ZOA fought a six-year battle, virtually alone while being condemned by ADL and others, to ensure that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act applies to protecting Jews.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) strongly praises the Trump administration’s announcement today that it is cancelling $400 million worth of grants and contracts to Columbia University “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein strongly commended the administration’s decision: “Cutting Columbia’s funding for failing to protect Jewish students is long overdue and authorized under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. This law was not even being enforced to protect Jewish students until 2010, after a successful six-year battle led by the ZOA, which we fought for many years ─ largely alone, with little support and even condemnation from other Jewish groups such as ADL. It should be noted that 60% of all religious hate crimes are directed against Jews, even though Jews comprise only 2% of the U.S. population.
“The appropriate defunding of Columbia is finally going to send the university the much-needed, long-awaited message that the federal government will no longer tolerate Jewish students being threatened, harassed, and physically assaulted, blocked from entering buildings on campus, called baby killers and Nazis, forced to hear proclamations to ‘Globalize the Intifada’ – meaning to murder all Jews; having their classes on Zionism and Jewish Studies disrupted with banging drums, rioters taking over university buildings; and their administration appeasing these thugs and hooligans. These thugs and rioters were also defending and praising the Islamist Arab, anti-Jewish, anti-American, anti-Christian, U.S.-designated terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Columbia will now pay a serious price for its indefensible inaction. It must be painfully stressed that such outrageous, immoral, illegal behavior would surely have never been tolerated if it were perpetrated against Blacks, Muslims, gays, or women. The United States of America dare not allow such actions to be tolerated against Jewish students. Next, ZOA also urges Columbia University to remove Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a major actor in these ugly actions, as an official student group.”
Susan B. Tuchman, Esq., director of ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, echoed the praise: “Cutting Columbia’s funding is a legal and severe but necessary response to all the antisemitism that Jewish students have been enduring at Columbia University since Hamas’s terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023. This decision will hopefully compel Columbia to start living up to its legal obligations and ensure that Jewish students have a living and learning environment that is safe and welcoming, which is what every student deserves.”