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House Education and the Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., despatched a letter to Columbia University on Monday asking for paperwork and data related to Congress’ investigation into hovering antisemitism at American school campuses that reached a fever pitch in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel.
The 16-page letter, addressed to Columbia University President Dr. Minouche Shafik, Columbia Trustees Co-Chairs David Greenwald and Claire Shipman, Barnard College President Dr. Laura Rosenbury, and Barnard College Board of Trustees Chair Cheryl Glicker Milstein, offered examples of how, as Foxx categorized it, “an environment of pervasive antisemitism has been documented at Columbia for more than two decades before the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack.”
The paperwork and data requested are mentioned to narrate to “Columbia University’s response to antisemitism on its campus and its failure to protect Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”
“Columbia has consistently allowed anti-Israel groups to violate university policies and shown its commitments on antisemitism to be hollow,” Foxx wrote.
Protesters reveal close to Columbia University on Feb. 2, 2024, in New York. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
The committee is looking for all reviews of antisemitic acts or incidents and associated paperwork and communications made to Columbia administration since Jan. 1, 2021, in addition to details about the college’s personal insurance policies and procedures about how the distinguished New York City establishment is meant to take care of discrimination and harassment.
Included on the listing of 25 particular objects sought by the committee have been all paperwork and communications “relating to or reflecting sources of funding for Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Columbia Law Students for Palestine, Columbia Social Workers 4 Palestine, and Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, including, but not limited to university, departmental, faculty, and student organization funds, as well as foreign donations.”
Foxx can also be looking for paperwork displaying the annual whole quantity of foreign donations and funding (together with however not restricted to governmental our bodies, nongovernmental organizations, and personal people) to Columbia since Jan. 1, 2021, by nation; paperwork adequate to point out all foreign donations and funding to Columbia of $50,000 or more since Jan. 1, 2021; and paperwork adequate to point out all donations and funding to Columbia from Qatari sources (together with however not restricted to the Qatar Foundation, governmental our bodies, nongovernmental organizations whether or not integrated in Qatar or elsewhere, and personal people) since Jan. 1, 2021.
Besides data on foreign funding of anti-Israel protests, Foxx can also be looking for communications associated to any efforts by Columbia college students, college and employees to have interaction in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions motion towards Israel since Jan. 1, 2021, in addition to Columbia’s finances mandates for variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI) applications.
In her letter, Foxx cited “numerous incidents of antisemitic assaults, harassment, and vandalism at Columbia,” over the previous a number of months, together with incidents of Jewish college students being crushed or focused by demonstrators who tore down posters of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas militants.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators outdoors Columbia on Feb. 2, 2024, in New York. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/VIEWpress)
The letter asks the college to supply communications associated to an inventory of particular incidents aimed toward Columbia college students, college, employees and every other associates since Oct. 7, together with, however not restricted to these directed at an Israeli pupil outdoors Columbia’s library on Oct. 11, a Jewish Columbia Law pupil on Oct. 19, an Israeli Columbia pupil on Oct. 24, and a Jewish pupil in a campus eating corridor on Nov. 9.
Chants have known as for loss of life to Jews and pupil e mail threads have equally wished for loss of life to Israel Defense Forces veterans on campus. The letter additionally famous how “numerous Columbia faculty have made antisemitic remarks and statements of support for Palestinian terrorism both prior to and after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx holds a information convention with college students about antisemitism on school campuses, in the Capitol on Dec. 5, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc by way of Getty Images)
Some of essentially the most egregious examples, the letter mentioned, included professor of fashionable Arab politics Joseph Massad penning an article after the Oct. 7 assault evaluating the “Palestinian resistance” to “Europeans resisting the Nazi occupation” and additionally referring to Israel as “cruel colonizers” and the Palestinian Authority as “the collaborator PA.”
Massad can also be accused of espousing antisemitic tropes, together with calling the Israeli navy “baby-killing Zionist Jewish volunteers for Israeli Jewish supremacy,” labeling Israelis “cruel and bloodthirsty colonizers,” and saying Zionism is a “genocidal cult.” The letter additionally cited how one other college worker, Hamid Dabashi, Columbia’s Hagop Kevorkian professor of Iranian research and comparative literature, had made quite a few virulently antisemitic statements relationship again years, together with deeming Israel “a racist, apartheid state.”
While Columbia suspended its campus chapters of the anti-Israel teams Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) on Nov. 10, 2023, the letter asserted that “the university has repeatedly failed to enforce this decision and has allowed these groups and others to hold unauthorized antisemitic, anti-Israel events without consequence,” the letter mentioned.
Foxx mentioned that stands at odds with Shafik’s Oct. 9, 2023, dedication that “our first priority has been to make sure everyone connected to Columbia is safe” and Columbia’s assertion that “President Shafik has repeatedly said that we will not tolerate antisemitic actions and are moving forcefully against antisemitic threats, images, and other violations as they are reported.”
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