International Courant
Home Training and the Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., despatched a letter to Columbia College on Monday asking for paperwork and data related to Congress’ investigation into hovering antisemitism at American faculty campuses that reached a fever pitch within the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel.
The 16-page letter, addressed to Columbia College President Dr. Minouche Shafik, Columbia Trustees Co-Chairs David Greenwald and Claire Shipman, Barnard Faculty President Dr. Laura Rosenbury, and Barnard Faculty Board of Trustees Chair Cheryl Glicker Milstein, offered examples of how, as Foxx categorized it, “an setting of pervasive antisemitism has been documented at Columbia for greater than 20 years earlier than the October 7, 2023, terrorist assault.”
The paperwork and data requested are stated to narrate to “Columbia College’s response to antisemitism on its campus and its failure to guard Jewish college students, college, and employees.”
“Columbia has persistently allowed anti-Israel teams to violate college insurance policies and proven its commitments on antisemitism to be hole,” Foxx wrote.
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Protesters reveal close to Columbia College on Feb. 2, 2024, in New York. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Photographs)
The committee is searching for all experiences 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 celebrated New York Metropolis establishment is meant to take care of discrimination and harassment.
Included on the record of 25 particular gadgets sought by the committee have been all paperwork and communications “regarding or reflecting sources of funding for Columbia College students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace, Columbia College Apartheid Divest, Columbia Legislation College students for Palestine, Columbia Social Staff 4 Palestine, and College and Employees for Justice in Palestine, together with, however not restricted to school, departmental, college, and scholar group funds, in addition to overseas donations.”
Foxx can also be searching for paperwork displaying the annual whole quantity of overseas 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 overseas donations and funding to Columbia of $50,000 or extra 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 Basis, governmental our bodies, nongovernmental organizations whether or not integrated in Qatar or elsewhere, and personal people) since Jan. 1, 2021.
Apart from info on overseas funding of anti-Israel protests, Foxx can also be searching for communications associated to any efforts by Columbia college students, college and employees to interact within the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions motion towards Israel since Jan. 1, 2021, in addition to Columbia’s finances mandates for range, fairness and inclusion (DEI) packages.
In her letter, Foxx cited “quite a few 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.
Professional-Palestinian demonstrators outdoors Columbia on Feb. 2, 2024, in New York. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/VIEWpress)
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The letter asks the college to supply communications associated to a listing of particular incidents geared toward Columbia college students, college, employees and every other associates since Oct. 7, together with, however not restricted to these directed at an Israeli scholar outdoors Columbia’s library on Oct. 11, a Jewish Columbia Legislation scholar on Oct. 19, an Israeli Columbia scholar on Oct. 24, and a Jewish scholar in a campus eating corridor on Nov. 9.
Chants have known as for demise to Jews and scholar e-mail threads have equally wished for demise to Israel Protection Forces veterans on campus. The letter additionally famous how “quite a few Columbia college have made antisemitic remarks and statements of help for Palestinian terrorism each previous to and after the October 7, 2023, terrorist assault.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx holds a information convention with college students about antisemitism on faculty campuses, within the Capitol on Dec. 5, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name, Inc by way of Getty Photographs)
Among the most egregious examples, the letter stated, included professor of recent Arab politics Joseph Massad penning an article after the Oct. 7 assault evaluating the “Palestinian resistance” to “Europeans resisting the Nazi occupation” and in addition referring to Israel as “merciless 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 “merciless 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 courting again years, together with deeming Israel “a racist, apartheid state.”
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Whereas Columbia suspended its campus chapters of the anti-Israel teams College students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) on Nov. 10, 2023, the letter asserted that “the college has repeatedly didn’t implement this choice and has allowed these teams and others to carry unauthorized antisemitic, anti-Israel occasions with out consequence,” the letter stated.
Foxx stated that stands at odds with Shafik’s Oct. 9, 2023, dedication that “our first precedence has been to verify everybody related to Columbia is protected” and Columbia’s assertion that “President Shafik has repeatedly stated that we’ll not tolerate antisemitic actions and are transferring forcefully towards antisemitic threats, photographs, and different violations as they’re reported.”
Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox Information Digital protecting politics, crime, police and extra. Story ideas could be despatched to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on Twitter: @danimwallace.
Home committee asks Columbia for information of overseas donations, DEI and extra in antisemitism probe
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