Schizer and Cohen said there are some efforts underway to address the toxic experiences Israeli students described from the last academic year.
At Columbia, Schizer said the antisemitism task force had put together a list of recommendations for university’s leadership, including suggestions that future anti-Israel protests be contained to “a designated part of campus,” and that it “enforces its own rules more effectively.”
“We looked into why the university has, at times, failed to enforce its own rules,” he said. “We found that in most cases it was because the bureaucracy at the university was not trained to deal with a situation like the one we had and was not properly prepared, perhaps they didn’t even recognize that times have changed.”
“It can’t be solved overnight, it’s like turning a supertanker,” said Cohen, noting that some major university donors, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are “pulling back in a way that is having an effect.”
He said he believed that some schools, where Israeli and Jewish students were particularly mistreated, would likely see their funding cut, while other universities and individual departments might see their funding increase.
“I’m not actually too worried about it for the long term because at a lot of these universities, the actual people who are in charge, are pragmatic centrists,” Cohen said. “And, I think, everyone realizes there’s a problem.”
The Georgia senator is also a member of the board at Union Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with Columbia University

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US Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA)
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) is declining to criticize his alma mater’s decision to divest from Israel and from other companies involved in Israel’s war in Gaza, despite serving on the school’s board of trustees.
The school, which has a partnership with Columbia University, announced earlier this month that its trustees had voted to implement a divestment plan through the board’s investment committee.
“Our screens already prevent investments in armaments, weapons, and defense manufacturers, as well as companies that participate in human rights violations. Managing our endowment in a manner that actively seeks the good and leverages our resources to reduce harm is an ongoing process, and we will remain committed to these principles into the future,” the trustees said at the time.
The trustees said that they had been “working on this decision since November of 2023,” one month after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks against Israel.
Warnock earned both his master’s degree and his doctorate at the Union Theological Seminary, graduating with honors in 2006. He joined the board of trustees in the late 2010s, though he hasn’t actively attended meetings or participated in votes in recent years.
Reached at the Capitol last week by Jewish Insider, Warnock denied being a trustee despite him still being listed on the school’s website as a member. An addendum to Warnock’s listing on the site was added after JI’s request for comment, with the senator now being described as on an “indefinite leave of absence.”
Warnock’s office did not respond to JI’s numerous requests for comment about whether he supported the school’s decision, which came after anti-Israel encampments took over Columbia’s campus for weeks, resulting in a number of violent and antisemitic demonstrations, some of which were directly aimed at Jewish students.
For his part, Warnock has been critical of Israel’s war in Gaza while condemning Hamas for the Oct. 7 attack. He has signed on to or led multiple statements calling for a cease-fire paired with the release of the hostages.
The Georgia senator, who also serves as senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, was confronted by a group of anti-Israel protesters while delivering a sermon in March. The group was seen wearing matching shirts that read “Stop Arming Israel” as they quietly stood up and exited the church during Warnock’s sermon.
“I want to thank God for the students and the young folk. I wish they’d hang out, so we could talk after church. Let them know that they’re welcome to stay. Let’s talk after church,” Warnock said as the protesters left.
Reached by JI for this story, a representative for the school pointed to its initial statement on the divestment, which said, “To be clear, as we take these actions, we remain unequivocal in our denouncement of the horrific killing by Hamas of Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023, and call for the immediate release of all hostages. With respect to both Palestine and Israel, we affirm their right to secure existence and self-determination.”
Columbia student Eliana Goldin: ‘It’s important that the entire world sees there is a strong contingent of Jewish students on campus who are Zionists and willing to stand up and speak for that’

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People attend a Holocaust memorial ceremony held a block away from Columbia University
Hundreds of Jewish Columbia University students signed on to an open letter to the university community on Wednesday, declaring that they are “proud to be Zionists” while speaking out against the anti-Israel protesters that have engulfed the Ivy League campus since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
The letter, titled “In Our Name,” was authored by four students — Eliana Goldin ‘25; Elisha Baker ‘26; Eden Yadegar ‘25 and Rivka Yellin, Barnard College ‘26. By Wednesday night, it garnered more than 400 signatures.
“Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name,” the letter opens. “We are here, writing to you as Jewish students at Columbia University, who are connected to our community and deeply engaged with our culture and history. We would like to speak in our name.”
“Most of us did not choose to be political activists,” the students wrote. “We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you.”
“If the last six months on campus have taught us anything, it is that a large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and subsequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People,” the letter continued. “Yet despite the fact that we have been calling out the antisemitism we’ve been experiencing for months, our concerns have been brushed off and invalidated.”
The letter goes on to reference several incidents that have occurred on campus.: “We sounded the alarm on October 12 when many protested against Israel while our friends’ and families’ dead bodies were still warm. We recoiled when people screamed ‘resist by any means necessary,’ telling us we are “all inbred” and that we ‘have no culture.’ We shuddered when an ‘activist’ held up a sign telling Jewish students they were Hamas’s next targets… We ultimately were not surprised when a leader of the CUAD [Columbia University Against Apartheid] encampment said publicly and proudly that ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live’ and that we’re lucky they are ‘not just going out and murdering Zionists.’ We felt helpless when we watched students and faculty physically block Jewish students from entering parts of the campus we share, or even when they turned their faces away in silence. This silence is familiar. We will never forget.”
“One thing is for sure,” the students wrote. “We will not stop standing up for ourselves. We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists.”
In an interview with Jewish Insider, Goldin, a third-year political science major pursuing a dual degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary, said that the letter’s conclusion was most significant to her because it emphasizes that “we want to sit down and have a dialogue. The point of a university is to be able to have complex conversations. We even want to sit down with people who are saying ‘globalize the intifada.’”
The concluding paragraph reads, “We came to Columbia because we wanted to expand our minds and engage in complex conversations. While campus may be riddled with hateful rhetoric and simplistic binaries now, it is never too late to start repairing the fractures and begin developing meaningful relationships across political and religious divides. Our tradition tells us, “Love peace and pursue peace.” We hope you will join us in earnestly pursuing peace, truth, and empathy. Together we can repair our campus.”
Goldin told JI that “the media is not accurately covering what the Jewish community on campus looks like and this was our way of saying what the Jewish community stands for.” She noted that the letter took two days of “nonstop writing and editing.”
“It’s important that the entire world sees there is a strong contingent of Jewish students on campus who are Zionists and willing to stand up and speak for that,” Goldin said. “The anti-Zionist Jews are speaking for all Jewish students at Columbia right now and they’re getting a lot of attention, so it’s important for people to see this strong majority of Jewish students who feel otherwise.”
Goldin said that the letter has caught the attention of Jewish students who hadn’t been vocal about support for Israel in the past. “I just got an email from someone Jewish who is not involved with the Jewish community,” she said. “He said the letter really spoke to him and signed on. So I think this has a certain impact within the pro-Israel community.”
“In terms of the anti-Israel community, I’m not sure how much of an impact it can make,” Goldin continued. “But the main purpose of the letter really was to show that amid all the biased media coverage, we will actually speak for ourselves.”
‘We support folks’ free speech rights, but that includes the right to make an ass and an idiot of yourself,’ Sasse tells JI in conversation about campus protests

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Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) questions witnesses during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on February 23, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
LOS ANGELES — Last week, while college administrators across the U.S. seemed paralyzed over how to respond to campus anti-Israel protesters, one school weighed in with a simple statement that served as a counterweight to the hemming and hawing of elite private universities. “The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children,” a UF spokesperson said, declaring that students in an unauthorized encampment would face disciplinary action if they did not leave.
The statement achieved every PR flak’s dream: It went viral. Much of the positive attention heaped on the school landed on Ben Sasse, the former Nebraska senator and Yale-educated historian who has been the president of UF since early 2023. (A guest on Fox News on Monday praised Sasse and said, “Don’t be an ass, do it like Sasse.”)
“It isn’t that complicated to affirm free speech and free assembly, which are fundamental American rights and something that institutionally we’re committed to. But that doesn’t mean that the people who are the loudest are the ones who don’t have to obey the rules that everybody else does,” Sasse told Jewish Insider on Monday in a conversation at the Milken Institute Global Forum in Los Angeles.
For many universities, the seven months since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel that sparked a war in the Middle East and touched off a wave of antisemitism in the U.S. have been marked by instability and indecision. Sasse took a stand early, condemning Hamas’ attack soon after Oct. 7 and raising his voice against antisemitism. But when it comes to the encampment on the Gainesville campus, Sasse said his response is only about enforcing rules and not going after students for having opinions with which he disagrees.
Campus rules allow tents on one occasion, said Sasse — tailgating during football season, when tents are allowed only in certain places and for a particular amount of time. “Why would a specific group of protesters get special license that nobody else gets?” he asked.
“We support folks’ free speech rights, but that includes the right to make an ass and an idiot of yourself, and a lot of the protesters say ridiculously, historically and geographically ignorant things,” Sasse said. There should be a role for universities and educators to play in responding to the content of what protesters are saying, he added, especially when some of their language echoes terrorist talking points.
“We don’t start by trying to prohibit speech, but we do want to ask fundamental questions about whether or not enough education is happening. The paraglider memes that are now replacing Che Guevara on T-shirts is so bizarre. Which paragliders are we talking about — the savages who raped teenage girls at a concert? That’s who you want to be the icon and the sort of shorthand for the movement you’re defending?” Sasse asked. “At the end of the day, there was an instigator that moved on 10/7, and it’s just amazing how quickly stupid and reductionistic so many of the protests have become.”
Sasse, who earned a bachelor’s degree at Harvard and a doctorate in history at Yale, declined to comment specifically on how those or other schools are handling similar issues. But he took an indirect swipe at universities like Columbia and the University of Southern California that have canceled commencement and other university events.
“I don’t make it my business to comment inside other institutions’ management decisions particularly, but I just don’t know who benefits by canceling these commencements. I don’t know who benefits by allowing people to disrupt the opportunity for students who have an exam tomorrow morning to be able to study in the library,” he said. “I know that we suffer as a community when people are spitting on police. I don’t know who benefits by vandalizing buildings. I just don’t understand the leadership decisions that are made in a lot of other places.”
He took the same approach regarding other universities, like Northwestern, that have sat down to negotiate with the protesters and even reach agreements with them. Sasse has no plans to do the same. “We just don’t think it’s prudent or wise or helpful to negotiate with the people who happen to scream the loudest,” Sasse explained.
UF has more Jewish students than any other university in America, according to data compiled by Hillel International — 6,500 Jewish undergrads and 2,900 Jewish graduate students. Sasse attended a massive seder at the university last month that drew more than 1,000 people.
“It is a special community. I think everybody feels safe. But I want the feelings to not be subjective, I want it to be because objectively, they are safe,” Sasse said. “Our Jewish Gators, as they call themselves, feel like it’s a pretty darn special place to be right now.”
Hillel vice president: ‘No university can exist if rules violators are rewarded with financial incentives, while students who do abide by the rules are not similarly rewarded’

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EVANSTON, ILLINOIS - APRIL 25: Protest signs hang on a fence at Northwestern University as people gather on the campus to show support for residents of Gaza on April 25, 2024 in Evanston, Ill. The university's president struck a deal with protesters acceding to several of their demands, a deal that is being slammed by Jewish leaders.
As universities around the country strike various deals with anti-Israel protesters to quell the turmoil on college campuses — including giving protesters a seat at the table regarding investment decisions — Jewish leaders fear that even these largely symbolic concessions could further poison the atmosphere for Jewish students.
Negotiating with protesters sets up a climate in which “Jewish students — who are not violating rules —- are being ignored, bullied and intimidated,” Mark Rotenberg, vice president and general counsel of Hillel International, told Jewish Insider. “People who violate university rules should not be rewarded with financial benefits and rewards for the violation of university rules,” he continued.
Shira Goodman, senior director of advocacy at the Anti-Defamation League, echoed that the series of deals struck all “ignore the needs of Jewish students increasingly at risk of harassment and intimidation, or worse, on campus.”
“It is critical to acknowledge the facts on the ground,” Goodman said. “For days and in some cases weeks, anti-Zionist protesters have openly violated school policies and codes of conduct by erecting encampments that have provided cover for students to fan the flames of antisemitism and wreak havoc on the entire campus community… The protesters’ aim and impact on many campuses has been to intimidate and alienate Jewish students for whom Zionism and a connection to Israel is a component of their Jewish identity. They must be held to account, not rewarded for their conduct.”
The nationwide “Gaza solidarity encampments” began on April 17 at Columbia University. On April 29, Northwestern University set the precedent for conceding to some of the protesters’ demands when its president, Michael Schill, reached an agreement with the activists to end their anti-Israel encampment, in which protesters camped out and engulfed campuses for weeks.
The protesters — most, but not all, of whom were students — took over buildings, blocked access to throughways, vandalized school property and chanted intimidating, antisemitic slogans while calling for an end to Israel’s war with Hamas and demanding that institutions cut ties with the Jewish state.
The deal at Northwestern complied with several of the students’ demands. These include allowing students to protest until the end of classes on June 1 so long as tents are removed, and to encourage employers not to rescind job offers for student protesters. The school will also allow students to weigh in on university investments — a major concession for students who have been demanding the university to divest from Israeli corporations.
The Anti-Defamation League, StandWithUs and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law joined together to slam the strategy and call for Schill’s resignation after the agreement was announced. But a handful of schools, including University of Minnesota, Brown University, Rutgers University and University of California, Riverside followed suit — giving into the demands of encampment protesters in an effort to shut them down.
While all of the agreements center around divesting from Israel, resolutions at each school look different. At Rutgers, a proposed deal reached last Thursday includes divesting from corporations participating in or benefiting from Israel; terminating Rutgers’ partnership with Tel Aviv University; accepting at least 10 displaced students from Gaza; and displaying Palestinian flags alongside other existing international flags on campus. Eight out of the 10 demands were met, while Rutgers students, faculty and alumni continue to push for the two not yet agreed to — an official call for divestment as well as cutting ties with Tel Aviv University.
At Minnesota, meanwhile, protesters packed their tents after a 90-minute meeting with Jeff Ettinger, the school’s interim president. A tentative deal was reached, which could include divestment from companies such as Honeywell and General Dynamics, academic divestment from Israeli universities, transparency about university investments, a statement in support of Palestinian students, a statement in support of Palestinians’ right to self-determination and amnesty for students arrested while protesting (nine people were arrested on campus on April 22).
In a statement to students and faculty, Ettinger wrote that coalition representatives will be given the opportunity to address the board of regents at its May 10 meeting to discuss divestment from certain companies. Public disclosure of university investments would be made available by May 7. Ettinger also said that the administration has asked university police not to arrest or charge anyone for participating in encampment activities in the past few days, and will not pursue disciplinary action against students or employees for protesting.
Rotenberg, who was general counsel of University of Minnesota for 20 years before coming to Hillel, told JI that he is working on a statement objecting to the settlements, which will be addressed to the school’s board of regents.
“I am hopeful that this is not a trend,” Rotenberg said. “No university can exist if rules violators are rewarded with financial incentives, while students who do abide by the rules are not similarly rewarded,” he continued. “That’s an upside-down world and it cannot be acceptable for individuals who violate university regulations to be given the benefits while our students’ voices are not heard.”
Rotenberg expressed ire over universities’ lack of consulting with Jewish faculty or students ahead of making the agreements. At Northwestern, seven Jewish members of the university’s antisemitism advisory committee stepped down from the body last Wednesday, citing Schill’s failure to combat antisemitism while quickly accepting the demands of anti-Israel protesters on campus.
“Any meeting with the board of regents at University of Minnesota that relates to these issues, must include Jewish voices — voices of the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community who identify with and support Israel,” Rotenberg said.
“There are many ways to enforce university time, place and manner regulation that do not involve rewarding violators,” he continued, applauding the University of Connecticut, University of Florida and Columbia University for shutting down encampments while “eliminating the dangers of disruption and violence, without rewarding the violators.” At Columbia, for example, officers in riot gear removed demonstrators who had seized Hamilton Hall and suspended students who refused to dismantle their encampment.
Not all efforts to strike deals have been successful. At University of Chicago, for instance, negotiations to remove encampment tents from the campus central quad were suspended on Sunday, after protesters reached a stalemate with the university president, Paul Alivisatos.
“The Jewish community is right to be outraged,” Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, told JI. “You don’t capitulate to groups that are in violation of reasonable restrictions by giving into demands. That is not moral leadership… the right statements are not negotiations with rule violators, but rather say that free expression is a core value but you have to abide by university policy in doing that,” she continued, noting that she has observed a “trend with private universities being more able to weather the storm, as well as just doing better than some of the public universities.”
Like Rotenberg, Elman singled out Minnesota for its “disheartening” snub of Jews.
“Their statement [on encampments] had nothing to say to the Jewish community,” Elman said. “Nothing condemning the rank antisemitism on display, in rhetoric and calls for violence against Israeli citizens. How can you not even in one paragraph of your statement condemn how antisemitism has infused these protests?”
In a statement to JI, Jacob Baime, CEO of the Israel on Campus Coalition, called on university administrators to “clear the encampments, equally enforce existing policies, and protect Jewish students and their friends and allies,” without capitulating to “supporters of Hamas.”
Experts said that it’s too early to know whether or not the concessions offered are merely symbolic — Brown, for example, plans to wait until October for its corporate board to vote on a proposal to divest from Israeli interests, as per its negotiation with protesters. But already, according to the ADL’s Goodman, administrations that have made deals “[incentivized] further rules violations and disruption and normalized antisemitism on campus.”
Goodman cautioned that as universities try to restore order during finals and graduations, more may strike similar deals. “Administrators may see this as an acceptable solution to resolve the current situation on their own campus… It will also be interesting to see how they determine whether protestors who committed no further code of conduct violations comply and what happens if they do not comply.”
Rotenberg warned, “The Jewish community has ample reason to fear when people take the law into their own hands and who, after being warned, decide to violate the norms of their community and then get rewarded for doing so.” Going down that path, he said, is “marching down the road to authoritarianism.”
The group’s national leadership refused to support a draft statement in response to anti-Israel protests that included a standalone condemnation of antisemitism

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Pro-Palestinian students at UCLA campus set up encampment in support of Gaza and protest the Israeli attacks in Los Angeles, California, United States on May 01, 2024.
As anti-Israel encampments on college campuses sprung up at dozens of universities last week, the national leadership of the College Democrats of America (CDA) asked the group’s Jewish and Muslim caucuses to draft a statement condemning the antisemitism that was quickly appearing among some protesters.
The byzantine process that followed would lead the College Democrats’ top Jewish leader to accuse the influential organization of ignoring antisemitism at campus protests to further a one-sided, anti-Israel agenda, after the organization’s leadership nixed the inclusive statement that had been created by the top Jewish and Muslim activists in the group.
Allyson Bell, chair of the CDA’s national Jewish caucus and an MBA student at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., got to work writing a statement about antisemitism with Hasan Pyarali, the Muslim caucus chair and a senior at Wake Forest University. The two of them turned in a draft of a statement detailing antisemitism at Columbia University and stating that the College Democrats “absolutely and irrevocably denounce the antisemitism that has taken place at Columbia University and other college campuses over the past week,” according to a document shared with Jewish Insider.
But College Democrats’ national leaders weren’t pleased with this draft, Bell stated. “They wanted us to write a 50/50 approach, to both protect the peaceful side of the protesters and stand against antisemitism,” Bell told JI on Wednesday night. So she and Pyarali gave it another stab. (“It’s been really tough for people to work together on this issue, so I’m so glad that we’ve been able to work together,” Pyarali told JI.)
This time, the draft statement began with a denunciation of antisemitism and a statement of support for the “broad and interfaith coalitions of students who call for a ceasefire, release of the hostages, and a two-state solution where both Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace.” This too, was voted down.
The statement that was ultimately released by the College Democrats on Tuesday ignored the middle path proposed by Bell and Pyarali. Instead, the statement described “heroic actions on the part of students around the country to protest and sit in for an end to the war in Palestine and the release of the hostages.” It called Israel’s war against Hamas “destructive, genocidal, and unjust” — language that Bell had never seen. An Instagram post with the statement touted the endorsement of Pyarali and the Muslim caucus, with no mention of the Jewish caucus — except a comment on the post from the Jewish caucus’ own Instagram account.
“This should not have ever been released without Jewish students’ support. Protect Jewish students, do better,” the College Democrats’ Jewish caucus commented.
“It’s a hurtful thing, not only to not feel heard, but also to know that the organization you’re in doesn’t believe that the antisemitism is happening and doesn’t care enough about it to even include the factual things that we’ve seen on video,” explained Bell.
For months, the Democratic Party has faced criticism from young activists for President Joe Biden’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas. In March, a cadre of influential progressive activist groups, including the Sunrise Movement and March for Our Lives, signed onto a “youth agenda” that focused on climate change, gun violence prevention, immigration reform and reaching a “permanent ceasefire” in Gaza. Debates over Israel and antisemitism have roiled progressive organizations since Oct. 7.
College Democrats touts itself as the official collegiate arm of the Democratic National Committee, the party’s campaign apparatus. The group endorsed Biden’s reelection campaign, and in the past it has served as a crucial tool for reaching young people in an election year, even as the organization has drifted far to the left of the national party in recent years. Spokespeople for the DNC and the Biden campaign declined to comment when asked if they support the message adopted by College Democrats.
The statement sharply diverged from the path charted by Biden, who has supported Israel in its war against Hamas after the Oct. 7 terror attacks that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, while also seeking humanitarian protections for Palestinian civilians. College Democrats’ national communications chair, Sohali Vaddula, a New York University undergraduate, told JI on Wednesday that the group “has opposed President Biden’s support for Israel in terms of providing military aid, which would further the genocide that’s ongoing.”
On Tuesday morning, hours before CDA came out in favor of campus protests, a White House spokesperson slammed the violent tactics and antisemitism exhibited by some anti-Israel protesters at U.S. college campuses after activists at Columbia violently stormed a campus administrative building. Biden offered a similar message in a Thursday morning speech, the president’s first major remarks on the campus protests.
The College Democrats statement recognizes antisemitism halfway through, with a line that university administrations “need to protect students from all forms of hatred — antisemitism and Islamophobia — without impeding on the rights of students.” It refers to antisemitism having increased “in the weeks following October 7th” with no mention of what occurred that day. College Democrats did not issue a statement on the violence in the Middle East until December, two months after the Hamas attack, when they issued a call for a cease-fire and hostage deal. They refrained from doing so sooner because the issue was “controversial,” said Vaddula.
“This issue has always been controversial, even before Oct. 7, and especially after Oct. 7,” Vaddula said. (She was not an executive board member at the time and wasn’t involved in that decision.)
The College Democrats’ Tuesday statement says the group stands alongside protesters who are calling for an “immediate permanent ceasefire, releases of hostages, and a two-state solution where both Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in peace.” But this is not what most of the protesters are demanding. Chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — widely seen as a call for the extermination of the Jewish state — are heard frequently from protesters, who also often chant about “intifada.” More than 1,000 Israelis were killed in the Second Intifada two decades ago. Other language and signage exhibited at encampments across the country state that Zionists are not welcome among the protesters.
“It’s hurtful to see so many progressive allies look at the situation as a black-and-white issue, where they can’t hold in themselves, in their hearts, empathy for the Israeli people, for hostages, for Jewish people who are victims of antisemitism,” said Stephanie Hausner, now the chief operating officer at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and a former senior leader with both CDA and the Young Democrats of America. “As someone who was deeply involved in the organization, both College Democrats and Young Democrats and the Democratic Party, it’s really hard to see what’s going on in those spaces.”
“I have not seen one student encampment talking about a two-state solution with both sides living side by side,” one former longtime Democratic Party staffer and White House aide observed.
Pyarali, the Muslim caucus chair, disagreed: “I think the majority of people are standing for a two-state solution, and at least we want them to know that at least the majority of College Democrats are,” he told JI on Thursday. “We do think it is possible to be supportive of Israel without being supportive of this genocidal campaign.”
Stephanie Hausner, now the chief operating officer at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and a former senior leader with both CDA and the Young Democrats of America, which serves young professionals, lamented the group’s approach to the protests and the war.
“It’s hurtful to see so many progressive allies look at the situation as a black-and-white issue, where they can’t hold in themselves, in their hearts, empathy for the Israeli people, for hostages, for Jewish people who are victims of antisemitism,” Hausner told JI. “As someone who was deeply involved in the organization, both College Democrats and Young Democrats and the Democratic Party, it’s really hard to see what’s going on in those spaces.”
Young Democrats’ Jewish caucus chair, Zach Shartiag, echoed that assessment. “Our organization has turned a blind eye, even in my mind pre-10/7, to issues of antisemitism,” he told JI.
“The Jewish caucus had not signed off on this particular statement because we felt like this one was more representative of what our organization wanted to support,” College Democrats’ national communications chair, Sohali Vaddula, a New York University undergraduate, told JI . “We just don’t want statements to focus entirely on antisemitism because that is a double standard. We should also be focusing on the rising Islamophobia on campuses. There are other students that feel unwelcome on these campuses, not just Jewish students. We wanted to highlight that and not make it one-sided. We felt that the Jewish caucus was making it one-sided.”
“Jewish Dems and the Democratic Party firmly stand with Israel and support its right to self-defense, especially in the aftermath of the horrific attacks perpetrated by Hamas,” Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer told JI on Thursday. “President Biden, the head of the Democratic Party, has never wavered from his staunch commitment to Israel’s safety and security, while Republicans in Congress blocked emergency aid to Israel for more than six months. We stand with Israel and any statement to the contrary isn’t representative of the vast majority of Democrats and President Biden.”
Vaddula, the College Democrats board member, acknowledged that the Jewish caucus did not approve of the group’s final statement. But, she added, condemning only antisemitism would present a “double standard.” The statement was adopted by a vote of 8-2 among executive board members. She said the group didn’t need to specifically mention instances of antisemitism “because we didn’t feel that the existence of antisemitism at the protests was in question.”
“The Jewish caucus had not signed off on this particular statement because we felt like this one was more representative of what our organization wanted to support,” she said. “We just don’t want statements to focus entirely on antisemitism because that is a double standard. We should also be focusing on the rising Islamophobia on campuses. There are other students that feel unwelcome on these campuses, not just Jewish students. We wanted to highlight that and not make it one-sided. We felt that the Jewish caucus was making it one-sided.”
By ignoring Islamophobia, as the first drafts did, “certain students and identity groups [would] feel excluded from organization,” said Vaddula. When asked about Jewish Democrats who feel excluded, Vaddula said “there’s a seat at the table and the Democratic Party for everybody.”
Ultimately, she said the reason for not aligning with the Jewish caucus came down to the Jewish caucus’ difference of opinion on the war on Gaza. Vaddula said the Jewish caucus might not be “representative” of the Jewish community and cited groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist organization whose positions opposing the Jewish state represent a far-left fringe of the U.S. Jewish community.
“Unfortunately, the Jewish caucus just wasn’t willing to denounce genocide,” said Vaddula. “We felt like maybe that wasn’t the best representative sample of Jewish College Democrats or just Jewish young Democrats in general.” (In a follow-up conversation on Thursday, Vaddula clarified that “well-informed people of goodwill will continue to disagree when we use the word ‘genocide’ to describe the situation in Gaza, and of course, there is room for them in College Democrats.”)
“It does feel like the administration, or at least members of the executive board, believe that Jewish students are pro-genocide or anti-Palestine simply for being Jewish,” Allyson Bell, chair of the CDA’s national Jewish caucus and an MBA student at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., said. “That conversation hasn’t even been had, but it’s assumed. And like I said before, it’s isolating. It’s alienating. It’s disheartening, and it’s hurtful. I feel for my caucus members. I hate that we’re in this position where we’re trying to figure out like, How do we get heard? How do we share how we’re feeling without getting in trouble for it?”
“When I look at organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and all these other organizations, some of whom actually are Jewish and are also calling out a genocide, I think it’s important to think about the larger messaging that we’re sending out,” Vaddula added. “I think that is in line with what most of the Jewish groups are saying.” (A March Pew poll found that 62% of U.S. Jews say the way Israel is carrying out its war in Gaza is acceptable, and 89% see Israel’s reasons for fighting Hamas as valid.)
Bell, the Jewish caucus leader, said that in conversations with other top College Democrats, someone implied that she supported genocide, even though no one had discussed the matter with her.
“The irony of saying that to a Jewish student — I honestly just can’t wrap my head around it at this point,” said Bell, who signed onto the December statement supporting a cease-fire. “It does feel like the administration, or at least members of the executive board, believe that Jewish students are pro-genocide or anti-Palestine simply for being Jewish. That conversation hasn’t even been had, but it’s assumed. And like I said before, it’s isolating. It’s alienating. It’s disheartening, and it’s hurtful. I feel for my caucus members. I hate that we’re in this position where we’re trying to figure out like, How do we get heard? How do we share how we’re feeling without getting in trouble for it?”
College Democrats’ turn away from Israel is striking against the backdrop of the organization’s long history of alignment with Israel and pro-Israel organizations such as AIPAC, which is now viewed as a target by many progressive activists. AIPAC used to bring the leaders of both College Democrats and College Republicans on bipartisan missions to Israel, a tradition it continued as recently as 2017. The leaders of both groups also used to travel to Washington each year for AIPAC’s annual policy conference.
“College Democrats owe it to their president and national party, not to mention the Israelis and Palestinians still committed to peace and coexistence, to avoid incendiary statements that will only exacerbate the already explosive situation on campus,” Jonathan Kessler, former leadership development director at AIPAC and founder of the peacebuilding NGO Heart of a Nation.
Despite the Gaza war and campus unrest, in an April Harvard Kennedy School poll, 18- to 29-year-olds ranked the Israeli-Palestinian conflict near the bottom of a list of most important topics; it ranked 15th out of 16 topics mentioned. But Vaddula and Pyarali both told JI they are struggling with College Democrats’ endorsement of Biden in light of his support for Israel.
“I’ve spoken to so many people who have seen his unfettered support as so soul-crushing, because we voted for Joe Biden with the thought that this is someone who’s gonna bring dignity back, someone who’s gonna bring compassion back to the White House,” said Pyarali, who called Biden “complicit in genocide.” Pyarali said Israel was “justified in their targeting of Hamas” after the “horrific” events of Oct. 7, but “it’s never been about targeting just Hamas.” He called the war genocidal from the beginning.
The College Democrats’ Jewish caucus chair said the experience over the past week has made her question her future with the organization.
“At this point, I’ve kind of just decided that it’s worth speaking out about, even if it means that I need to move away from College Democrats of America,” Bell said. “This is important enough that I think more people need to be speaking out in support of Jewish students and the rising antisemitism that is happening across college campuses, even though currently it’s not a popular stance.”
In a surprise White House address, the president offered his first major remarks on the campus protests, which he said have not changed his thinking on Mideast policy

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President Joe Biden speaks from the Roosevelt Room of the White House on May 02, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
In a surprise White House address on Thursday morning, President Joe Biden condemned the violent protests that have swept American college campuses and decried the antisemitism that has taken place at many of the demonstrations.
“We’ve all seen the images and they put to the test two fundamental American principles,” Biden said in his first major remarks on the campus protests. “The first is the right to free speech and for people to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. The second is the rule of law. Both must be upheld.”
In a brief speech lasting just over three minutes, Biden drew a clear differentiation between lawful protests and the violence that has occurred on some campuses.
“Violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is. It’s against the law when violence occurs,” the president said. “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.”
Biden specifically called out the hate experienced by Jewish students on many campuses. “Let’s be clear about this as well: There should be no place on any campus, no place in America, for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students,” said Biden.
“There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It’s simply wrong,” added Biden. “There’s no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong. It’s un-American.”
The president did not mention Israel or anti-Zionist rhetoric, nor did he make any reference to the content of the protests or the protesters’ demands. But Biden said “no” when asked by a reporter if the protests will lead him to reconsider his policy in the Middle East. He also responded with a “no” when asked if the National Guard should intervene.
“I understand people have strong feelings and deep convictions,” said Biden. “In America, we respect the right and protect the right for them to express that. But it doesn’t mean anything goes. It needs to be done without violence, without destruction, without hate and within the law.”
Earlier this week, after student protesters violently occupied a Columbia University administrative building, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates condemned their actions.

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.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how administrators are addressing protests, encampments and clashes on campus, and report on today’s expected vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sheryl Sandberg, Ofir Akunis and Amy Schumer.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Israel today for meetings with top officials, including President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Blinken’s visit to Israel follows a two-day trip through the region that included meetings in Jordan and Saudi Arabia aimed at discussing cease-fire negotiations and a day-after plan for Gaza. The trip comes as Israel prepares for a Rafah operation, following Netanyahu’s comments earlier this week that such a move was imminent, “with or without a deal” to reach a cease-fire and free the remaining hostages. More on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s comments about a potential Rafah invasion below.
“Bringing the hostages home is at the heart of everything we’re trying to do,” Blinken tweeted earlier today. “We will not rest until every hostage — woman, man, young, old, civilian, soldier — is back with their families, where they belong.”
Thousands of miles away from high-level diplomatic conversations aimed at ending a monthslong war, American college administrators are conducting their own negotiations — with anti-Israel student protesters — in an effort to restore calm on campuses across the country in the waning weeks of the spring semester.
With final exams and commencements around the corner, this time of year is usually one of packed libraries, graduation celebrations and senioritis. Not so this year on a number of campuses, where student protesters from Columbia to Northwestern to the University of North Carolina to UCLA continued to sow chaos on campus, in some cases moving from the encampments they constructed last month to take over university buildings, as they did with the takeover of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall. In other cases students commandeered university property, as students at UNC did when they took down an American flag and hung a Palestinian flag in its place.
At UCLA, overnight protests turned violent, with clashes between pro- and anti-Israel student demonstrators breaking out in the area around the encampment. At Columbia, police with riot shields arrested dozens of protesters in Hamilton Hall, effectively bringing an end to the protesters’ siege of the administrative building. Overnight, the campus encampment was cleared after two weeks.
Administrators from Evanston, Ill., to New York to Chapel Hill, N.C., have varied in their approaches to the demonstrators and their demands. Read below for more on the concessions that administrations have made to campus protesters below.
Following Columbia protesters’ takeover of Hamilton Hall earlier this week, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates released a statement condemning antisemitism and the extreme tactics of the students.
“President Biden has stood against repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life. He condemns the use of the term ‘intifada,’ as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days,” Bates told JI. “President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful. Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful — it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.”
Bates did not say whether Biden planned to speak about the issue publicly, or to meet with Jewish students. In a proclamation announcing Jewish American Heritage Month, which begins today, Biden addressed the situation on many campuses.
“Here at home, too many Jews live with deep pain and fear from the ferocious surge of antisemitism — in our communities; at schools, places of worship, and colleges; and across social media. These acts are despicable and echo the worst chapters of human history,” Biden said in the proclamation.
Meanwhile, a new Harvard/Harris poll found that 80% of Americans support Israel in its war against Hamas; that number drops to 57% among the 18-24 year-olds surveyed. Those numbers are perhaps best reflected in a statement released by College Democrats of America on Wednesday, showing support for the encampments and anti-Israel protesters.
Today in Washington, Jewish students from Northwestern will meet with legislators to discuss their experiences on campus in recent days, ahead of a House vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act. More on the legislation from JI’s Marc Rod below.
The events on campus are raising concerns among congressional lawmakers. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday called on Columbia administrators to “bring order to their Manhattan campus” and compared the behavior of Columbia’s student protesters to the “brand of aggressive lawlessness” shown by “the student Nazis of Weimar Germany.”
A day prior, a group of 21 pro-Israel House Democrats sent a letter blasting Columbia and accusing administrators of failing to break up the campus’ anti-Israel encampment. The legislators alleged that failing to do so constitutes a violation of Jewish students’ civil rights. The letter, led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Dan Goldman (D-NY), describes the encampment as “the breeding ground for antisemitic attacks on Jewish students, including hate speech, harassment, intimidation, and even threats of violence.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) is preparing a measure to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her comments last week referring to Jewish students as either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide”; the Minnesota congresswoman made the comments while visiting Columbia University.
House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) invited the heads of Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan to speak at a hearing later this month focused on “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.”
Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans’ campaign arms are planning to use footage that has emerged in recent days in ads targeting vulnerable Democrats who have not condemned the protests. Among those the NRSC and NRCC plan to target: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Bob Casey (D-PA) and Jon Tester (D-MT), as well as Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who is mounting a Senate bid in Michigan.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said yesterday at a Senate hearing that “what is happening on our campuses is abhorrent.”
“Hate has no place on our campuses and I’m very concerned with the reports of antisemitism,” Cardona said. He added that “unsafe, violent” protests and attacks on students are not protected by the First Amendment.
Cardona said that support for Hamas, the “from the river to the sea” slogan and calls for Jews to go back to Poland or be killed are “absolutely not” acceptable. He told lawmakers the department needs additional funding and investigators for its Office of Civil Rights to respond to the spike in incidents and investigations.
northwestern negotiations
Jewish leaders slam Northwestern agreement with anti-Israel protesters

After an anti-Israel encampment was erected at Northwestern University last week, the school’s president on Monday reached an agreement with protesters to end the encampment — acceding to several of their demands in the process, which drew strong condemnation from many in the Chicago and national Jewish communities, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Message received: In a letter to university President Michael Schill, the Jewish United Fund — Chicago’s Jewish federation, which also oversees Northwestern Hillel — excoriated the administrator for embracing “those who flagrantly disrupted Northwestern academics and flouted those policies. The overwhelming majority of your Jewish students, faculty, staff, and alumni feel betrayed. They trusted an institution you lead and considered it home. You have violated that trust,” the letter said. “You certainly heard and acted generously towards those with loud, at times hateful voices. The lack of any reassuring message to our community has also been heard loud and clear.”
Resignation call: The Anti-Defamation League, StandWithUs and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law joined together to call for Schill’s resignation after the agreement was announced. “For days, protestors openly mocked and violated Northwestern’s codes of conduct and policies by erecting an encampment in which they fanned the flames of antisemitism and wreaked havoc on the entire university community,” the groups said in a statement. “Rather than hold them accountable – as he pledged he would – President Schill gave them a seat at the table and normalized their hatred against Jewish students.”
Notes from New England: Brown University administrators reached an agreement with encampment organizers to put the issue of divesting from Israel up for a vote when its largest governing body, the Corporation, meets in October.