In the spring, pro-Palestinian protests at the elite US university Columbia University caused a stir. A commission has now found that the university had not protected Jewish students sufficiently. They reported severe hostility.
In connection with the pro-Palestinian protests at New York's renowned Columbia University, an investigative commission has accused the university of serious failures in protecting Jewish students from anti-Semitism.
“We have collected the experiences of Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia over the past academic year and found that the university is failing in its most basic mission,” the authors of the University Commission Against Anti-Semitism write in their report. “The increase in the violent anti-Semitic and xenophobic rhetoric that has shaken our campus over the past academic year has demonstrated that the shared understanding of values and norms no longer exists.”
Pushed, insulted, excluded
Around 500 students were interviewed for the report. “Most of the testimonies we heard were hard to bear,” it said. “Students described being pushed and pushed to the ground, being verbally abused for supporting Zionist causes, and seeing Israeli flags being burned.”
There were also swastika graffiti in dorm rooms. Others reported being denied access to public areas of the university because they were Jewish or Israeli. “Some students were pressured to subscribe to political positions they did not support; others were silenced or exposed and humiliated in lecture halls,” the commission said.
Education and better Reporting structures required
The commission found that Columbia University did not have adequate structures in place to help those affected. “Many students did not know where to report the incidents,” it said. Some professors and university employees responded “compassionately” and appropriately. Others did not take the concerns of those affected seriously and reacted slowly or inefficiently, even in serious cases.
The authors of the report called for “ambitious, coordinated and long-term efforts” to improve the climate at Columbia University. This includes continuing education and education for students, teachers and other university staff. In addition, the reporting structures must be improved.
Pro-Palestine demonstrations caused a stir
The elite US university's Commission Against Anti-Semitism had previously published a similar report after massive pro-Palestinian protests took place at Columbia University and other universities in the US in the spring in response to the war in the Gaza Strip.
In the course of the crackdown on the pro-Palestinian demonstrators, there were also accusations that the university had acted too harshly. In May, the police cleared a building occupied by protesters and arrested several demonstrators. In mid-August, the president of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, announced her resignation after receiving “threats” and “insults” against her. She was already the fourth president of an elite US university to take this step against the backdrop of nationwide university protests.
