Jewish students at Columbia faced hostile environment during pro-Palestinian protests, report finds

Jews and Israelis at Columbia University were ostracized from student groups, humiliated in classrooms and subjected to verbal abuse as pro-Palestinian demonstrations shook the campus last year, and their complaints were often downplayed or ignored by school officials and faculty, the university’s task force on antisemitism said in a report released Friday.

Citing “serious and pervasive” problems uncovered through nearly 500 student testimonials, the faculty task force recommended revamped anti-bias training for students and staff and a revised system for reporting complaints about antisemitism.

It said student groups should stop issuing political statements unrelated to their missions, saying Jewish students felt pushed out of many clubs and organizations.

The task force also offered a definition of antisemitism that included discrimination or exclusion based on “real or perceived ties to Israel” and “certain double standards applied to Israel.” Such double standards, the report said, include the “calls for divestment solely from Israel” — something that has been a key demand of pro-Palestinian groups as the death toll in the latest war between Israel and Hamas soared.

The task force said its definition of antisemitism was intended for use in training and education, not for discipline or to limit speech.

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“These recommendations were devised to preserve the right to protest, to protect the rights to speak, teach, research, and learn, and to combat discrimination and harassment, including antisemitic harassment,” said Task Force on Antisemitism Co-Chairs Ester Fuchs, Nicholas Lemann and David M. Schizer. “Although our report focuses on antisemitism, we hope our recommendations will also bolster efforts to combat Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism, and other forms of bigotry.”

The task force issued its report four days before the scheduled start of classes for Columbia’s fall semester.

Interim President Katrina Armstrong said the university has already moved to expand trainings and streamline its handling of harassment complaints in line with the new report’s recommendations.

“This is an opportunity to acknowledge the harm that has been done and to pledge to make the changes necessary to do better and to rededicate ourselves, as university leaders, as individuals, and as a community, to our core mission of teaching and research,” Armstrong said in a statement.

In a bulletin posted online, a coalition of student groups that has been demanding that the school divest from Israeli companies and sever academic ties with Israeli institutions, said it would continue with its protests.

“There may be new students and new classes, but some things stay the same,” said the statement attributed to Columbia University Apartheid Divest. It cited what it said was the university’s “refusal to divest from their genocidal investments” and its “constant repression of pro-Palestinian protestors.”

The task force report comes two weeks after the resignation of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, who faced heavy scrutiny for her handling of the protests and campus divisions over the Israel-Hamas war at the Ivy League school.

Pro-Palestinian protesters first set up tent encampments on Columbia’s campus during Shafik’s congressional testimony in mid-April, where she denounced antisemitism but faced criticism for how she’d responded to faculty and student complaints. The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, only for the students to return and inspire a wave of similar protests at campuses across the country.

In its report, the task force cited incidents where Jewish students had been threatened or shoved, or subjected to blatantly antisemitic symbols like swastikas.

But it also described a broader pattern of Jewish students feeling ostracized from classmates who had once been friends.

In one reported instance, an Israeli student described feeling forced off a school dance team because she would not support its decision to join the pro-Palestinian Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition.

“We heard from performers who concealed their support for Israel in order to be cast in theater productions, and writers who were dismissed from publications,” the task force report said. “Jewish students have also quit community service activities focused on vulnerable populations in New York because the groups issued statements blaming Israel for Hamas’s brutal attacks on October 7.”

The task force said in many cases, Jewish students chose to leave groups because of an “uncomfortable” atmosphere, but in some cases they were told to leave.

The report is the second to be issued by the task force in recent months. The first outlined rules for demonstrations. An upcoming report will focus on “academic issues related to exclusion in the classroom and bias in curriculum,” the university said.