Encampments, Police and Antisemitism at Columbia
Decisions by the administration has exacerbated tensions at Columbia, but the tensions and antisemitism are real
I was going to post something about baseball today but given what's going on at Columbia University it somehow didn't seem right. After all, I am a lefty Jewish professor who has been involved with the Columbia University one way or another since 1990. I earned my PhD there in the 1990s and have taught on and off at Columbia for much of the last 30 years. There is too much to cover in one essay that is probably too long already, but here are some thoughts about the events at my university that are simultaneously distressing and fascinating.
Today at Columbia there is a tent encampment going into its second week reflecting the anger and outrage many students feel about the atrocities in Gaza. The university is also reckoning with the fallout from a terrible and counterproductive decision to invite the NYPD onto campus to clear the encampment last week. An embattled university president, an undeniably hostile environment for many Jewish students, more online classes for the rest of the semester, an overly punitive treatment of some student demonstrators and graduation only a few weeks away fill out the rest of the picture for Columbia now.
Since October 7th, but really well before that, there has been genuine and impassioned disagreement about almost every aspect of this conflict. For example, the term genocide has been used a lot, but many do not view what is happening in Gaza as genocide. Some refuse to recognize the scale of death and destruction in Gaza wrought by Israel while others do not accept that what Hamas did on October 7th was an abomination. Some see Hamas as freedom fighters; others view them as terrorists. Some see Zionism as a legitimate expression of Jewish nationalism while others consider Zionism as a racist colonial ideology that has no legitimacy. Protestors are calling for the university to divest and sever ties with Israel, while many in the university community do not want that. All this makes for a tense environment at times, but what has occurred at Columbia goes beyond that.
Despite the rancor and fervent disagreement, one of the ironies underlying all this is that when it comes to the conflict itself, there is still a lot upon which almost the entire university can agree. I suspect that majorities of the Columbia comminity would agree that the Hamas massacre of well over 1,000 civilians in Israel on October 7th and the kidnapping of more than 200 people was horrific. Similarly, most of the Columbia community would agree that Israel's response has been some combination of excessive, murderous, unnecessary and brutal. Most of us, I hope, would also agree that we need a learning environment where there is no discrimination against anybody because of their background, race, religion or any other reason-and that includes Jews.
There are many factors that drive the crisis at Columbia, but three stand out. The first is that although so many students and faculty share some opinions, there is a minority that does not. Broadly speaking that minority falls into two categories. I have no real data on this and do not know what percentage is in which category so you can fill that in for yourself. It might be as low as 5%; it might be as high as 20%.
The first category is what could be called dorm room radicals who have embraced all the far-left analyses of Israel and the Middle East, and now find themselves supporting a right wing socially reactionary violent fascist organization that has no interest in rights democracy or freedom known as Hamas-and there is simply too much evidence from what we've seen on campus to say that there is no support for Hamas. For these people, the issue is not so much stopping the horrors in Gaza, but in ending the State of Israel.
It is also very clear that many students who have compassion and want to stop the slaughter of Gazan civilians are not pro-Hamas, but equally evident that some are. The problem has been exacerbated because the part of the Free Palestine movement that does not support Hamas and does not want to engage in antisemitism has not controlled the part that does.
The second category are a subset of Jewish students who believe everything they learned in Hebrew school. I am being colloquial here, but what I mean by that is Jewish students who have accepted what was for years the dominant Jewish line on Israel and Zionism. This includes notions that Israel is a beacon of democracy, that it has the most humane army in the world and that essentially it can do no or very little wrong. Students holding this view frequently refuse to wrestle with Israeli human rights violations that go back for decades, or to recognize the brutal treatment of the Palestinians whether they are in Israel the West Bank or Gaza. Nor do they recognize the presence and power of right-wing ultra nationalist movements in Israel everywhere from the West Bank to senior levels of the government.
That is the nub of the first problem. Two groups with unsophisticated extremist views have dominated the dialogue and made it extremely difficult for any common ground to be found, despite there being a lot of it among the community more broadly.
The second problem is antisemitism. Those who pretend that this is not a problem at Columbia are being intellectually dishonest and making themselves complicit in this ancient bigotry.
We hear at Columbia, and elsewhere, that there is a difference between being anti-Israel anti-Zionist and antisemitic. That is of obviously true, but it is also not entirely relevant anymore as anti-Zionism too frequently functions as a cover for antisemitism. Too many Jewish students have come to me over the last seven months upset, concerned and afraid about what they have experienced on campus for me to downplay this problem.
It is also worth noting that if you truly hated only Zionists, were not an antisemite and you were American or living in America, you would turn your ire not on Jews but on Christians. The engine of Zionism in America, particularly right-wing Zionism, is fundamentalist Christians-and Christian Zionists outnumber Jewish Zionists in the US by a margin of at least five to one, but probably much higher. However, much of what I have seen at Columbia is unequivocally aimed at Jews and far less concerned with conservative fundamentalist Christian sects.
The third problem is one of leadership. It is easy to pick on Columbia’s embattled president who has badly mishandled this crisis, but the problem is also structural. The way universities function now the primary constituents for any university president are neither the students nor the faculty but the alumni. A huge part of the job of being a university president is building and maintaining relationships with alumni so that the money will continue to flow into the university.
The structural problem manifests for university presidents when events on campus jeopardize those relationships. Therefore, even according to the most cynical understanding of university leadership it is essential to build good relationships with both faculty and students because at times like this those relationships can prevent a crisis from getting worse. This never happened at Columbia. If we are feeling charitable we could say President Shafik has only been in the job for less than a year, but a less charitable conclusion is that she did not put in the work, so those relationships were not built.
Perhaps being president of a university at a time like this is a no-win situation, but even if that is true, between Thursday morning of last week and early Monday morning of this week the president of Columbia made some enormous mistakes. Last week, I walked by the encampment a few times on Thursday before the police came and, while there were chants and signs that I did not like and that made me feel uncomfortable, I never felt unsafe and I cannot fathom what the police were brought in for.
It imperative to recognize the difference between feeling uncomfortable and being unsafe. These are two very different concepts. It is the role of the university to make students feel intellectually uncomfortable, but also to make sure that they are safe.
The excessively punitive approach taken by the Columbia president, of suspending may of the students and calling in the police to clear the encampment, leading to the arrest of over 100 students, happened the day after her testimony in Washington, making the optics even worse. The decision to call in the police was inevitably seen as if it was something President Shafik had to do because the Republicans in Congress, and implicitly major Jewish donors to the university, wanted her to do.
To be clear I have no evidence to suggest that is what happened, but I know that is where the antisemitic mind goes, so in doing something that was trying to allegedly keep Jewish students safer, Shafik did something that was, to use the vernacular of my grandparents generation, bad for the Jews.
On Monday morning an e-mail was sent from the President’s office saying that if possible classes should be virtual. This only exacerbated the problem because if the campus is so unsafe that Jewish students don't feel comfortable going to class, it is the role of the university to make it safe not to give in to those who are making it unsafe.
On the other hand maybe campus was not unsafe and Shafik was just overreacting. Either way it was a bad decision. Additionally, there are faculty members, including Jewish faculty members, who have sought to be a resource and has support for all students and by telling us we couldn't be on campus on a day that was very fraught for many students, support was taken away from students.
The situation at Columbia still evolving. There is a lot that can be done. Students who have engaged in most extreme versions of antisemitism, should face very tough consequences. For example the student who help up a sign that read “Al Qasam’s Next Target,” with an arrow pointing at presumably Jewish students holding Israeli flags should have been expelled already and should never be allowed to set foot on Colombia’s campus again. Similarly, students shouting slurs at Jews like “go back to Poland” should be held accountable for their disgusting words and actions.
On the other hand, students who were suspended for peacefully participating in an encampment should face no consequences and should be given an apology from the university.
I believe that Columbia University is a great university and will survive this. I know that will be true primarily because of the extraordinary students I've taught this year and in previous years, some of whom are in those encampments and some of whom are proud Zionists. Students are the strength of the university and they are the reason why so many of us love teaching at Columbia.
I also hope we have learned some lessons from this. Administrators and leaders hopefully have learned of the importance of building relationships with students, faculty and, dare I say it, with politicians. Similarly, I hope we have learned that there is a need for dialogue and not just when the next war starts. The more constructive structured dialogue around this conflict and building common ground, of which I believe there is a lot, the better off we will be in the future.
Excellent analysis. Thanks.
I appreciate the inside look at what is happening at Columbia.
I do want to highlight this sentence: "It is also very clear that many students who have compassion and want to stop the slaughter of Gazan civilians are not pro-Hamas..."
I have seen the word "slaughter" show up repeatedly in the last week. It is a particularly fraught word when used to describe what is happening is Gaza. The denotation is killing of animals, often for food. The connotation is wanton, cruel, and murderous killing of people. The death and destruction in Gaza is terrible. But it is not slaughter. It is the consequence of war.
There is plenty of evidence that what happened on October 7 was--at a minimum--slaughter. Israel's response to that attack was, no question, an act of war--and, given the circumstances, necessary. Whether Israel is waging that war appropriately (whatever that means), whether the numbers dead in Gaza are accurate, is a matter of debate--although directing this war from the safety of our couches is chutzpah beyond hubris. To be clear, I am neither defending nor condemning Israel's actions. I am saying that sometimes the right answer is to say "I don't and can't know enough."
I believe "slaughter" was introduced into the zeitgeist deliberately to evoke the anti-Jewish tropes of the murderous, bloodthirsty Jew. Please do not use it. Please call out others who do.