Education
Republicans, and even some Democrats, focused on getting rid of specific university faculty who they say used antisemitic rhetoric.
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) speaks during a press conference held before a hearing on Columbia University's response to antisemitism on Capitol Hill April 17, 2024. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
By Bianca Quilantan and Mackenzie Wilkes
04/17/2024 06:54 PM EDT
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House lawmakers on Wednesday grilled Columbia University’s leaders over their enforcement of antisemitism discipline policies for students and faculty.
But unlike her Ivy League colleagues, whose responses at an earlier antisemitism hearing landed them in turmoil, Columbia President Minouche Shafik left the event largely unscathed.
Republicans mostly fell flat if they were trying to generate another viral moment from questioning an Ivy League university president like they did in December. Shafik seemed far more prepared than the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who testified before the committee that month.
She told one GOP lawmaker that she spent “many hours” preparing, and another GOP lawmaker congratulated her on “saying the right things.”
“Columbia beats Harvard and UPenn!” Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) said. “Y’all have done something that they weren’t able to do. You’ve been able to condemn antisemitism without using the phrase: ‘It depends on the context.’ But the problem is: Action on campus doesn’t match your rhetoric today.”
Unlike the previous antisemitism hearing, lawmakers did not call for Shafik to resign. Republicans, and even some Democrats, focused on getting rid of university faculty who they say used antisemitic rhetoric.
Shafik, who testified alongside Board of Trustees Co-Chairs Claire Shipman and David Greenwald, and law professor David Schizer, one of the university’s antisemitism taskforce chairs, answered personnel questions about faculty and students, and attempted to address some of the bizarre questions from GOP lawmakers about the Bible and the definition of the term “folx.”
Questions about whether protests on campus were anti-Jewish or anti-Muslim, or if phrases used by students were antisemitic, however, gave Shafik pause. In those moments the other Columbia leaders chimed in — but that didn’t stop lawmakers from poking holes in Shafik’s testimony.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who helms the House education panel, called some of Shafik’s testimony misleading, and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who had........