Columbia has been hit hard by a series of campus controversies in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel.
Columbia’s president condemned the use of “doxing” against the school’s students yesterday, after a top law firm rescinded job offers that had been extended to two of the university’s students. A coalition of anti-Israel graduate students had previously accused Columbia of failing to protect their privacy.
In a lengthy email sent to affiliates of the university, President Minouche Shafik addressed campus controversies that began with Hamas’s massacres of Israelis earlier this month. The note expressed support for those “suffering great distress over the terror attacks on Israel and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and explained beefed up security measures on campus.
Columbia has been hit hard by a series of campus controversies in the aftermath of the attack. A former Columbia student assaulted an Israeli student who was putting up posters about Hamas hostages. Columbia’s Hillel, the Kraft Center, briefly locked its doors last Thursday evening, after a group of pro-Palestinian students gathered nearby. And tens of thousands of people have signed a petition urging the school to fire Columbia professor Joseph Massad, who wrote that the Hamas killings were “awesome.”
One of the flashpoints that Shafik addressed was the blowback that students received after signing anti-Israel letters. In the email, she condemned the “targeting” of her students: “Some students, including at Columbia, have been victims of doxing. This form of online harassment, involving the public posting of names and personal information, has been used by extremists to target communities and individuals.”
“This kind of behavior also will not be tolerated and should be reported through appropriate school channels. When applicable, we will refer these cases to external authorities,” she added.
It appeared that she was referring to the backlash against student groups that issued open letters slamming Israel following the October 7 terrorist attacks. Some employers, including the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, stated that they would never hire individuals involved in those efforts. Meanwhile, some media outlets and watchdog groups have published the names of students involved in those efforts.
These open letters have also led to the rescission of several job offers so far — the most prominent of which have involved Columbia students. In one of the letters, two undergraduate student groups called the killings “historic,” and another coalition of student organizations, mostly graduate student groups, blamed Israel for the violence. “We cannot view the recent actions of Palestinian fighters in isolation. Gaza is an open-air prison that lacks the essential necessities such as food, clean water, medicine, and electricity,” the second letter stated.
The latter missive reportedly led white-shoe law firm David Polk to rescind job offers to two Columbia students and one Harvard student on Tuesday. Managing partner Neil Barr called the views expressed in the open letter “simply contrary to our firm’s values,” though the New York Times reported that the firm is staying in contact with two of the students, who are reportedly contesting the allegation that they had anything to do with the letter.
At some point between October 9, when the letter initially circulated, and this week, the students took down the names of the organizations that had signed it because of Columbia’s “abject failure and inability to protect its students from doxing and harassment.”
In yesterday’s email, Shafik also said that “some are using this moment to spread antisemitism, Islamophobia, bigotry against Palestinians and Israelis, and various other forms of hate.”
“I have been disheartened that some of this abhorrent rhetoric is coming from members of our community, including members of our faculty and staff,” she added.