A House Republican wrote a letter threatening to subpoena Columbia University if the school’s president, Dr. Minouche Shafik, and board of trustees do not hand over a laundry list of information and documents related to an investigation into the prevalence of antisemitism within the university.
For months, lawmakers have sent multiple requests for information to Columbia, and the university has failed to satisfy those requests.
“These priority items, which are critical to the investigation, include communications by priority custodians of documents, including multiple members of Columbia’s Board of Trustees; records of Board of Trustees meetings; and requested information on disciplinary cases,” wrote Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “In many cases, these items were requested months ago. Columbia’s continued failure to produce these priority items is unacceptable, and if this is not promptly rectified, the Committee is prepared to compel their production.”
The committee’s investigation into Columbia was ignited by the numerous antisemitic incidents that have occurred since Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In April and May, nationwide anti-Israel protests broke out across college campuses, and Columbia was at the epicenter of the controversy.
The committee’s investigation into Columbia began on Feb. 12, and on March 29, the committee gave the university a detailed list of documents needed by April 9.
With the establishment of the encampment on April 17, the committee made another request on April 26 for all Columbia Board of Trustees minutes, notes, and summaries by May 6 and all disciplinary action taken related to the encampment.
However, Columbia failed to produce electronic messages or informal board of trustees notes and summaries related to the encampment. The committee gave the university a June 26 deadline for handing over the requested documents, which it failed to meet.
The committee made a new request for “all communications since 4/17/24 responsive to the Committee’s 3/29 and 4/26 requests, including emails, text messages, or other electronic messages,” and “an up-to-date list of all student disciplinary/conduct cases relating to alleged antisemitic incidents since October 7, 2023, and/or related to the Gaza Solidarity Encampment” with a deadline of July 19.
But once again, the university failed to deliver and instead included 1,780 pages consisting of lists of signatories to a publicly available petition in its document filings.
The university failed to hand over a detailed list of disciplinary cases but instead gave lawmakers a 64-page list of “recent university disciplinary communications to students regarding their cases, which fail to indicate either the actions Columbia has taken or the current status of alleged perpetrators, leaving unclear whether they are currently suspended or not.”
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Lawmakers have given Columbia an Aug. 8 deadline to fulfill its requests.
In addition to being investigated by Congress, the Education Department is also probing Columbia for allegations of anti-Palestinian discrimination.