House Education and Workforce Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx accused Columbia University president Minouche Shafik of “gross negligence” at the top of a Wednesday congressional hearing over her handling of rampant antisemitism on the Ivy League campus.
The Bronx-born Foxx (R-NC) laid into Shafik in her opening statement, calling attention to antisemitic demonstrations and even violence that erupted at Columbia in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed an estimated 1,200 people.
“Columbia stands guilty of gross negligence at best — and at worst has become a platform for those supporting terrorism and violence against the Jewish people,” Foxx said.
“That a taxpayer-funded institution become a forum for the promotion of terrorism raises serious questions,” she added. “I need not remind you that this is not just a moral duty, but a legal duty set forth in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
Shafik agreed that “the events of October 7 brought to the fore an undercurrent of antisemitism” but maintained that Columbia had taken “immediate action” in the wake of the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
“I attended a vigil for the victims on October 9; we held daily meetings of our campus security committee; we brought in extra security expertise; and have regular contact with NYPD and the FBI,” Shafik told panel members.
She acknowledged that “trying to reconcile the free speech rights of those who wanted to protest and the rights of Jewish students to be in an environment free of discrimination and harassment has been the central challenge on our campus.”
That challenge became clear at the start of the hearing, as self-described “anti-Zionist” Columbia students shouted to be let into the hearing room.
In a press conference before the hearing, student Eden Yadegar declared that still “the Jewish community at Columbia is alone.”
Yadegar recounted incidents of Jewish students having Star of David necklaces ripped off their bodies and hearing shouts of “f–k the Jews” in kosher dining halls on campus.
“They have failed their Jewish students,” she said of university administrators, pointing particularly to demonstrations that have praised even designated foreign terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.
“Freedom of speech does not include freedom to harass,” Yadegar said. “It is a fundamental attack on Columbia’s values and America’s values.”
“Contrary to the depiction we have seen on social media,” Shafik had said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed before the hearing, “most of the people protesting do so from a place of genuine political disagreement, not from personal hatred or bias or support for terrorism.”