Isure would hate to be the parent of a high-school senior right now. Cracking the code on which college or university hates my child least would haunt my dreams. The attempts by college presidents to stem the tide of antisemitism on their campuses — particularly with the rise of virulent and sometimes violent actions after the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror invasion into Israel — appear slapdash at best, complicit at worst.
Indeed, the April 17 appearance of Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, before the House Education and Workforce Committee to testify about antisemitism on Columbia’s campus was emblematic of the problems facing college presidents across the country. Her testimony was almost as disastrous as the December testimonies of the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania. The only thing making her appearance somewhat less cringeworthy was that she had many months to prepare for probing questions from committee members. She was caught off guard fewer times.
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