Columbia University President Minouche Shafik heads to Washington, D.C., this week, to testify in front of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce — the same committee whose previous hearings on antisemitism helped force the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania to resign.
While the Wednesday hearing is titled “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism,” Shafik’s testimony may illustrate how her administration has cracked down on pro-Palestine speech. Since October 7, the university has suspended student groups that advocate for Palestine, created an amorphous “task force on anti-semitism” that students and faculty worry will serve to punish criticism of Israel, dragged its feet on an investigation into reports that students were sprayed with a chemical during an on-campus rally for Gaza, and more.
Columbia’s readiness to severely discipline students advocating for Palestinian rights is not singular. It is one of multiple schools, including California’s Pomona College and Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University, that suspended, evicted, or even expelled students protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza in recent weeks.
The escalation by university administrators across the country shows that even as mainstream discourse around Israel shifts — particularly in the wake of Israel’s April 1 fatal strike against seven World Central Kitchen aid workers — those in positions of power are working hard to maintain the status quo of unfettered U.S. support for Israel, said Kouross Esmaeli, visiting professor of media studies at Pomona.
“I think the more the ruling establishment loses control of the narrative, the more they realize that the world, and even their own constituencies … are beginning to question their narrative,” Esmaeli said. “As that happens, they need to make sure that they silence the people who are actually pushing for real change in policy.”
Private Investigators
Earlier this month, Columbia suspended and evicted four students for hosting an unauthorized event about Palestine. The university’s action against the students who held the “Resistance 101” event — during which at least one guest speaker praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel — was aided by “an outside firm led by experienced former law enforcement investigators.”
Within 10 days of the March 24 event, the suspended students were evicted from campus housing and prohibited from accessing university buildings, dining halls, and health care services.
“I did not become a university president to punish students. At the same time, actions like this on our campus must have consequences,” Shafik wrote in a statement. “That I would ever have to declare the following is in itself surprising, but I want to make clear that it is absolutely unacceptable for any member of this community to promote the use of terror or violence.”
The punishments, according to the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, were doled out without due process. The group said in a statement that a private investigator visited a Palestinian student at their home, rattling the doorknob “as if trying to break in,” and that investigators “demanded to see the private text messages of students in order to ‘comply’ with the investigation.”
“Columbia is endangering students to boost their public image before President Shafik’s testimony at the April 17th Congressional hearing,” the student group said.
In her statement, Shafik also promised to discipline people who were involved with a separate unauthorized event on campus on April 4. That event was a solidarity protest organized in response to Israeli forces’ siege and destruction of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
A Columbia spokesperson did not respond to questions about the school’s investigation into that protest, including what policies the participants violated and whether the school is pursuing every single participant.
The expediency with which Columbia dealt with the March event, meanwhile, stands in stark contrast to its handling of student protesters reportedly being sprayed with a noxious chemical on campus — the investigation for which is still “ongoing” nearly three months later.
“Students received no assistance with medical bills, nor with the emotional trauma of such a direct attack on our bodies,” said Daria Mateescu, president of Columbia Law Students for Palestine and member of Columbia University Apartheid Divestment, about the school’s response to the January 19 on-campus demonstration. “Yet, it is more than willing to suspend and evict students, just while they are investigated regarding speech at an event. It now goes so far as to hire private investigators to show up to students’ homes, which to our knowledge it has never done before.”
The school deferred questions about the investigation into the January incident to the New York Police Department.
An ongoing investigation by the NYPD into a protest at a university has left the suspects’ identities unknown, despite a person of interest being mentioned previously. Meanwhile, students and faculty at Columbia University have been advocating for divestment from companies involved in Israeli apartheid, with Jewish faculty members urging the university to defend academic freedom against accusations of antisemitism.
At Vanderbilt University, disciplinary action was taken against students who protested the administration’s cancellation of a vote to boycott companies associated with Israel’s actions in Palestine. The school faced accusations of violating students’ rights to free speech and association, leading to a sit-in protest and subsequent arrests.
In response to Tennessee’s anti-BDS law, which targets boycotts of entities supporting Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Vanderbilt University cited federal and state laws in canceling the referendum. The university’s actions have been criticized by over 150 faculty members, and questions remain unanswered regarding the incident.
Pomona College in California saw a strong police response to a Palestine solidarity demonstration, resulting in the arrest of 20 students. The protest was sparked by the removal of an art fixture highlighting Palestinian suffering, leading to student suspensions and campus tensions.
An attorney representing the students informed the Los Angeles Times that he was denied access to his student clients and that both the students and an officer claimed they were not read their Miranda rights.
“We entered the administrative building to reiterate our demands for the college to disclose its investments and divest from weapons manufacturers and institutions supporting the ongoing occupation of Palestine,” stated Amanda Dym, a Jewish student at Scripps College who was arrested and suspended after the protest. “While as students we faced potential jail time, suspension, and uncertainty about pending charges and temporary homelessness due to a campus ban, Palestinians endure bombs, starvation, and martyrdom.”
Students from the Claremont Colleges often visit each other’s campuses for meals or classes. Due to her suspension, Dym was restricted from any activities on Pomona’s campus except attending class, including accessing dining halls or campus resources for her studies. The school’s investigation has allowed some students to return while others remain prohibited from campus, as per a college source familiar with the situation.
The construction of the apartheid wall followed a student vote that approved five demands: discontinuing all academic support for Israel, revealing investments in companies supporting the apartheid system in Israel, complete divestment from those companies, disclosing investments in weapons manufacturers, and complete divestment from them as well.
Days before the vote, which saw a 60 percent voter turnout, Starr remarked that while there are many ways to address global issues, the vote was not one of them. She criticized the referendum as simplistic and potentially fueling antisemitism. Each proposal passed with a majority approval ranging from 75 to 90 percent.
Esmaeli, a visiting professor at Pomona, noted to The Intercept that the referendum demonstrated broad student support for boycotting or divesting from the Israeli government, indicating that the activists represent the majority of the student body. He suggested that this may have prompted efforts to suppress the students.
