by JNS Staff
The school’s Task Force on Antisemitism published its final report, which, among other things, said the American Association of University Professors appears to discriminate against Israel.
Columbia University’s Task Force on Antisemitism released its final report on Tuesday, drawing praise from Claire Shipman, acting president of the Ivy League school, for what she said was a “series of rigorous and thoughtful analyses and recommendations that cover a very difficult and painful period in the history of this university.”
“While we know there is more work to do, we’re very grateful to be in a new and much better place today,” she stated. “For that, we owe a debt of gratitude to many, with the co-chairs and members of our Task Force on Antisemitism at the very top of that list.”
Although Shipman’s statement didn’t mention the words “Israel” or “Israeli,” illegitimate criticism of the Jewish state and of Israelis was a central part of the 70-page report, which stated that “many Jewish and Israeli students reported that if they want to study the Middle East at Columbia, there currently are not enough options that don’t treat Zionism and Israel as fundamentally illegitimate.”
“The paucity of such course offerings should be corrected,” the task force stated. “At the same time, as a best practice, we urge instructors to apply the same sensitivity to discussions of Israel that they would to topics that are of high personal sensitivity to students who have other strong primary identities.”
The panel added that the school “lacks full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist.” It advised the school to “address this imbalance through the establishment of new chairs at a senior level in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy.”
The report, which devoted significant space to describing academic freedom and detailing its history, decried a recent decision by the American Association of University Professors, one of the most important and powerful academic groups.
The task force stated that boycotts of professors, students, researchers and scholars from other countries “are not consistent with academic freedom,” which “entails openness to scholars and students from other countries.”
“This issue is especially concerning to the antisemitism task force, because the only significant academic boycott movement of the 21st century has been aimed at the only Jewish state, proposing to restrict the research, teaching and studying opportunities available to a cohort whose members are overwhelmingly Jewish,” it said.
The task force noted that there has been a “consistent demand” at the school to boycott Columbia’s partnership with Tel Aviv University, which the panel said “would be a clear violation of the spirit of academic freedom.”
“Until last year, the AAUP consistently and categorically opposed academic boycotts. In August 2024, the AAUP changed its position, declaring ‘academic boycotts are not in themselves violations of academic freedom; rather, they can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education,’” the report stated. “Although it wasn’t mentioned by name, Israel and its universities were clearly the object of this new policy.”
“We don’t see how this is not a limitation on the academic freedom of Israelis and anyone interested in interacting with them,” the report stated. “It entails permitting political views to enter what was conceived of as a separate, politically protected realm—something the AAUP has long steadfastly opposed in other circumstances.”
Free speech
The panel said that one of its main points was that Columbia ought to “protect freedom of expression to the maximum extent possible while also complying with antidiscrimination laws.”
There ought to be neither censorship nor discrimination at the school, according to the task force. “In balancing these goals, we would err in the direction of protecting free expression, even when it makes members of our community uncomfortable,” it said. “Importantly, however the university decides to strike this balance, it must do so consistently for all protected classes.”
That means that Columbia must be consistent, and “protections afforded to black, Latino, Asian, Arab, female, LGBTQ+ and disabled members of our community must apply equally to other protected classes, including Jewish and Israeli students,” it said.
The task force added that disrupting classes is a “serious violation” of Columbia rules. It said the most egregious violation of academic freedom was when anti-Israel protesters disrupted a class about the Jewish state taught by an Israeli.
Columbia students also shouldn’t have to face “fraught discussions of issues relating to their membership in a protected class” when those issues aren’t related to the course, “such as discussions of abortion in calculus or of correlations between race and incarceration in astronomy,” the panel said.
It stated that free speech means that any government or group can be criticized. It named the “policies of the Israeli government,” the “policies of Hamas” and “the United Nations” as three examples.
“Unfortunately, we heard from many Jewish and Israeli students that their instructors offered critical comments about Israel in classes with subjects far removed from Israel and the Middle East,” the report stated.
The task force recommended that the university condemn offensive speech rather than limiting it, and it said that when it comes to faculty use of social media or “other outside activities” that it is “wary of empowering administrators to decide what is in and out of bounds.”
‘No orthodoxies’
Per the report, the more than 200 Israeli students at Columbia “is thought to be a greater number than any other Ivy League university.”
“Anyone who is teaching a class at Columbia should be aware that comments about Israel can be highly impactful to students, including Jewish students who are not Israeli,” it stated.
It added that “there should be no orthodoxies at Columbia—not just about Israel—but about race, gender, criminal justice, affirmative action, climate policy, international law, income inequality and any other subjects where the expression of some views may offend members of our community.”
The report stated that there have been “ill-informed statements” in classes that have accompanied “harsh condemnation of Israel.”
“One student told us the instructor in such a class told students that Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was an antisemite, and Jews of Eastern European origin are not really Jewish,” the report stated. “These are, at best, tendentious statements that are highly contested in the academic literature but were not presented to students that way. The readings in the class generally did not reflect the full range of academic writing on Zionism, only material that was harshly anti-Zionist.”
The task force advised colleagues to remember that Zionism “is a strongly held principle for the great majority of Jews worldwide, including but not limited to those who live in Israel.”
“Anti-Zionism is hardly a forbidden sentiment at Columbia, and that’s as it should be. But it’s an illusion to believe that anti-Zionism expressed as a moral absolute will not make many or even most Jewish and Israeli students here feel unwelcome,” it said. “They deserve the same degree of sensitivity as anyone else at Columbia.”
“We are angry and heartbroken that members of the Columbia community (including some members of the faculty) would condone (or even celebrate) terrorist atrocities, deploy antisemitic tropes and peddle bigoted stereotypes,” the task force said.
“These statements have been appalling and we condemn them. We have no desire to defend the indefensible,” it said. “But as noted above, we are concerned about relying on administrators to be the arbiters of what tenured and tenure-track faculty members can and cannot say.”
The report also said that students must not be pressured to participate in protests, teachers shouldn’t use stereotypes, “reasonable” religious accommodations are necessary and students ought to be free to disagree with professors.
It also advised Columbia to proceed “as quickly as possible” with its announced plan to open a global center in Tel Aviv.
JNS Staff
Source: https://www.jns.org/paucity-of-columbia-courses-that-arent-anti-israel-ivys-task-force-says/
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