Columbia University Considered Dropping Anti-Israel Students’ Demands and Suspended Only Four: House GOP Report

A stunning House committee report found that Harvard University President Claudine Gay and other administrators deliberately cut off language condemning the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre that killed more than 1,200 civilians as “violence” and references to their Israeli hostages in an official statement issued after the brutal attack. Thursday.

The Republican Party-led Education and Workforce Committee w 122-page report found that leaders of Ivy League universities made a “deliberate decision” to tone down their Oct. 9 statement in which they still did not condemn the Hamas attack, according to documents, some of which were obtained through subpoena.

“We condemn this act of terrorism,” read an earlier version of the statement, which was rejected.

Then-Dean of Harvard Law School John Manning, who has since become the school’s chancellor, successfully lobbied against adding more language referring to the hundreds of hostages taken by Hamas.

“This violence is very close to home for many at Harvard,” an earlier draft reads. “Some members of our community have lost family members and friends; some have been unable to contact loved ones, and others fear their loved ones may have been taken hostage.”

Administrators also opposed the denunciation joint statement by 31 Harvard student groups holding Israel “totally responsible” for Hamas’s atrocities.

“This may mean cutting too fine. However, I also wonder whether, if the verdict is not an institutional condemnation of Hamas’s act of terror, there would still be a way to separate the university from the “Israel is completely responsible” statement reportedly issued by 31 groups of Harvard students – and attracting widespread media attention (not to mention condemning MP (Elisa) Stefanik,” wrote university secretary Marc Goodheart in an email dated October 9, 2023.

Gay and several deans also were most supportive of the final statement, which expressed a moral equivalence between Hamas’s act of terror and Israel’s declaration of war on jihadists in Gaza.

Penny Pritzker, a senior fellow at the Harvard Corporation, in a transcribed August 29 interview with the committee, called the statement, in retrospect, “clearly inappropriate and insufficient at the time.”

“For more than a year, Americans have watched anti-Semitic mobs rule so-called elite universities, but what has been happening behind the scenes is arguably worse,” Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said in a statement.

“While Jewish students have demonstrated incredible courage and refusal to submit to persecution, university administrators, faculty and staff have proven to be cowards who have completely capitulated to the mob and failed the students they were supposed to serve,” Foxx noted.

Pritzker also pressed Gay to admit that student posters reading “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” or any of their variants are “clearly” anti-Semitic, pointing out that graduates wondered “why we would tolerate this rather than the signs “. incitement to lynching by the KKK.”

The president dodged the inquiry and forwarded it to then-Chancellor Alan Garber, who responded in an October 22, 2023 email that “the phrase genocidal used by Hamas supporters seems clear enough to me,” but “that is not the same as claiming “that the consensus is that the phrase itself is always anti-Semitic.”

That same day, Gay, in another email, acknowledged that her concerns about the labeling of the phrase “anti-Semitic” “raises the question of what to do about it, i.e. discipline.”

Two months later Stefanik (R-NY) grilled cheerful because of the distinction during a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee on December 5.

“Does calling for Jewish genocide violate Harvard’s bullying and harassment policies? Yes or no?” – asked the chairwoman of the House of Representatives conference.

“It may depend on the context,” Gay responded, which was widely condemned by Republicans, Democrats and the White House.

“It doesn’t depend on the context – the answer is yes and that’s why you should resign,” Stefanik shot back.

Gay then privately mocked Stefanik as a “supporter” of the far-right group Proud Boys that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, while admitting that her testimony was erroneous.

Minutes of the Oversight Board meeting obtained by the House committee show Gay stating that she “should have expressed that calls for violence against the Jewish community (sic) should not be allowed.”

The president also disparaged Stefanik as a “spreader of hate” and a “supporter of proud boys.”

The House committee’s report also revealed “astonishing concessions” and other failures by officials at Columbia, Yale, MIT, Northwestern, Rutgers and UCLA that led to an explosion of anti-Semitism on campuses last year.

Columbia University administrators considered it bowing to the demands of anti-Israel students and ended with the suspension of only four protesting students.

On April 17, hundreds of anti-Israel students pitched a tent on Columbia’s South Lawn and immediately began negotiations with university officials on terms to end the protest.

Based on emails, documents and interviews conducted by the House committee, administrators quickly put together a “menu” of responses to the demands.

First, they proposed that Colombia’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investment review plans to divest demonstrators from companies linked to Israel and defense manufacturers that supply weapons to the United States and its allies.

They also proposed a new student exchange program with Al-Quds University in the West Bank, an institution that has hosted pro-Hamas rallies and at least one demonstration in which participants waved suicide bomber banners and gave Nazi salutes.

They then announced an amnesty for all students temporarily suspended after the establishment of the Gaza Solidarity Camp and worked out a way to reinstate suspended student groups, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Both groups were banned from campus after organizing events a month after the October 7 Hamas massacre that promoted “threat rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students.

This hostile atmosphere for Jews continued in the camp, where students glorified Hamas terrorists as “martyrs” and at least one of its leaders declared: “Zionists do not deserve to live“

Talks between them and administrators broke down on April 29, while still president of Colombia Minouche Shafik praised the “important ideas that emerged from this dialogue.”

“We plan to explore the possibility of implementing them in the future,” promised Shafik, who resigned from her post from August.

The NYPD cleared the anti-Israel Columbia camp and stormed occupied Hamilton Hall on the night of April 30, arresting 112 people. At least 80 were students and 32 were not associated with the school.

Although the university agreed to expel 22 people from Hamilton Hall, only three were suspended and one was placed under disciplinary supervision. The rest have completed their studies or remain in good shape.

Columbia University divestment member Khymani James, who told administrators they should “be grateful that I don’t go out and murder Zionists” was suspended last spring, but he and the group have maintained their hateful rhetoric.

In total, according to the commission’s report, Columbia suspended just four students for disciplinary action for anti-Semitism, placed 41 on probation, warned another four about their behavior and conducted “mandatory alternative resolution process educational interviews” with 15 students. .

A Republican-led education panel accused school administrators of “pacifying” demonstrators, which emboldened other students to set up similar tent encampments at Rutgers and Brown universities.

“By rewarding violations of egregious conduct with eye-popping concessions rather than enforcing university policies, these agreements set dangerous precedents that create future chaos and may expose colleges and universities to potential Title VI violations,” the report states, referring to federal law preventing discrimination on the basis of common origin.

“Our investigation has found that these ‘leaders’ are responsible for chaos that likely violates Title VI and threatens public safety,” Foxx said.

“It is time for the executive branch to enforce the law and ensure that colleges and universities restore order and provide a safe learning environment for all students.”

“Columbia strongly condemns anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination, and we are determined that calls for violence or harm have no place at our university,” a university spokesman said in a statement. “Since assuming her role in August, Interim President Armstrong and her leadership team have taken decisive action to strengthen Columbia’s academic mission, ensure the safety of our community, and address the Commission’s concerns, including by strengthening and clarifying our disciplinary processes.”

“Under the University’s new leadership, we have established a centralized Office of Institutional Equity to handle all discrimination and harassment reports, appointed a new Rules Administrator, and strengthened the capabilities of our Office of Public Safety,” the spokesperson added. “We strive to apply the rules fairly, consistently and effectively.”

Harvard University officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.