By Deborah Lipstadt
Sunday, March 02, 2025
Until last week, I had been seriously considering
teaching at Columbia University next year as a visiting professor. But I’m now
convinced that to do so would be folly—to serve as a prop or a fig leaf.
Moreover, I feel doing so would mean putting myself and my students at risk.
I have spent most of my professional career on American
campuses, teaching courses on religion and history. I took a brief break to
serve in the Biden administration as the United States’ Special Envoy
to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism from May 2022 to January 2025.
It was from that perch that I watched the alarming
unraveling of campuses that claimed to be dedicated to the pursuit of truth
transform themselves into places where basic morality had been inverted.
Following Hamas’s attack of October 7, 2023, things went from bad to worse.
These outrages began while I was working as a diplomat
and State Department employee, and I was enjoined from involving myself in
domestic matters. But I watched—often with horror—as university administrations
coddled anti-Israel protesters who broke university regulations, harassed other
students, and prevented the normal learning process from proceeding.
President Biden did condemn the violence, often
unequivocally. “Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It is
against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down
campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations, none of this is
a peaceful protest.” But there were too many moments that were met with
silence.
So I was pleased and surprised last week when Barnard,
the women’s college of Columbia University, expelled two students who had participated in
an assault on a Columbia course on the history of modern Israel in January
of this year, on the first day of classes. The students marched into the room,
disrupted the session, prevented it from proceeding, and distributed
antisemitic flyers. One of the flyers read “Crush Zionism,” and had an
illustration of a boot stomping on a Star of David. Another depicted an Israeli
flag on fire and bore the caption “Burn Zionism to the ground.”
The class’s professor, Avi Shilon, modeling true academic
inquiry, invited them to join the class and the conversation. But rather than
engage, they preferred to disrupt, doing so with undisguised glee and
self-righteousness. (Watch for yourself.)
But as Barnard took action, I wondered if the college
would stand by its decision.
I had good reason to wonder. Over the past two years,
universities have been overwhelmingly weak in their response to those clearly
breaking university rules and even the law. When they have meted out
punishments, often they have wound up walking them back, turning their
responses into a farce.
Consider what happened at MIT in November 2023 when MIT
student protesters, ignoring specific university instructions, conducted a
demonstration that the university described as “disruptive, loud, and
sustained” and which was “conducted in defiance” of previously issued warnings.
The protest prevented research and learning. MIT “partially suspended” the
students.
“Partial” meant they could not attend nonacademic events.
In other words, they remained enrolled at the school.
In explaining this “partial” action, MIT’s president said
it had not fully suspended them because it had “serious concerns about
collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues.” In other words,
the protesters were foreign students and might be thrown out of the United
States if they lost their student visas.
I, along with many others, thought that is exactly what
should have happened. In fact, why should any student have that right?
Last year at Columbia we witnessed the same weakness when
anti-Israel protesters forcibly took over Hamilton Hall, trapped custodians
in the building, built encampments in violation of the university’s
rules—and upended school life as it existed before October 7, all with little
to no consequence both from the institution and ultimately from the city of New
York, which dropped all charges.
***
Given all this, you can understand why I wondered about
Barnard’s willingness to stick the landing. I was right to. Less than 24 hours
after the university’s expulsion of two rule-breakers—two students who had
disrupted Avi Shilon’s class—I had my
answer.
On February 26, a group of protesters—it’s unclear how
many were Barnard students—outraged by the expulsions, took over Milbank Hall,
which houses both the dean’s office and classrooms, and demanded the reversal
of the expulsion and amnesty for all those involved in the protest. They
entered the building—masked and screaming—with such ferocity that an employee
who confronted them was physically abused and had to be taken to the hospital.
Students trying to go to class were locked out by university officials.
The same administration that had expelled two students a
few days earlier engaged in multi-hour, drawn-out negotiations. The dean
offered to meet with three representatives of the group—the group insisted on
four—but stipulated that they come unmasked and provide identification to prove
that they are indeed Barnard students. The students refused. The dean asked for
permission to use the bathroom, which the student protesters were blocking.
After some discussion, the students agreed. She was greeted with a chorus of
boos as she made her way to and from the facility.
Classes that were to be held in that building were
canceled. Consequences? None.
And so, the negotiations dragged on, effectively putting
the university administrator and the protesters on equal ground. Faculty
members who were present insisted that they were neutral and only wanted to
prevent an escalation. Farcical. The students had already escalated the
situation by their takeover and assault.
Finally, after some six hours, the students
were told by the dean’s office that “we will not pursue disciplinary action
for your presence in the building” if they left by 10:30 p.m.
They left. Consequences? None.
There have been too many humiliating dramas like these to
count over the past year and a half. But I watched this saga with particular
interest because Columbia has been urging me to consider taking a leave of
absence from Emory University, where I’m a professor, to spend a semester
teaching on its campus.
But watching Barnard capitulate to mob violence and fail
to enforce its own rules and regulations led me to conclude that I could not go
to Columbia University, even for a single semester.
I conveyed this to Columbia’s administration on Friday,
which prompted Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, to call me. She
pointed out that the two institutions, Barnard and Columbia, while affiliated,
have separate administrations, security teams, and policies. I know this is
true. But its recent history regarding demonstrations suggests that it has far
less than a firm commitment to the free exchange of ideas, or to preventing
classroom disruptions or even condemning disrupters and their demonstrations.
During the Barnard protest, Columbia
issued an anodyne statement disclaiming responsibility because the
“disruption” was on Barnard’s campus, not Columbia’s, and asserting its
commitment “to supporting our Columbia student body and our campus community
during this challenging time.” No condemnation.
This all occurs despite what I had seen as positive
progress at Columbia. The university created
an Antisemitism Task Force to explore the problem on campus. Led by three
distinguished faculty members and with the participation of a number of
longtime Columbia professors, the task force took its assignment with great
seriousness and integrity. They interviewed hundreds of Jewish and Israeli
students and repeatedly heard complaints that the university community has not
treated them with the standards of civility, respect, and fairness it promises
to all its students. Its
report, issued in August 2024, makes for stunning reading. It found that
the problems were “serious and pervasive.” The faculty members who wrote it did
not flinch from facing Columbia’s shortcomings. They are trying to improve
matters and deserve the administration’s, if not the entire university’s,
gratitude and support.
Columbia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, and
its Institute of Global Politics, a subset of its School of International and
Public Affairs, are bright lights at the university. SIPA is now home to former
Secretaries of State Mike Pompeo, Hilary Clinton and former Ambassador Jack
Lew. Many outstanding Israeli scholars, shunned by other universities because
they are Israeli, have found homes there.
***
My decision to withdraw my name from consideration for a
teaching post at Columbia is based on three calculations.
First, I am not convinced that the university is serious
about taking the necessary and difficult measures that would create an
atmosphere that allows for true inquiry.
Second, I fear that my presence would be used as a sop to
convince the outside world that “Yes, we in the Columbia/Barnard orbit are
fighting antisemitism. We even brought in the former Special Envoy to Monitor
and Combat Antisemitism.” I will not be used to provide cover for a completely
unacceptable situation.
Third, I am not sure that I would be safe or even able to
teach without being harassed. I do not flinch in the face of threats. But this
is not a healthy or acceptable learning environment.
On too many university campuses, the inmates—and these
may include administrators, student disrupters, and off-campus agitators as
well as faculty members—are running
the asylum. They are turning universities into parodies of true academic
inquiry.
We are at a crisis point. Unless this situation is
addressed forcefully and unequivocally, one of America’s great institutions,
its system of higher education, could well collapse. There are many in this
country—including those in significant positions of power—who would delight in
seeing that happen. The failure to stand up to disrupters who are preventing
other students from learning gives the opponents of higher education the very
tools they need.
Meanwhile, absent direct and comprehensive action to
protect Jewish students and the campus environment, I will not be teaching on
Columbia’s campus.
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