Universities vs. Jews, and America

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has released a report titled “Antisemitism On College Campuses Exposed.” At 122 pages, plus a much longer appendix, I haven’t had time to read it all. I want to call attention to one section of the report that describes the reaction of some educators and politicians to the scrutiny that universities received in the wake of widespread anti-Semitic activity on their campuses.

Starting at page 114, relating to Harvard and its since-fired President Claudine Gay:

When Harvard’s then-President Claudine Gay publicly apologized in the Harvard Crimson for her shocking and disastrous congressional testimony where she testifed that whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s rules depended “on the context,” she projected a respect for the process by emphasizing that she had been pleased to appear before the Committee for questioning.665 However, behind closed doors in a formal meeting of the University’s Board of Overseers just days after her testimony, Gay launched into a stunning personal attack on the Member of Congress whose questioning yielded those damaging answers, Representative Elise Stefanik, herself a Harvard alumna.

Harvard’s official notes of the December 10 meeting of the Board of Overseers show that Gay acknowledged that the “truth” she “should have expressed is that calls for violence against jeweish [sic] community shouldn’t be allowed,” before she pivoted to lashing out with an apparent reference to Congresswoman Stefanik, whom she falsely described as a “purveyor of hate” and “supporter of proudboys.”666

This is what goes on at meetings of Harvard’s Board of Overseers! Here are the actual minutes:

Gay’s fantasy about Representative Stefanik and the “proudboys” is fascinating. Liberals truly do live in an alternative universe. And it would be interesting to know what Gay referred to as “the work we need to do to work on hate.” Not anti-Semitism, apparently.

Then we have Columbia:

As Columbia attempted to avoid the kind of fallout Harvard and Penn had experienced in the wake of the December 5 hearing, Board of Trustees Co-Chair Claire Shipman derided congressional oversight efforts on antisemitism as “capital [sic] hill nonsense.”668

These people can’t spell, by the way.

Shipman celebrated a complimentary New York Times story that suggested that Columbia and then-President Minouche Shafik had navigated tensions over the Israel-Hamas war more deftly than other Universities. In a text message to Shafik, Shipman wrote of the article, “most critically I think it heavily inoculates us for a while from the capital hill nonsense and threat.”669 This suggests that Shipman was more concerned about Columbia’s public image and exposure than confronting the substantive problem of antisemitism at the University.

It appears that Columbia’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism were mostly fake:

Shipman’s message also showed that at the same time that Columbia was touting aggressive actions on antisemitism to the media, such as suspending its chapters of student groups that had repeatedly violated university rules in the course of engaging in antisemitic and pro-Hamas conduct, she was working behind the scenes to appease the University’s antisemitic actors. She wrote that she was seeking to “unsuspend the groups.”670 She also proposed partnering with Rashid Khalidi, a prominent Palestinian faculty member who has called terrorists “resistance fighters,”671 Israel the “result of a settler colonial project,”672 and said in 2017 that Israel’s supporters would “infest” the U.S. government in the forthcoming Trump administration.673

Wow. That is telling.

In January, Columbia’s president met with Chuck Schumer. She reported enthusiastically on her conversation with him and his staff:

On January 4, then-President Shafik explained to Shipman and her fellow Co-Chair David Greenwald that she had met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who advised Shafik that “universities political problems are really only among Republicans.”675 The Senator’s staff recommended the “best strategy is to keep heads down,” and when asked, Schumer and his staff indicated they did not believe it was necessary for the University’s leaders to meet with Republicans.676 Greenwald echoed this, writing in response, “If we are keeping our head down, maybe we shouldn’t meet with Republicans.”677

Stunning. Political problems resulting from rampant anti-Semitism are “really only among Republicans.” Wasn’t Schumer formerly a Jew?

Days later, Greenwald exchanged text messages with his immediate predecessor Jonathan Lavine, about the Committee’s investigation and how they hoped Democrats would retake the House. On January 7, Greenwald sent Chair Emeritus Lavine a recent New York Times article about the expansion of the Committee’s investigation into campus antisemitism. Lavine responded, “Let’s hope the Dems win the house back.”679 Greenwald replied, “Absolutely.”680

So anti-Semitism is no problem as long as the Democrats are in charge. Here are some of the email exchanges:

There is much, much more in the House report. No wonder the apparatchiks who run Harvard and Columbia are hoping for the Democrats to re-take the House. Their problems–entirely cosmetic, as they see it–are “really only among Republicans.”

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