Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia University were subjected to “crushing discrimination,” harassment and violence during the last school year by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. They were chased out of dorm rooms, kept from participating in campus activities, spit on, and in some cases, asked to leave campus for their own safety.
Those were the findings of a 90-page report released by the university’s Task Force on Antisemitism that found the “larger social compact is broken” at the university and made recommendations going forward.
The report concluded that “the testimonies of hundreds of Jewish and Israeli students have made clear that the University community has not treated them with the standards of civility, respect, and fairness it promises to all its students.”
In response to the report, Brian Levine, the Lavine Family Executive Director at the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life Columbia/Barnard Hillel, acknowledged “the report makes for difficult reading” but that “it is unfortunately not news to us.”
“Over the past several months, Columbia/Barnard Hillel’s team has routinely met with students as they told us of the intimidation, harassment, exclusion and threats leveled against them for just being Jews at Columbia,” he said. “In each case, we support the student and help them handle their particular situation.”
Levine said while the report was troubling he was “heartened” by several conversations he has had with Columbia’s new interim president, Katrina A. Armstrong, about their mutual desire to have a campus “where a robust, lively and proud Jewish community is fully and unapologetically welcomed.”
He said he made it clear to Armstrong that he and the entire Columbia Jewish community, including students, faculty, parents and alumni, are eager to work with her to address the rampant problems with antisemitism on campus.
Armstrong replaced former president Minouche Shafik, who resigned this summer because of the campus unrest, which has triggered lawsuits, vandalism, arrests of demonstrators, government investigations and widespread criticism of her leadership.
“The painful and distressing incidents of antisemitism recounted in this report are completely unacceptable,” Armstrong wrote in a message posted on the university’s website. “They are antithetical to our values and go against the principles of open inquiry, tolerance, and inclusivity that define us.”
To that end, Armstrong said the university is already working on initiatives aligning with a number of recommendations made in the report. They include an expansion of education and training offerings and the creation of a new Office of Institutional Equity helping to centralize, strengthen and streamline addressing antisemitic and other harassment complaints as well as establishing the Campus Climate Collaborative, updating guidelines to the rules of university conduct and revitalizing the Inclusive Public Safety Advisory Committee.
The report also recommended in-person workshops about antisemitism and Islamophobia and a range of optional training and workshops for others, including on implicit bias and stereotypes, bystander interventions, and having difficult conversations.
The report, released on Aug. 30, is a follow-up to an earlier report that focused on rules governing protests. This time it zeroed in on training and workshops, a definition of antisemitism for these educational programs, reporting mechanisms and the rules governing student groups.
The report’s definition of antisemitism states, “Antisemitism is prejudice, discrimination, hate, or violence directed at Jews, including Jewish Israelis. Antisemitism can manifest in a range of ways, including as ethnic slurs, epithets, and caricatures; stereotypes; antisemitic tropes and symbols; Holocaust denial; targeting Jews or Israelis for violence or celebrating violence against them; exclusion or discrimination based on Jewish identity or ancestry or real or perceived ties to Israel; and certain double standards applied to Israel.”
Listening sessions were conducted with 500 students who recounted “heartbreaking” experiences in day-to-day encounters, in dorm life, social media, clubs and classrooms making it clear that “unfortunately some members in the Columbia community have been unwilling to acknowledge the antisemitism many students have experienced.”
The report also found student “efforts to seek redress from the University for the hostility and bigotry they were encountering were often unsuccessful.” In many instances students were unsure where to turn for help and often had been referred to counseling and psychological services, “which they correctly understood as implying that they just need to learn to accept and cope with antisemitic experiences.”
Among the horrific experiences outlined in the report was a student who placed a mezuzah outside her dorm room door, and after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, found people banging on her door at all hours of the night demanding she explain Israel’s actions and forcing her to move from the dorm.
Easily identifiable observant students had been called terrible names such as “lovers of genocide” or “baby-killers.”
Others felt forced to hide their Jewish identity by covering kippahs, not wearing religious jewelry and not letting their peers know they are Jewish. Still others told of having necklaces ripped off their necks, being pinned against a wall while walking back to their dorms on Friday afternoons and when walking back from attending synagogue.
There were numerous instances of Jewish individuals walking past 116th Street in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan where the university is located who were stalked and subjected to ethnic and hateful slurs such as “Go back to Poland.” Students reported finding jokes about Hitler on communal dormitory whiteboards. Other students described walking down hallways as “a painful daily routine.”
Jewish students simply walking on campus heard shouts of “We don’t want no Zionists here.”
The hate was also spewed on social media with many students reporting that Sidechat, an anonymous online platform accessible only to Columbia students, was “suffused with hatred toward Jews and Zionists” with such posts as, “All you Zionists out there? You are the modern day Hitler” or “If you support Israel, you are piece of filth not even worthy of being called human.”
The report cited the “unacceptable” exclusion of Jewish and Israeli students from groups because of their ties to Israel even when the groups’ mission had nothing to do with Israel and recommended several ways to address the “urgent” issue.
“We believe that mutual respect among students across our campuses will follow from a confident assertion of academic space as a welcoming space, bound by common interests and rules governing the open exchange of ideas,” said the report. “We urge administrators and faculty to reaffirm their commitment to providing a rigorous educational environment embedded in principles of tolerance, inclusion, and pluralism. A campus that is more reliant on the courts than universal agreement on its mission is a community at risk. We urge every member of the University to consider their place in upholding that compact by fostering greater respect as an aspect of our diversity.”
Debra Rubin has had a long career in journalism writing for secular weekly and daily newspapers and Jewish publications. She most recently served as Middlesex/Monmouth bureau chief for the New Jersey Jewish News. She also worked with the media at several nonprofits, including serving as assistant public relations director of HIAS and assistant director of media relations at Yeshiva University.
