Columbia University president to testify in Congress on college conflicts over Israel-Hamas war
Four months after a contentious congressional hearing led to the resignations of two Ivy League presidents, the president of Columbia University will appear before the same committee on questions about anti-Semitism and the school’s response to conflict on campus over the war between Israel and Hamas.
Nemat Shafik, Columbia’s leader, was originally asked to testify at the House Education and Workforce Committee hearing in December, but she declined, citing scheduling conflicts.
The December hearing instead featured the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose legal responses drew fierce reactions and fueled weeks of controversy. The presidents of Penn and Harvard have since resigned.
During a heated series of questions at the December hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., asked university leaders to answer whether “calling for genocide of Jews” would violate each university’s code of conduct.
Liz Magill, then president of Penn, and Claudine Gay, then president of Harvard, both said it would depend on the details of the situation. MIT President Sally Kornbluth said she had not heard a call for the genocide of Jews on MIT’s campus, and that a speech “directed at individuals, and not making public statements” would be considered harassment.
The university presidents’ careful responses almost immediately drew criticism from donors, alumni and politicians. Magill resigned shortly after the hearing. Gay resigned in January after a lengthy campaign in which she was accused of plagiarism.
Shafik is expected to testify Wednesday, along with Columbia University administrators. Tensions and accusations of hate and bias have roiled Columbia, as they have at its sister schools, but Shafik has the benefit of hindsight in preparing her remarks. In an op-ed published Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, Shafik emphasized the delicate balance between protecting free speech and promoting a safe environment for students on campus.
“Calling for the genocide of any people – whether Israelis or Palestinians, Jews, Muslims or anyone else – has no place in a university community,” Shafik wrote. “Such words fall outside the bounds of legitimate debate and are unimaginably harmful.”
Tensions have risen on college campuses since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Jewish students have said their schools are not doing enough to address cases of anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, students who have organized in support of Palestinian rights say they have been disproportionately attacked and censored by campus authorities.
Columbia, along with many other colleges and school districts, is the subject of a series of Department of Education investigations into anti-Semitism and Islamophobia on campuses. It is also the target of lawsuits from both sides. The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit alleging the university singled out two pro-Palestinian student organizations when it suspended them from campus over protests in the fall. Groups of Jewish students have also filed suit, saying anti-Semitism on campus violates their civil rights.
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