House Education Committee Expands Antisemitism Probe to Columbia University

The House Education and the Workforce Committee is expanding its antisemitism probe of higher-education institutions to include Columbia University and its affiliated Barnard College, Representative Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) wrote in a 16-page letter on Monday.

“We have grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of Columbia’s response to antisemitism on its campus,” said Foxx, who chairs the committee.

Due to their “failure to protect Jewish students” before and after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, she demanded that both schools hand over information on their responses to antisemitic incidents on campus and protests staged by pro-Palestinian groups.

The North Carolina congresswoman noted that, despite Columbia’s suspending the Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters in November, both anti-Israel groups “have continued to hold anti-Israel events on campus with apparent impunity.”

On December 12, for example, both groups chanted “from the river to the sea” and “intifada, intifada, long live intifada” while protesting at Barnard. “According to the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association, several Barnard deans passed by the event but failed to stop it, and at least one Jewish student was assaulted at it,” Foxx wrote.

As for Columbia, an antisemitic poster depicting the Star of David on a blue-and-white skunk was plastered across campus on January 31. Its captions read, “Beware! Skunk on Campus” and “brought to you in collaboration by Columbia University and the IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces].”

Foxx added that “pervasive antisemitism has been documented at Columbia for more than two decades before the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack,” beginning in 2004.

She then cited a 2016 report by the Algemeiner, a Jewish publication that ranked Columbia as the worst out of 40 colleges for Jewish students in the U.S. and Canada. In 2019, the watchdog group Alums for Campus Fairness “identified Columbia and Barnard as ‘arguably the most prominent settings for university-based antisemitism in the United States,'” Foxx wrote.

Moreover, in a December research study, Brandeis University found that Jewish students at 51 campuses considered Columbia to have the “highest antisemitic hostility” after October 7.

The letter demands that Columbia and Barnard hand over a total of 25 items, including “all reports of antisemitic acts or incidents and communications since January 1, 2021” from various offices. The committee also demands “all documents and communications reflecting sources of funding for Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace,” among other groups.

Both institutions must submit all requested materials by February 26.

In an emailed statement to National Review, a Columbia spokesman said, “We are committed to combating antisemitism and all forms of hatred. We have received the letter from Chairwoman Foxx and will cooperate fully with any investigation.”

Barnard did not respond to a request for comment.

In December, the House Education Committee launched its antisemitism investigation into Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania after the schools’ three presidents failed to say whether advocating for the genocide of Jews violated campus policy while testifying before the panel.

Following their House testimony, Claudine Gay and Liz Magill apologized for their controversial remarks and resigned from their presidential positions at Harvard and UPenn, respectively. MIT president Sally Kornbluth still remains in her post.