A View of the Situation at Columbia

I am pleased that Princeton was spared fines and allegations of antisemitism by our government.

Until early this year I was an adjunct lecturer at Columbia. I thought that Columbia managed Oct. 7-related issues of freedom of speech and respectful treatment of community members in an evenhanded fashion.

There was a pro-Palestinian “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the Columbia campus and much pro-Palestinian chanting. On the other hand, a student who posted “Zionists don’t deserve to live” was barred from campus, and New York City police were called in to arrest students who occupied Hamilton Hall (where I taught) and who took over a reading room in Butler Library. (Despite these things, Columbia University paid $221 million to the Trump administration to resolve investigations into campus antisemitism.)

I worked on campus and never experienced antisemitism. As the article states, “a whistleblower filed a complaint alleging that federal antisemitism investigations of the Ivy League had been predetermined.” This is the way it looked to me at Columbia.