‘A huge conflict of interest’: Two professors on Columbia’s top disciplinary body participated in encampment, photos suggest

Both have publicly defended the students involved in the encampment and, in several previously unreported images, appear to be participating in it themselves.

By Aaron Sibarium, The Washington Free Beacon

Columbia University president Minouche Shafik’s abrupt resignation on Wednesday came in the wake of her months-long struggle to respond adequately to the protests, disorder, and anti-Semitic displays that engulfed the Ivy League campus in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Classes were moved online. The school’s main graduation ceremony was canceled. Alumni reunions were disrupted. And, as the university weighs revisions to its protest policies ahead of the fall semester, student activists are vowing to resume their activity.

The composition of Columbia’s top disciplinary committee suggests that the bedlam may outlast Shafik.

According to images and metadata reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, two of the professors on that committee were involved in the unlawful encampment that upended campus life in April, raising questions about conflicts of interest and their incentives to lay down the law.

The professors, Joseph Slaughter and Susan Bernofsky, sit on the university senate’s rules committee, which helps set rules governing campus protests as well as the process for enforcing them.

Both have publicly defended the students involved in the encampment and, in several previously unreported images, appear to be participating in it themselves.

Slaughter, a professor of English, was photographed conversing with protesters outside Butler Library, the site of the encampment, while holding one of the neon vests worn by protest marshals. Metadata from the photos, dated April 29, corroborate Slaughter’s location.

Photos also show Bernofsky, a professor of writing, standing guard along the perimeter of the encampment. She posted on X in April that Columbia was “criminalizing political dissent” and, when police broke up a similar encampment at the City University of New York, called for “amnesty” for all involved.

After Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson broke the news that Shafik was resigning—before it had been officially announced—Bernofsky also wondered aloud how “the ed-in-chief of a garbage right-wing online-only rag got to break the news on this story.”

“Same rag that got 3 Columbia deans fired this summer,” she posted, referring to the administrators who resigned last week over their vitriolic text messages about Jewish panelists. “Who’s their mole?”

The professors’ presence at the protest underscored Shafik’s struggle to keep her own faculty members on side: They, too, were violating university policies and emboldening students to do so.

Now, with student activists promising to continue the “revolution” when they return to campus in a few weeks, some professors are alarmed that Slaughter and Bernofsky have been given so much say in disciplinary matters, arguing that their role on the rules committee presages yet another bout of chaos.

“There’s going to be plenty of disruption,” said Jacob Fish, a professor in Columbia’s school of engineering. Slaughter and Bernofsky, he added, should not be giving “any kind of advice to the administration.”

Itsik Pe’er, a professor of computer science, said he was “concerned” that Slaughter and Bernofsky would “bias” the rules committee. And Elliot Glassman, an adjunct professor in the school of architecture, likened the two committee members to “wolves guarding the henhouse.”

“This predetermines the outcome,” Glassman said. “I just want to focus on making great buildings without worrying about disturbances.”

In an email to the Free Beacon, Slaughter said that he “did not participate in any of the student protests this past year” and that “your questions are based on faulty information.” He declined to provide an explanation for the images or metadata.

Slaughter and Bernofsky make up 2 of the 15 votes on the rules committee, which is conducting a review of the university’s protest policies—launched before the events of last term—and negotiating with administrators who have proposed changes to them.

Those proposals include giving campus police the power to arrest students, the Wall Street Journal reported this month.

While the committee cannot rewrite the rules unilaterally, it could derail efforts to strengthen enforcement as an interim president, Columbia Medical School dean Katrina Armstrong, takes the reins.

“This is a huge conflict of interest,” said Ari Shrage, a cofounder of the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association. “If the people who make the rules help students break the ones they don’t like, it really calls into question Columbia’s commitment to keeping order on campus.”

Bernofsky, who has accused Israel of committing “genocide” and argued for casting a protest vote against President Joe Biden, did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Columbia University declined to comment.

The rules committee is a part of a broader power-sharing agreement that was hammered out between administrators and faculty following the 1968 protests at Columbia, during which students occupied a campus building, Hamilton Hall, and were ejected by police.

Policy changes generally require the sign-off of both parties, subject to the review of trustees.

When anti-Israel activists staged their own occupation of Hamilton Hall in April, Columbia said they “face expulsion.” But the disciplinary proceedings were put on pause in May after the University Senate passed a resolution condemning what it framed as a Kafkaesque assault on the due process rights of the activists.

As a result, cases were transferred to a different body, the University Judicial Board, with more protections for the accused.

Even that move has not fully satisfied the Senate. Some members of the rules committee, including Bernofsky, have continued to raise objections about the process, according to a report in the Columbia Spectator, and many cases remain unresolved ahead of the fall semester.

The delays have raised the possibility that some of the most disruptive and menacing activists will be back on campus in a few weeks.

Khymani James, the student protest leader who fantasized about “murdering Zionists,” is still listed in Columbia’s online directory and retains an active university email, unlike the three deans who resigned last week over their comparatively mild text messages about the influence of Jewish “$$$$.”

The university has refused to comment on James’s status, citing “privacy concerns.”

Though the rules committee does not adjudicate individual cases and the exact scope of its powers is unclear, professors say the administration would need its buy-in in order to lay down the law.

Before she resigned on Wednesday evening, Shafik had been navigating a strained relationship with the university senate, which passed a vote of no-confidence in her in May after she authorized the New York Police Department to clear the encampment and arrest the students who stormed Hamilton Hall.

The arrests sparked protests from faculty members, including Slaughter, who on May 1 joined a demonstration outside the university’s gates.

“No war on students,” his sign read.

Slaughter has been a longtime critic of Israel, signing an open letter in 2009 that condemned the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians.

He is also affiliated with Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies and, in an April interview with Democracy Now, accused the university of turning a blind eye to the “Islamophobic actions that are taking place on campus,” including “attacks” on pro-Palestinian students.

Those “attacks” appear to be a reference to an Israeli chemical weapon, “skunk,” that was allegedly used against anti-Israel protesters at Columbia. According to a lawsuit filed in April, the chemical was actually a harmless fart spray available on Amazon for $26.11.

anti-Israel encampmentColumbia UniversityJoseph SlaughterSusan Bernofsky