Consultant Elise Stefanik leaned into the microphone and volleyed a collection of questions on the college president sitting in entrance of her. It was about three hours right into a congressional listening to analyzing antisemitism at Columbia College, and the president, Nemat Shafik, paused, sighed and gave a nervous snicker.
Ms. Stefanik had requested whether or not the college would take away a professor who praised the Oct. 7 Hamas assault from a job as chair of the college’s tutorial evaluate committee.
After a couple of seconds, Dr. Shafik responded. “I believe that may be — I believe, I’d, sure. Let me come again with sure,” she mentioned.
Republican lawmakers on the Home Committee on Schooling and the Work Power had come able to pounce. They examined for weaknesses and prodded vulnerabilities, whereas their witnesses, a bunch of Columbia leaders, appeared conciliatory.
And but, by the tip, it appeared Dr. Shafik and different campus leaders had efficiently subtle Republican traces of assault, repeatedly and vigorously agreeing that antisemitism was a major problem on their campus and vowing that they might do extra to struggle it.
However as Dr. Shafik spoke, the tempest that she had been introduced in to account for appeared to accentuate. Again on campus in Manhattan, pro-Palestinian college students erected an encampment with dozens of tents on a central campus garden, vowing to not transfer till Columbia divested from corporations with ties to Israel and met different calls for. Tons of of different college students joined them to rally all through the day.
The split-screen second provided a glimpse of the precarious panorama and threatening decisions Dr. Shafik nonetheless faces as she comes dwelling from the antisemitism listening to. The protesting college students, and the lots of of others who’ve chanted and marched at pro-Palestinian rallies, together with dozens of supportive college members, have repeatedly rejected some extent their leaders largely conceded on Wednesday in Washington — that their activism was antisemitic and needs to be punished.
“I believe that antisemitism is horrible, however I don’t suppose that utilizing the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism as an excuse to crack down on pro-Palestine advocacy is justifiable or associated in any sense,” mentioned Maryam Alwan, a senior and pro-Palestinian organizer on campus, talking from the tent encampment.
“And I believe the truth that we’re doing this on the day of the listening to,” she added, “I believe it’s a testomony to the truth that we really will solely rise stronger each time they crack down.”
How Dr. Shafik navigates this pressure could effectively outline her early presidency, even when the preliminary fallout from her look seems to be far lower than what confronted her Ivy League colleagues at an earlier listening to in December. After that listening to, the presidents of Harvard College and the College of Pennsylvania had been pushed out of their positions, having given lawyerly solutions to the query of whether or not calling for the genocide of Jews would violate campus guidelines.
In an opinion piece revealed this week, Dr. Shafik acknowledged the dilemma confronting school leaders making an attempt to remain true to values of educational freedom whereas additionally making an attempt to maintain college students secure and stopping discrimination.
“Attempting to reconcile the speech rights of 1 a part of our group with the rights of one other a part of our group to dwell in a supportive atmosphere or no less than an atmosphere freed from worry, harassment and discrimination, has been the central problem at our college and on campuses throughout the nation,” she wrote.
Ms. Shafik appeared on the listening to with the chairs of her board of trustees, Claire Shipman and David Greenwald, and with a senior legislation professor, David Schizer, who’s a co-chair of the college’s antisemitism activity pressure. From the start, the witnesses made clear that they weren’t going to take an oppositional stance.
“I’m grateful,” Ms. Shipman mentioned in her opening remarks, “for the highlight that you’re placing on this historical hatred, and the essential position you play holding our most vital establishments to account.”
The viewers was pleasant. Some scholar activists who help Palestinian rights had traveled from New York to attend, however they had been excluded from the listening to room, which had very restricted seats for the general public. They shouted periodically from exterior, “Let the scholars in.”
Contained in the room, a row of about 20 Jewish college students who’ve expressed concern about antisemitism at Columbia got seats by association with the committee. A few of them mentioned afterward that what they heard from Dr. Shafik was an excellent begin. Others needed Columbia to go additional.
Xavier Westergaard, a Ph.D. scholar in biology, mentioned that he was disillusioned when Dr. Shafik didn’t clearly state that a few of Columbia college had been antisemitic, though the president did concede, underneath questioning, that some had mentioned antisemitic issues.
“The individuals who say antisemitic issues are antisemitic,” he mentioned. “It’s a really, very straightforward line to attract.” He mentioned such professors needs to be fired.
However again in New York, the place the listening to was enjoying on a giant display screen at a scholar heart, the response was typically a lot completely different.
Debbie Becher, considered one of greater than 20 Jewish professors at Columbia and Barnard who’ve objected to what they name the weaponization of antisemitism by the congressional committee, was deeply upset.
“In in the present day’s listening to, members of Congress tried to exert management over the college, and college management largely gave into their strain,” she mentioned. “President Shafik’s concessions to the committee set harmful new precedents for college coverage.”
The listening to room was stuffed with lawmakers for the primary a number of hours, however towards the tip, some members trickled out of the room. Ms. Stefanik, who had so successfully acted as chief prosecutor for the Republicans within the December listening to, was as aggressive in her questioning as ever. She managed to catch Dr. Shafik off guard a number of occasions, notably when she was questioned at size about why professors whose statements she conceded had been abhorrent had been nonetheless educating on campus.
However this time, a couple of of her fellow occasion members additionally praised Columbia’s officers for doing higher within the listening to than their Ivy League friends.
After the listening to ended, extra protesters gathered on Broadway, exterior the campus gates in Manhattan. They hoisted indicators studying “Israel is ravenous Palestinians” and “Stop Genocide.” A number of had verbal confrontations with cops, who had begun boxing the protesters in with a maze of barricades. Others, delayed in attending to class, shook their heads in frustration.
Jin Hokkee, 23, a pre-med scholar at Columbia, waved a Palestinian flag. He mentioned that the demonstration was influenced by the Washington testimony. “Lots of people don’t perceive what we’re about, we’re not towards Jewish folks, we’re exhibiting help for folks in Gaza,” he mentioned.
Behind him, in call-and-response fashion, the demonstrators shouted among the refrains that lawmakers had condemned earlier within the day.
“From the river to the ocean, Palestine will probably be free!”
“Intifada, intifada, lengthy dwell the intifada!”
A Columbia graduate scholar, Kim Silberman, 22, standing beside a person with a photograph of an Israeli hostage, mentioned that her mother and father moved from Israel to America after an assault had killed a number of of their neighbors.
“It’s actually exhausting being a Jewish scholar right here proper now,” she mentioned. “I’d by no means have come right here if I had recognized this was the case.”
Anusha Bayya and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
