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 giggle.
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 number of seconds, Dr. Shafik responded. “I feel that will be — I feel, I’d, sure. Let me come again with sure,” she mentioned.
Republican lawmakers on the Home Committee on Training and the Work Drive had come able to pounce. They examined for weaknesses and prodded vulnerabilities, whereas their witnesses, a gaggle of Columbia leaders, appeared conciliatory.
And but, by the tip, it appeared Dr. Shafik and different campus leaders had efficiently subtle Republican strains of assault, repeatedly and vigorously agreeing that antisemitism was a major problem on their campus and vowing that they might do extra to battle 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. Lots of of different college students joined them to rally all through the day.
The split-screen second supplied a glimpse of the precarious panorama and threatening decisions Dr. Shafik nonetheless faces as she comes residence from the antisemitism listening to. The protesting college students, and the tons of of others who’ve chanted and marched at pro-Palestinian rallies, together with dozens of supportive school members, have repeatedly rejected some extent their leaders largely conceded on Wednesday in Washington — that their activism was antisemitic and must be punished.
“I feel that antisemitism is horrible, however I don’t assume 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 feel the truth that we’re doing this on the day of the listening to,” she added, “I feel it’s a testomony to the truth that we really will solely rise stronger each time they crack down.”
How Dr. Shafik navigates this stress might nicely 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 printed this week, Dr. Shafik acknowledged the dilemma confronting school leaders attempting to remain true to values of educational freedom whereas additionally attempting to maintain college students secure and stopping discrimination.
“Attempting to reconcile the speech rights of 1 a part of our neighborhood with the rights of one other a part of our neighborhood to dwell in a supportive atmosphere or a minimum of an atmosphere freed from concern, 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 regulation professor, David Schizer, who’s a co-chair of the college’s antisemitism activity drive. 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 necessary establishments to account.”
The viewers was pleasant. Some pupil 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 a great begin. Others wished Columbia to go additional.
Xavier Westergaard, a Ph.D. pupil in biology, mentioned that he was disenchanted when Dr. Shafik didn’t clearly state that a few of Columbia school had been antisemitic, despite the fact that the president did concede, below 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 must be fired.
However again in New York, the place the listening to was enjoying on a giant display screen at a pupil heart, the response was usually a lot totally different.
Debbie Becher, one among 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 at present’s listening to, members of Congress tried to exert management over the college, and college management largely gave into their stress,” she mentioned. “President Shafik’s concessions to the committee set harmful new precedents for college coverage.”
The listening to room was filled 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, significantly when she was questioned at size about why professors whose statements she conceded had been abhorrent had been nonetheless instructing on campus.
However this time, a number of of her fellow get together 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 law enforcement officials, 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 pupil 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 individuals, we’re displaying help for individuals in Gaza,” he mentioned.
Behind him, in call-and-response fashion, the demonstrators shouted a few of 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 pupil, Kim Silberman, 22, standing beside a person with a photograph of an Israeli hostage, mentioned that her dad and mom moved from Israel to America after an assault had killed a number of of their neighbors.
“It’s actually onerous being a Jewish pupil right here proper now,” she mentioned. “I’d by no means have come right here if I had identified this was the case.”
Anusha Bayya and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.