Three Columbia Deans Placed On Leave For Mocking Jewish Students Via Text Messages
Columbia University placed three deans on leave after they sent text messages mocking Jewish students for complaining about their safety on campus during a panel in May.
An alumnus in the crowd took photos of the administrators sending messages to each other during the event, which the Washington Free Beacon obtained and published last week.
"As the panelists offered frank appraisals of the climate Jewish students have faced, Columbia's top officials responded with mockery and vitriol, dismissing claims of anti-Semitism," said the report.
Notably, administrators used "vomit emojis" to dismiss the fears of Jewish students:
The three suspended administrators are Susan Chang-Kim, the vice dean and chief administrative officer; Cristen Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life; and Matthew Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support.
A university spokesman confirmed the news of the suspensions to the New York Times.
Still, the administrators are symptoms of a broader culture at Columbia University, in which antisemitism is rampant.
The university task force released a document this week describing a pattern of "harassment, intimidation, discrimination and exclusion against Jewish students by professors and fellow students" at the college.
The report details an incident in which one professor allegedly told students to disregard the mainstream media following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 because "Jews own" the press.
"Other incidents included students wearing Jewish symbols having them torn from their person. Some were pushed out of student clubs they had been part of because they did not want to participate in group actions and statements against Israel's right to exist," the report reads.
And then there are the 31 anti-Israel protestors at Columbia who saw their charges dropped by hack New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday, despite storming Hamilton Hall, smashing a window with a hammer, and draping a huge flag calling for "intifada" from a second-story window.
Michael Nussbaum, a 25-year member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, called Bragg's decision "a green light for chaos, a green light for destroying property" so long as it targets Jews.
No one is above the law, am I right?
NEW YORK - Pro-Palestinian students occupied a central lawn on the Columbia University campus, on April 21, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
Columbia placing the three deans on leave is arguably the first real step the college has taken against rising antisemitism since October 7.
And it's not as if we want to see the university fire the deans. We don't.
However, we wish the university would take obvious disdain toward Jewish students as seriously as it does faux disdain toward black, gay, Muslim, and trans students.
A Columbia University spokesperson released the following statement regarding its decision to place the officials on leave:
"We are committed to combatting antisemitism and taking sustained, concrete action to ensure Columbia is a campus where Jewish students and everyone in our community feels safe, valued, and able to thrive."
If so, Columbia must acknowledge the reason for the normalization of antisemitism across Ivy League universities. The reason is Marxism.
The Marxian concept that the world is split between the oppressed and the oppressors is the catalyst for how Columbia students and administrators look to dismiss the fears of Jewish students.
In their minds, Jews are the oppressors and the Palestinians are the ones oppressed – as if the struggles of the latter are the result of exploitation of the former.
Likewise, BLM, another Marxian movement, grooms its followers to believe that the struggle of black people is the fault of their former white oppressors.
For more on this, read our column "Antisemitism At America’s Colleges Is Rooted In Same Marxian Concept As BLM."
#JewishAndWhiteSafetyMattersToo.