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The president of Columbia University and the co-chairs of its Board of Trustees will testify next month at a House hearing about antisemitism at the New York institution.
This will be the House Education and Workforce Committee’s second hearing focused on how specific institutions responded to antisemitic incidents on campus in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war that began in October. Two of three presidents who testified at the first hearing in December have since resigned in part because of the fallout from their testimony. Columbia president Minouche Shafik was invited to testify at that December hearing, but was out of the country at the time.
Now she’s set to appear before the committee April 17 for a hearing titled, “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism.” She’ll be joined by board co-chairs Claire Shipman and David Greenwald.
Since the start of the war, Columbia has seen a number of incidents and suspended two of its pro-Palestinian student groups for violating a campus protest policy. The committee opened a formal investigation of Columbia last month, requesting a batch of documents about how it responded to incidents and the disciplinary process for students and faculty accused of antisemitism. The Office of Civil Rights also has opened two federal investigations into allegations of discrimination based on shared ancestry, which includes antisemitism, at the university.
“Some of the worst cases of antisemitic assaults, harassment and vandalism on campus have occurred at Columbia University,” North Carolina representative Virginia Foxx, the Republican chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said in a statement. “Due to the severe and pervasive nature of these cases, and the Columbia administration’s failure to enforce its own policies to protect Jewish students, the committee must hear from Columbia’s leadership in person to learn how the school is addressing antisemitism on its campus.”
