A Strong Deal Will Send a Much-Needed Message to All Universities
Today, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), its National President, Morton A. Klein, and the director of ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, Susan B. Tuchman, Esq., expressed concern about a potentially weak and inadequate agreement between Columbia University and the federal government that would let Columbia off the hook for the pervasive antisemitism that plagues the university, by restoring federal funding without meaningful reforms. Recent reports in the Washington Free Beacon suggest that White House officials are actively considering such a deal and have retreated from the administration’s earlier demands.
Columbia has become notorious as perhaps the worst hotbed of campus Jew-and Israel-hatred in the country. The university has a horrific record of allowing “rampant antisemitism,” chaos, and violence on its campus and failing to hold student and faculty perpetrators accountable. Recently, the government found that Columbia violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act due to its deliberate indifference to antisemitic harassment. Yet the reported deal fails to demand the institutional reforms necessary to fix these problems and has drawn strong opposition from Jewish Columbia students and alumni. This capitulation would set a terrible precedent for future efforts to hold other universities accountable for tolerating antisemitism.
Reports suggest that the proposed deal would restore federal funds to Columbia and resolve civil rights complaints against the school in return for a $200 million fine – an amount of little consequence for a university with a $14.8 billion endowment and $6.2 billion operating budget, and far less than the $400 million in federal funding the deal would unlock. Columbia should not be able to escape accountability by paying an “antisemitism tax.”
The deal’s other reported provisions – including transparency on admissions and hiring, Department of Justice compliance monitoring, and improved reporting on foreign funding (which was already required by law) – fall far short of the major changes needed to rectify antisemitism at Columbia. The agreement fails to fix Columbia’s broken disciplinary system, which let most students arrested for taking over Hamilton Hall escape expulsion. It also fails to limit foreign students like Mahmoud Khalil (who led pro-Hamas protests at Columbia after the October 7th massacre and was involved in the illegal occupation of Columbia buildings) who make up 40% of the student body, eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, stop antisemitic faculty indoctrination and improve viewpoint diversity, or address the school’s University Senate, whose radical faculty have obstructed action to address antisemitism.
The Free Beacon also reports that as the government prepares to make a deal, Columbia’s search committee to select its next president has been loaded with left-wing faculty poised to select a successor who may well continue the university’s failure to punish and stop racist antisemitism. ZOA previously called for Columbia’s Acting President Claire Shipman to resign after Congress revealed that Shipman said that a Jewish member of Columbia’s board of trustees who was concerned about antisemitism should not be on the board and called her a “mole.” Columbia’s leaders have also failed to condemn by name the widespread use of genocidal slogans calling for the slaughter of Jews like “globalize the intifada,” “from the river to the sea,” “death to the Zionist state,” and “Israel is an apartheid Nazi State committing genocide.” Columbia leaders must begin publicly condemning the use of these ugly, false, antisemitic phrases. Without strong, moral and better leadership, nothing will change at Columbia.
In response to these reports, ZOA National President Morton A. Klein and Director of the ZOA Center for Law and Justice, Susan B. Tuchman, Esq., said, “The American Jewish community would welcome a deal, but it must be a strong deal that leads to fundamental changes at Columbia University that will end the rampant Jew-hatred plaguing Columbia.” He continued, “We hope the reports of a bad deal are mistaken, but if they are not, we call on the Trump administration to renegotiate the terms of the agreement with Columbia. Columbia must not be let off the hook with minor penalties. Comprehensive reforms and major penalties must be imposed that will rectify the problems at the university. Jewish students and others who have been terrorized and discriminated against on this campus are depending on the federal government to protect them as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act legally requires.
“A weak deal would create a terrible precedent for negotiating with other universities. We strongly urge that the deal include expulsion or even arrest of students and faculty, and expulsion of student groups, when the evidence warrants. The deal should include disallowing the use of the upside down triangle symbol of the terrorist group Hamas and expelling those that use this violent symbol. There should be expulsion of students and firing of faculty who take over or block buildings or vandalize them. And of course any physical or verbal assaults should result in expulsion or arrest. These types of actions must become as repugnant as using the N-word or wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood.”
ZOA has long been at the forefront of the fight against antisemitism, having led the successful six-year campaign to reinterpret Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to cover and protect Jewish students. ZOA Campus works directly with college students on campuses across the country, to build their knowledge about Zionism and the Arab/Islamist/extreme leftist war against Israel and Jews and the West, and to respond confidently and effectively to antisemitism and anti-Israelism. For decades, ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice has been supporting and protecting Jewish students facing antisemitic harassment and discrimination on their campuses. ZOA’s Government Relations Department has pushed for new tools and new legislation, including the Antisemitism Awareness Act, to crack down on this dangerous prejudice.And ZOA has exposed new incidents of antisemitism that have seeped into the public libraries in Philadelphia and elsewhere.