Pro-Hamas protesters demonstrating at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect

Columbia University must hand over disciplinary records to the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce to prove that it is keeping multiple pledges to punish perpetrators of antisemitic discrimination, the new committee chairman, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), wrote to the school on Thursday.

“One only has to review the past letters this committee has sent to the university and the reports issued by both this committee and the House of Representatives to see that Columbia has failed to uphold its commitments, both because the disciplinary process has failed and because the campus administration has refused to enforce its preexisting rules,” Walberg wrote. “Columbia’s continued failure to address the pervasive antisemitism that persists on campus is untenable, particularly given that the university receives billions in federal funding.”

Walberg went on to list a series of alleged antisemitic incidents which fostered the committee’s suspicion that Columbia is being dishonest with Congress, Jewish students, and the public. Shortly after interim Columbia president Katrina Armstrong took office in September, he said, Columbia’s faculty Senate ensured that an anti-Zionist group’s disruption of a course taught by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with bullhorns would not be classified as an antisemitic incident and go unpunished; the university’s main anti-Zionist group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), has planned and carried out acts of property destruction while continuing to distribute antisemitic imagery at its rallies; and, in December, someone assaulted a Jewish student and stole his Israeli flag near a CUAD rally, continuing a pattern of violence which began during the 2023-2024 academic year.

The university has seen other disturbing events this academic year, as previously reported by The Algemeiner, though it has levied disciplinary sanctions to those who have been identified and vowed to do so against those who remain at large. Last month, for example, it banned from its campus multiple masked individuals who disrupted an active class and proceeded to utter pro-Hamas statements while distributing antisemitic literature. Later, it denounced a group of students who poured concrete into toilets located inside its School of International Affairs as “deplorable,” adding that it is “acting swiftly to address this misconduct.”

However, Columbia has a history of amnestying violent and destructive anti-Israel protesters. In August, an education committee report revealed that only a few students who were involved in occupying the Hamilton Hall administrative building in April 2024 were ultimately punished despite the university’s threatening to expel them.

“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” former education committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said at the time in a blistering statement. “More than three months after the criminal takeover of Hamilton Hall, the vast majority of the student perpetrators remain in good standing. By allowing its own disciplinary process to be thwarted by radical students and faculty, Columbia has waved the white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in these unlawful actions.”

Today, Columbia must operate in a new political and legal landscape, as the re-election of US President Donald Trump to a rare, nonconsecutive second term in office brought to Washington, DC a chief executive who has vowed not only to purge antisemitism from American schools but also to go as far as taxing the endowments of colleges and universities which refuse to aid the effort. So far, Columbia has remained high on the list of the Trump administration’s priorities, and earlier this month it announced that the university is one of five higher education institutions which will be subjected to an exhaustive investigation of antisemitism that will be led by the Department of Education’s (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

In Thursday’s letter, Walberg stressed that Washington will accept nothing less than complete accountability and disclosure. To that end, he has requested that “complete case files” for nearly a dozen alleged antisemitic and pro-Hamas incidents on the campus be submitted to the committee “no later than” noon, Feb. 27.

“The fact that Columbia has allowed these activities to continue to take place on campus is of deep concern to the committee,” he concluded. “Unfortunately, Columbia’s trustees, interim president, and deans have not met their promises or commitments. Their negligence has created a hostile environment for members of Columbia’s Jewish communities and resulted in severe disruptions to the university’s learning environment.”

Responding to an inquiry about Walberg’s letter, Columbia University told The Algemeiner: “Columbia has cooperated extensively with the previous congressional inquiries and will continue to do so. Since assuming her role in August, Interim President Armstrong and her leadership team have taken decisive actions to address issues of antisemitism. Under the University’s new leadership, we have established a centralized Office of Institutional Equity to address all reports of discrimination and harassment, appointed a new Rules Administrator, and strengthened the capabilities of our Public Safety Office.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.