New Bill, ‘COLUMBIA Act,’ Would Install Antisemitism Monitor at Universities

By Reuvain Borchardt

NEW YORK — A bill authored by a bipartisan pair of New York Congressmembers would install a third-party monitor on universities that are alleged to tolerate antisemitism on campus, with schools who fail to cooperate risking the loss of federal funds.

The bill, titled the COLUMBIA (College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability) Act, is named for the university that is the epicenter of a wave of anti-Israel protests at campuses across the nation, and is sponsored by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-Rockland, Putnam, Westchester, Dutchess) and Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx), two of the most outspoken Members of Congress on Israel and antisemitism.

“In the United States, we’re facing an unprecedented crisis of antisemitism on college campuses,” Torres said in an interview with Hamodia on Friday. “It’s become painfully obvious that institutions of higher learning like Columbia cannot be trusted to police antisemitism in their own ranks.”

News of the bill was first reported Friday morning by Jewish Insider.

Lawler introduced last June the Stop Anti-Semitism on College Campuses Act, which would ban federal funding from colleges that hold “any event promoting Anti-Semitism on campus,” following a highly publicized anti-Israel commencement speech at CUNY.

The COLUMBIA Act would go further by giving the Education Secretary the power to install a third-party monitor on schools that face allegations of antisemitism. 

“The intention here is for these schools to crackdown on antisemitism,” Lawler said, in a separate interview Friday with Hamodia. “And sometimes you need to use the power of the purse to force it.”

All of the GOP’s ten-member New York delegation have called for the resignation of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, for allowing a pro-Palestinian, tent-camp protest on campus.

Jewish students have said they feel unsafe on Columbia’s campus, a campus rabbi has advised them to remain home, and the school is offering remote learning options for the rest of the semester.

“These institutions have fundamentally failed to protect their Jewish students,” Torres said. “The transition to remote learning at Columbia is an admission of failure.”

Torres has stopped short of directly calling for Shafik’s resignation, instead telling Hamodia, “If the president of Columbia University cannot ensure the safety of her Jewish students, then she has no business serving as the leader of an Ivy League institution.”

Last week Thursday, Columbia had the NYPD arrest over 100 protestors, but since then the school has chosen to negotiate with representatives of the protest encampment, rather than have police enter campus and arrest the demonstrators.

Inspired by the Columbia protestors, at schools across the country pro-Palestinian students and others have held demonstrations, including by erecting tent encampments and occupying administration buildings, with demands that include the school endowment divesting from Israel, the school administration issuing a statement in support of Palestinians, and the school granting amnesty to students and faculty who have participated in protests.

While schools like Columbia and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt are negotiating with demonstrators, others, including the University of Texas at Austin and Emory University in Atlanta, have had police sweep in, dismantle tent camps and arrest protestors who are violating campus policy on demonstrations.

Both Congressmen were critical of the schools tolerating the protestors.

“I think most of the universities that have allowed this to fester, have obviously handled it horribly,” Lawler said. “And you see at Columbia, they’re trying to negotiate with these students. That is not the way to handle this. There needs to be accountability, there needs to be consequences. And without that, these students, and, frankly, some of them paid agitators, are going to continue to act with impunity.”

“The encampments are illegal,” Torres said. “And if I were the president of Columbia University, I would tell them either vacate the encampments or else you’re expelled from the school. The university has to take a clear stand against antisemitism.”

While universities have long purported to be bastions of free expression, critics say these anti-Israel protestors are crossing a line from protected speech into criminal behavior.

“There is no First Amendment right to seize private property with an illegal encampment,” Torres said. “There’s no First Amendment right to harass and intimidate and terrorize Jewish students. So for me, there’s no First Amendment issue here.”

“Universities are meant to be an area for robust debate and discussion and disagreement on policy, on issues. And that should be happening,” Lawler said. “But when you turn that into an opportunity to threaten or intimidate or assault Jewish students, you lose that ability. And what we’ve seen with these encampments is they’re not peaceful. The signs are not peaceful, the chants are not peaceful. You do have Jewish students being intimidated, harassed, in some instances assaulted … The institutions have a responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of all students. And the failure to act is what is causing this problem.”

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rborchardt@hamodia.com

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Below is a letter signed by the ten members of New York’s congressional Republican delegation calling for the resignation of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik