ANALYSIS: The University is subject to racism issues and criticism because it silences pro-Palestinian voices.
Antisemitism complaints continue to be a hot topic at Columbia University, with the school facing two lawsuits from opposing organizations and a reading before Congress in April.
On the Ivy League school, Hebrew and pro- Israel students have reported being harassed, vilified, and assaulted, and hear professors make racist comments, particularly since the Oct. 7 Hamas criminal assault on Israel. At the same time, pro- Israeli groups at Columbia organized a group “walkout”, called for withdrawal from Israel, and advocated for the student government to withdraw an annual celebration in” cooperation” with their reason.
However, Professor Shai Davidai, a Hebrew Israeli who has been outspoken about the matter, said the college just launched an investigation against him.
” Students are experiencing adjusted dislike,” he said. There’s perfect indifference from the school management”, Davidai told The College Fix in a new telephone meeting.
Executives to speak before Congress
U.S. House Republican leaders lately prompted by the concerns raised by Davidai and others to launch an investigation and a hearing with Columbia’s best administrators.
In April, President Minouche Shafik and Trustees David Greenwald and Claire Shipman are scheduled to testify at the hear,” Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Answer to Anti Semitism”, according to the House Education Committee site.
In a new email, Chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx wrote to the administrators,” An environment of widespread hatred has been documented at Columbia for more than two years.”
The College Fix and two other requests for comment from Shafik’s company, which inquired about how the school is now handling racism concerns on school, were never responded to.
Israeli doctor investigated
Davidai, an associate professor at Columbia Business School, told The Fix the situation on school is “quite awful” for Hebrew and Jewish individuals.
Davidai claimed the college opened an investigation against him after speaking out about the issue last fall and one of his speeches went viral online.
He claimed in a subsequent X blog that he is accused of orally assaulting pro-Palestinian individuals.
He told The Fix while he has called out pro- Gaza businesses and Columbia officials, he “never qualified students based on any culture, gender, race or nationality”.
The university is looking into me because they do n’t like how I speak up. They initially believed I had only leave, but they were mistaken, Davidai told The Fix. ” And now they’re trying to silence me. It’s obvious that I’m trying to silence myself. It will never work”.
An online plea by students and alumni with the team We Are Tov has more than 30, 000 names supporting , Davidai. It demands Columbia “end its harassment” of the Hebrew doctor.
Two emails asking for remark about the research and Columbia’s response to racism on campus were never responded to by Columbia’s communications office.
Two complaints filed
In addition, pro-Palestine organizations filed a complaint against the school this month, alleging that it unlawfully suspended its Israeli Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine pages after a peaceful protest late last month.
Donna Lieberman, senior director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit, said the school violated individuals ‘ free speech rights.
” These scholar groups were peacefully speaking out on a crucial global issue, only to have Columbia University ignore their own historic, existing rules and immediately dismiss the organizations”, Lieberman stated in a media release. ” That’s retaliatory, it’s targeted, and it flies in the face of the free speech principles that institutes of higher learning should be defending”.
The Fix twice email the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine and Palestine Justice to find out what they thought would happen with the lawsuit and what their opinions are about antisemitism on campus. Neither responded.
In a separate lawsuit filed in February, Jewish and Israeli students also sued Columbia, accusing the university of ignoring “egregious and ongoing antisemitism”.
According to an emailed statement from StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, Yael Lerman, director of StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice,” we hope the lawsuit brings about the end of the Columbia administration’s indifference to antisemitism on its campus and results in the implementation of concrete steps to protect Jewish students.”
One of the defendants in the lawsuit is StandWithUs, along with several other students, Students Against Antisemitism, and others.
Lerman said they hope their case will at the least lead to the university updating campus rules that apply to Jews and apply those policies equally to “individuals and groups found to be in violation” as well.
The plaintiffs claimed in the complaint that Columbia was one of” the worst centers for academic antisemitism in the United States.”
They said Jewish students have been” spat at, physically assaulted, threatened, and targeted”.
Columbia’s abject failure and deliberate refusal to lift a finger to stop and deter this outrageous antisemitism and discipline the students and faculty who perpetrate it is what is most striking about all of this.
MORE: Jewish students fight back against’ Zionism is Racism ‘ events at Columbia
IMAGE: BC/CU Jewish Voice for Peace/Instagram
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