Member-only story

Columbia Professor Out After Antisemitism Investigation

Dr. Munr Kazmir
5 min readJan 11, 2025

--

“While the university may call this change in my status ‘retirement,’ it should be more accurately understood as a termination dressed up in more palatable terms,” complained the professor in a resignation letter.

Anti-Israel protest, George Washington University, Washington, DC USA. April 25, 2024. (Photo: Ted Eytan)

In December 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on rising levels of antisemitism on college campuses, questioning the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The hearing, prompted by reports of hate speech following the Israel-Hamas conflict, focused on university policies regarding harassment and free speech.

During the hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik famously asked whether calls for the genocide of Jewish people violated campus harassment policies. Harvard President Claudine Gay, UPenn President Liz Magill, and MIT President Sally Kornbluth stammered, hedged, obfuscated, and/or stated outright that such rhetoric would need to be assessed within specific contexts. Their responses were widely criticized for perceived ambiguity, sparking public outrage.

The fallout was swift. UPenn President Liz Magill resigned in December after donor pressure and criticism. Harvard’s Claudine Gay initially issued an apology but stepped down in January 2024 amid allegations of…

--

--

No responses yet