Columbia Says Student Protesters Agree to More Talks and to Remove Some Tents
April 24, 2024, 12:24 p.m. ET
April 24, 2024, 12:24 p.m. ET
Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, assured Congress last week that her administration was committed to taking serious action against antisemitism on campus, including by suspending students and disciplining certain faculty members.
Dr. Shafik, who testified for nearly four hours before the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce, told lawmakers that the university, which has about 5,000 Jewish students, had initially been overwhelmed by campus protests after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7. But, she testified, school leaders had since agreed that some discipline might be warranted, namely for students and faculty who had used antisemitic language and certain contested phrases, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Dr. Shafik said that at the time 15 students had been suspended. Many students have said they were showing support for the more than 30,000 Gazans who health officials there say have been killed in Israel’s bombardment.
When asked whether calls for genocide violated Columbia’s code of conduct, Dr. Shafik responded, “Yes, it does.” Her response was a stark difference from the terse, lawyerly answers to the same question from the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and M.I.T. at their hearing last December. The leaders of Harvard and Penn resigned after a fierce backlash of their testimonies.
Dr. Shafik also promised lawmakers that there would be “consequences” for employees who “make remarks that cross the line in terms of antisemitism.” She disclosed disciplinary actions that were underway against some faculty members, saying five had been removed from the classroom or dismissed in recent months for comments stemming from the war. One visiting professor, she added, would “never work at Columbia again.”
Dr. Shafik, who took her post last July, said that Columbia was committed to free speech but that school officials “cannot and should not tolerate abuse of this privilege” when it puts others at risk.
“I promise you, from the messages I’m hearing from students, they are getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences,” Dr. Shafik told lawmakers.
Nonetheless, her testimony has been met with criticism by some students and faculty members who have argued that it infringed on both free speech and academic freedom.