You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Columbia University’s Task Force on Antisemitism has said the university failed to ensure an environment of civility, respect and fairness for Jewish and Israeli students.
The task force conducted listening sessions with nearly 500 students at Columbia, Barnard College and Teachers College. Based on students’ accounts, the group made recommendations “for fixing flawed administrative systems, improving campus climate, and building consensus for a more inclusive and pluralistic university” in a report released Aug. 30.
The recommendations include antibias and inclusion training for students, staff and student-facing staff; a review of the reporting procedures for incidents of exclusion, harassment and bias; and revising the policies ensuring student groups contribute to the university’s pluralist mission and comply with antidiscrimination law.
“The experiences of these students demonstrated that there is an urgent need to reshape everyday social norms across the campuses of Columbia University,” the group wrote in the report, urging for greater pluralism and tolerance of and respect for differences in religion, culture and national origin.
“If we were really to succeed in promoting tolerance, students would come to understand and value these differences. But we are a long way from there. The problems we found are serious and pervasive.”
Most of the listening sessions were conducted before the campus was roiled by pro-Palestinian student protests and the construction of an encampment in April that led to more than 100 arrests.
Students reported having their necklaces ripped off their necks, being pinned against walls, being spit on and kicked out of student groups. Some reported avoiding particular majors or faculty members altogether.
“A student who was writing a thesis on Israeli artists reported that each time that student made a presentation in their senior thesis seminar, the thesis seminar leader would say, ‘I hate Israel.’ This student said, ‘I wish I had chosen a different topic for my thesis,’” the report says.
The task force was founded in late 2023 by then-president Minouche Shafik; Laura Ann Rosenbury, president of Barnard College; and Thomas R. Bailey, president of Teachers College, to address reports of rising antisemitism targeting Jewish members of the Columbia community.
After leading the institution for a little more than a year, Shafik unexpectedly resigned last month amid criticism of her handling of the student protests.
In response to the findings, interim president Dr. Katrina Armstrong thanked the task force for focusing on students’ experiences.
“Let me be very clear. The painful and distressing incidents of antisemitism recounted in this report are completely unacceptable,” she said in a statement. “This is an opportunity to acknowledge the harm that has been done and to pledge to make the changes necessary to do better and to rededicate ourselves, as university leaders, as individuals, and as a community, to our core mission of teaching and research.”
The university said it has already begun to act on the task force’s recommendations by creating a new Office of Institutional Equity, “which will help centralize, strengthen, and streamline our work to address harassment complaints, including those relating to antisemitism.”
It has also established a Campus Climate Collaborative, which aims to help the campus community “embrace inclusive pluralism while rejecting discrimination and harassment as antithetical to our values and our identity.” The institution has also updated its Guidelines to the Rules of University Conduct and Inclusive Public Safety Advisory Committee.
This is the task force’s second report, after releasing its first report earlier this year focusing on the rules for demonstrations. It said it plans to share a separate report on academic issues related to exclusion in the classroom and bias in curriculum in the coming months.
