Columbia University suspends three deans for "antisemitic" speech in private text messages
By ethanh // 2024-07-15
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Three administrators at Ivy League school Columbia University – Cristen Kromm, the former dean of undergraduate student life; Matthew Patashnick, the former associate dean for student and family support; and Susan Chang-Kim, the former vice dean and chief administrative officer – got canned this week after it was revealed that they exchanged "antisemitic" text messages in private during a seminar on Jewish campus life back in May. According to Nemat Shafik, Columbia's president, the three deans "disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes" in their private text conversations with one another. "Whether intended as such or not, these sentiments are unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community," Shafik wrote in a letter that was publicly released this week. Washington Free Beacon is credited with leaking photographs of the text exchanges which include one of the deans using two vomit emojis in response to an article published in Columbia Spectator, Columbia's student newspaper, by Yonah Hain, the campus rabbi, about how students were responding to the events of October 7. "Debates about Zionism, one state or two states ... are all welcome conversations on campus," Hain wrote in his piece, adding that support for the so-called "Palestinian Resistance" equates to the "normalization of Hamas ... [and] a point-of-no-return moment at Columbia." (Related: Remember when Donald Trump called for Americans who commit acts of "antisemitism" to be executed?)

Beware the antisemitism police

In another text exchange, one of the deans asked the other two if it was really true that Columbia students had been kicked out of campus clubs for being Jewish. Then there was another exchange in which Change-Kim expressed concerns about the antisemitism panel itself. "This is difficult to listen to but I'm trying to keep an open mind to learn about this point of view," she wrote. Patashnick in another exchange said that one of the antisemitism panel speakers was "taking full advantage of this moment" by making it about the "huge fundraising potential" in support of Israeli causes. All three of the deans seemed to agree in another exchange that the parent of a Jewish student at Columbia must have had access to the school's administration because of her wealth. There was a fourth dean, Josef Sorett, who also engaged in some of the text message discourse but he was not placed on leave. Keep in mind that Columbia late last year pushed to ban two pro-Palestinian student groups from campus: Jewish Voice for Peace's student chapter and Students for Justice in Palestine. Columbia remains at the forefront of the student campus protests in support of Gaza and in opposition to Israel and its war agenda there. School administrators back on April 30 ordered police to sweep the campuses of both Columbia and City College of New York, which resulted in around 300 protesters being arrested and several being assaulted to the point that they required medical care. The police raid was ordered after Columbia students took over Hamilton Hall, a building on campus, and renamed it "Hind's Hall" after a six-year-old Palestinian girl was killed back in February by Israeli tank fire. Columbia also came under fire after the board of the school's law review journal shut down its website over the publication of an article accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and calling for a new lens through which to view the Palestinian issue. In June, Columbia alumni signed a letter pledging to withhold "all financial, programmatic, and academic support" from the university until a list of 13 demands is met, one of them being divestment from "all companies and institutions that fund or profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine." Free speech means all speech, not just some kinds of speech. Learn more at FirstAmendment.news. Sources for this article include: MiddleEastEye.net NaturalNews.com ColumbiaSpectator.com
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