Lawmakers, Jewish groups brace for Columbia's Capitol Hill antisemitism showdown

A scheduling conflict spared Columbia University President Minouche Shafik from the viral moment that contributed to toppling two other college presidents, only to land her center stage for congressional scrutiny in Wednesday morning’s House education committee hearing.

Months of turmoil over the Israel-Gaza war have made Columbia University an easy mark for Republicans long upset about college diversity programs and conservative free speech. In the four months since Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) greased the exits for the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, acts of protests and civil disobedience on campuses are still raging on campuses across the country. And the House GOP fight against antisemitism on college campuses isn’t done.

“This is not political or partisan, but a moral fight,” Stefanik told POLITICO, adding that House Republicans promise that they will “not stop until we have eradicated the stain of antisemitism from all college campuses.” And Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who chairs the committee, said “some of the worst cases of antisemitic assaults, harassment and vandalism on campus have occurred at Columbia University.”

Shafik’s testimony, alongside the school’s co-chairs of the board of trustees and a law professor, is also the first test of whether colleges have changed their approach to Capitol Hill. But Shafik, in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal ahead of the hearing, has already said what the other presidents struggled to state with clarity: “Calling for the genocide of a people … has no place in a university community.”

The war between Israel and Hamas has created divisions between generations, led to major bridge closures on both coasts and provided steady fuel for protests. That's led some Democrats to fear that Wednesday's hearing will be a missed opportunity to wield congressional oversight to exact something more concrete than pain and embarrassment.

“I think it's going to be very aggressive,” Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), who is Jewish, said in a brief interview about the Wednesday hearing. “I do think it’s important to root out antisemitism everywhere. That’s incredibly important. But I also would like to see our committee working together with schools to formulate policies and ways of addressing antisemitism and not just attacking college presidents.”

And it’s also clear universities haven’t figured out what to do: Columbia students supporting Israel and Palestinians have reported being physically assaulted for their beliefs. At the University of California, Berkeley, a physical altercation between pro-Palestinian law students and school faculty made front-page news. And earlier this month, several Pomona College students were arrested and temporarily banned from campus after taking over the president’s office.

Some higher education groups and faculty who hoped to get help in dealing with thorny issues of free speech are resigning themselves to a show trial.

“If it's going to mostly be a continuation of pretty heated attacks on institutions for things that they did in the past, I don't know that that changes the situation for a single student anywhere in the country,” said Jon Fansmith, the top policy advocate at the American Council on Education, which represents roughly 1,700 colleges and universities.

Nearly two dozen Columbia and Barnard College faculty members have already warned Shafik against becoming entrapped by “false narratives” at the hearing.

“Rather than being concerned with the safety and well-being of Jewish students on campuses, the committee is leveraging antisemitism in a wider effort to caricature and demonize universities as hotbeds of ‘woke indoctrination,’” the group wrote to Shafik ahead of the hearing.

The House education committee’s roughly five-hour-long hearing in December spurred the resignations of two college presidents, widespread scrutiny from alumni, led donors reconsidering their gifts, and about half a dozen congressional investigations into colleges. The committee launched its first probe into Harvard, which has seen the highest scrutiny so far, including subpoenas sent to its leaders, and followed up with investigations into Penn, MIT, Columbia and other schools.

“By any measure, these universities have a major problem. They are failing to address antisemitism adequately,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said, pushing back on criticism about political motives behind the hearings. “Irrespective of who is asking the questions, and whether or not they have ulterior motives, the issue at hand is indisputable.”

There are also dozens of complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobia filed with the Education Department, none of which have been resolved. And Jewish advocacy organizations have pending lawsuits against several universities over their responses to antisemitism.

Jewish students had faced antisemitism long before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel triggered nationwide demonstrations on campuses, but the congressional scrutiny brings heightened awareness, said Ken Marcus, a former assistant education secretary for civil rights under Donald Trump. 

“This has made it harder for administrators to gaslight students and pretend that the problem doesn't exist,” said Marcus, who founded the Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights group. “It's also created pressures that have led some administrators to take useful actions, but they’re still too few and far between.”

Mackenzie Wilkes contributed to this report.