Here’s what to know about the hearing. (2024)

Columbia University’s president is facing tense questioning from a Republican-led House committee on Wednesday about what they called a pervasive pattern of antisemitic assaults, harassment and vandalism from students and faculty on its campus since the Israel-Hamas war began.

Republicans accused the university of tolerating antisemitic chants from student protesters and remarks glorifying Hamas from professors. It was the latest in a campaign to try to prove that college campuses have done little to combat bias against Jews.

Several Republicans have now praised the Columbia representatives for giving clear answers to their questions.

Stefanik seems to have pushed Shafik into committing to remove a professor, Joseph Massad, who has become a focus of the hearing because of his statements celebrating the Hamas attacks, as chair of the academic review committee. Shafik appeared flustered by the line of questioning, and confused about his current status. But she answered “yes” when asked if she would commit to removing him as chair.

Representative Elise Stefanik is challenging President Shafik after she had said in earlier testimony there had not been anti-Jewish protests on campus. Now, under questioning, she acknowledges anti-Jewish things were said at protests.

Representative Aaron Bean, a Republican of Florida, congratulates the Columbia witnesses, saying they did better than the presidents of Harvard and Penn at their hearing in December. They were able to say they were against antisemitism, but he says that there is still fear on campus among Jewish students. “You are saying the right things.”

While there have been some tense moments in the hearing, there has not yet been the kind of viral moment related to the university’s inadequate response to antisemitism that House Republicans were able to create in the infamous hearing with the presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and M.I.T. But that exchange, which ultimately lead to the ouster of two Ivy League presidents, came at the tail end of a session that lasted four and a half hours.

The House committee investigating Columbia University for antisemitism has claimed that “an environment of pervasive antisemitism has been documented at Columbia for more than two decades” and that the administration has not done enough in response.

Here are some of the recent allegations:

• On Oct. 11, 2023, a Columbia student who is Israeli was beaten with a stick by a former undergraduate who had been ripping down pictures of Israeli hostages, according to the New York Police Department.

• Multiple students say they have been cursed at for being Jewish. One student held up a sign in October that read “Columbia doesn’t care about the safety and well-being of Jewish students.”

• Following allegations that two Israeli students released a foul-smelling chemical at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in January, a poster appeared around campus with the image of a blue and white skunk with a Star of David on its back.

• Several professors have made antisemitic remarks or expressed support for the Oct. 7 attack, including Joseph Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics, who published an article on Oct. 8 describing the attack with terms such as “awesome” and “astounding.”

Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, spoke on behalf of pro-Palestinian students who were suspended or hurt. Shafik said she suspended students after a Resistance 101 event, where people spoke in support of Hamas, because they did not cooperate with the investigation. Omar also asks about an alleged chemical attack on pro-Palestinian protesters. Shafik says she reached out to those students, but that the investigation is still with the police.

Two professors, Joseph Massad and Katherine Franke, are “under investigation for discriminatory remarks,” Shafik says, apparently breaking some news here.

Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat of New York, is trying to make the case for pro-Palestinian students who feel they have a right to express their views, saying that those views aren’t necessarily hateful, even if they make people feel uncomfortable. He’s entering for the record a letter from 600 faculty and students supporting open inquiry on campus.

The hearing is back after a brief recess. The length of the proceedings could prove important, since Claudine Gay, Harvard’s former president, has partly blamed the protracted nature of an exchange during December’s hearing for answers she gave that drew widespread criticism.

Representative Lisa McClain, Republican of Michigan, is drilling down on whether there is a definition on campus for antisemitism. David Schizer, who is a co-chair of the university's task force on antisemitism, calls a New York Times article about how the task force has no definition false. However, the committee has no official definition for antisemitism. He offers his own personal definition to the committee, as does Shafik. “For me personally, any discrimination against people of the Jewish faith is antisemitism,” she said.

Earlier in the hearing, Claire Shipman, co-chair of Columbia's board of trustees, detailed steps Columbia has taken to try to get the tensions under control, including suspending two student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Columbia University has toughened how it handles campus protests since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Here are some of the key moments:

• Oct. 12, 2023: Hundreds of protesters gathered at Columbia University for tense pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations that caused school administrators to take the then-extraordinary step of closing the campus to the public. The school now closes the campus routinely when protests are scheduled.

• Nov. 9, 2023: Columbia suspended two main pro-Palestinian student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, after they held an unauthorized student walkout. Administrators said the event had “proceeded despite warnings and contained threatening rhetoric and intimidation” after one person shouted anti-Jewish epithets. Protest organizers said they had tried to silence the person.

• Jan. 19, 2024: Pro-Palestinian protesters said that someone sprayed them with a foul-smelling substance at a rally, causing at least eight students to seek medical treatment. Columbia labeled the incident a possible hate crime, barred the alleged perpetrators from campus and opened an investigation. Protest attendees, citing video evidence, say they believe the perpetrators were two students who had been verbally harassing them, but Columbia has given no details about their identities.

• Feb. 19, 2024: Columbia announced a new protest policy. Protests are now only permitted in designated “demonstration areas” on weekday afternoons, and require two days’ notice to administrators. First-time violators receive warnings. Repeat violators are brought before a judicial board.

• April 5, 2024: The university’s president announces the immediate suspension of multiple students accused of playing a role in organizing a March 24 event, “Resistance 101,” at which the presenters spoke openly in support of Hamas and other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations. The students were told they would be evicted from student housing.

Representative Burgess Owens, Republican of Utah, is drilling down on an apparent double standard at Columbia. He suggests that it would not be tolerated for a moment if people called an attack on Black people “awesome” and “stunning” but that it has been acceptable for faculty to say about Jewish students for decades.

Representative Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, is asking about a glossary given out at the School of Social Work that lists a term that appears to classify Jews as white, and therefore privileged. Shafik says it is not an official document. He also asks why the word "folks" is spelled "folx" in the document, a progressive quirk. "They can't spell?" Shafik says, getting an audience chuckle.

Representative Gregorio Sablan, a Democrat from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island, seized on the fact that Shafik and other Columbia officials had been cut off, and offered them a chance to complete their answers. Shafik said that many of the questionable appointments “were made in the past in a different era, and that era is done.”

Columbia University has been on strict lockdown all week, and today is no exception. Barricades have been erected, numerous police officers are stationed at both main entrances to the campus and no one is being allowed to enter without a Columbia University ID. Protesters have assembled today on Broadway wearing shirts with the words “Revolution Nothing Less!” on the front.

Representative Rick W. Allen is giving an impromptu Bible class. He says that, referencing Genesis, we all have to protect Jewish students because of biblical mandates, otherwise we will be cursed. He asks Shafik if she wants God to curse Columbia. “Absolutely not,” she said.

With Stefanik leading the way, the congressmembers seem to have mastered the art of interrupting the witness when they don’t like the answer. Representative Glenn Grothman, a Wisconsin Republican, asked if Shafik could “rattle off 10 Republican-ish faculty.” Shafik answered, “Yeah, I could, actually.” But as she began to rattle them off, he cut her off with a different question.

The lines of questions from Stefanik about what disciplinary measures have been taken against professors who made antisemitic statements, is similar to how Senator Josh Hawley grilled the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, about an employee who posted anti-Israel rhetoric after Oct. 7 at a heated Senate hearing last year.

In response to questions about Columbia's faculty, Shafik said that at the moment, “five cases” had been taken out of the classroom or dismissed. She said she agreed that Columbia needed to “toughen up” the disciplining of professors. One professor, she said, is grading his students’ papers and will never teach at Columbia again.

Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, didn’t give Stefanik the answer she seemed to expect when she asked whether a professor who had made pro-Hamas comments was disciplined. Shafik said that professor would never teach at Columbia again.

She may not be a committee chair, but perhaps no single Republican lawmaker has done more to exert pressure on elite universities since the Israel-Gaza war began than Representative Elise Stefanik of New York.

Ms. Stefanik was already a rising star within her party, the top-ranking woman in Republican House leadership and considered a potential presidential running mate when the House Education and Workforce Committee began investigating antisemitism on college campuses. But her grilling of the presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and M.I.T. at a December hearing became a defining moment.

In her opening remarks, Nemat Shafik, president of Columbia University, gave an idea of how pervasive complaints of antisemitism have become since Oct. 7, adding that Columbia had been aggressive in pursuing disciplinary action.

Dr. Shafik said that the disciplinary process at Columbia, which has about 5,000 Jewish students, typically handles 1,000 student-conduct cases a year. Most of those are related to typical campus infractions, such as academic dishonesty, the use of alcohol and illegal substances, and one-on-one student complaints.

Testifying alongside Nemat Shafik, the Columbia University president, are the two co-chairs of Columbia’s board of trustees, Claire Shipman and David Greenwald. Like Dr. Shafik, they are relatively new to their roles.

Ms. Shipman is a journalist and author who spent three decades working in television news for ABC, NBC and CNN, and who now writes books about women’s leadership and confidence. A graduate of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and Columbia College, she joined the board of trustees in 2013. She became co-chair in September.

In her prepared opening statement, Nemat Shafik, the president of Columbia University, laid out ways the university has been responding to antisemitism on campus.

Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, is no stranger to handling crises.

As a young economist at the World Bank, she advised governments in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund, she worked to stabilize national economies during the European debt crisis, and oversaw loans to Middle East countries during the uprisings of the Arab Spring.

Virginia Foxx, who chairs the House Education and the Workforce Committee, listed the reasons for calling Wednesday’s hearing on campus antisemitism in her prepared opening remarks.

Virginia Foxx has been a Republican congresswoman from North Carolina for almost 20 years. Over the last year, her campaign against antisemitism on college campuses, carried out as chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, has raised her profile.

In her recent work, Ms. Foxx says she is guided by her revulsion at discrimination of any kind, and by the teachings of her Baptist church. Education has been a theme of her life.

Many donors, politicians and Jewish students have pressured their colleges to confront antisemitism more forcefully.But one challenge can make the whole exercise feel like quicksilver.

There’s no consensus about what, precisely, constitutes antisemitism.