New Columbia pres. called antisemitism hearings ‘nonsense’

According to Congressional report, Columbia leadership had expressed “contempt” for the probe into antisemitism at the school.

By World Israel News Staff

The newly-appointed president of Columbia University in New York referred to congressional hearings about rampant antisemitism on college campuses as “nonsense” and said she believed anti-Israel student groups banned from the school should be reinstated.

Last Friday, Claire Shipman – an ex-CNN White House correspondent who served on the school’s Board of Trustees – was named as Columbia’s third president in less than two years.

Columbia’s former long-serving president, Minouche Shafik, was forced to resign after failing to curb violent antisemitic and anti-Israel demonstrations at the school, following the October 7th, 2023 terror onslaught.

She was replaced by interim president Katrina Armstrong, who recently stepped down after agreeing to the Trump administration’s demands to limit anti-Israel demonstrations on campus or face losing federal funding.

In private text messages, Shipman told Shafik that she was surprised Columbia was being held accountable for creating a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students on campus.

Shipman wrote that she thought Columbia wouldn’t have to endure the “Capitol Hill nonsense” of its president being brought before Congress to testify about the school’s efforts to clamp down on antisemitism, according to a New York Post report.

She also added that anti-Israel groups, which had been suspended from operating at the school due to the raucous protests, should be allowed to resume their activities.

“I do think we should think about unsuspending the groups before semester starts,” Shipman told Shafik.

The leaked messages were included in a Congressional House Committee on Education and the Workforce report, which noted that Columbia leadership had expressed “contempt” for the probe into antisemitism at the school, the Post reported.

The conversation between Shipman and Shafik took place in December 2023, days before three major university heads – Shafik, Harvard president Claudine Gay, and MIT president Liz Magill – were grilled about calls to murder Jews during campus protests.

All three heads of school were forced to resign due to their cagey answers, as they failed to state that promoting the killing of Jews would violate anti-harassment and bullying policies at their universities.