Palestine Legal Statement on McCarthyist Congressional Hearing With Columbia University President

Today, the President of Columbia along with other university leaders, testified in Congress. The hearing evidenced the hostile anti-Palestinian environment at Columbia University perpetuated by university leadership and administration.

Chairwoman Foxx, members of Congress, and Columbia’s leadership failed to acknowledge or address the McCarthyist repression and anti-Palestinian violence and harassment targeting the rights and safety of Palestinian students and their allies. 

While Columbia President Shafik acknowledged “the war in Gaza” is a larger story of Palestinian displacement, this context of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians is not reflected in Columbia’s racist enforcement of policies that criminalize students protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Shafik testified that the uni brought the NYPD and FBI to campus demonstrations for the first time in 50 years, rewrote university rules and “beefed up” their enforcement, which has led to the McCarthyist targeting and discipline of students and faculty.

This has included suspending student groups Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace – for which we sued Columbia along with NYCLU – and suspending and evicting students from their housing.

Rep. Ilhan Omar questioned Shafik about the anti-Palestinian incidents that targeted student organizers for Palestinian rights who were removed from their housing, attacked by a chemical agent, doxxed by their own professors. Omar highlighted that pro-Palestine students did not receive support from university administrators, and took days to address the safety of students. 

When asked if any anti-Arab events took place on campus, Shafik was not permitted to answer, showing the appalling anti-Palestinian nature of this hearing. We have documented dozens of racist anti-Palestinian incidents, including doxing, assaults, harassment of students wearing keffiyehs or hijabs, cancellation or condemnation of events supporting Palestinian rights, disciplinary investigations and more.

This and other hearings appear designed to force Columbia and other universities to crack down on the student movement for Palestinian rights, and to adopt a definition of antisemitism that facilitates the suppression of speech critical of Israel or calling for Palestinian freedom. 

Attempts by Congress to label chants for Palestinian freedom such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as a call for genocide are false and distract from an actual ongoing genocide in Gaza that has resulted in the death of over 33,000 Palestinians. 

Just yesterday, the House passed Resolution 883 which condemns chants for Palestinian freedom. This is part of the broader trend of anti-Palestinian legislation that seeks to criminalize speech and advocacy in favor of Palestinian rights. 

This congressional hearing, similar to the hearing held on December 8 with Harvard, MIT, and UPenn presidents, failed to address the rise of anti-Palestinian racism and the crushing of free speech and academic freedom on campuses across the country. 

Instead, these hearings represent a McCarthyist witch-hunt targeting professors and students who speak out for Palestinian rights and against genocide. In turn, universities are taking the bait, contributing to a wider right-wing assault on educational institutions and the teaching of everything from systemic racism to Palestine.   

Palestine Legal, with our partners, will continue to expose and challenge these efforts to undermine all of our fundamental rights in order to shield Israel from scrutiny. Allowing draconian policies to stand against the Palestine movement will impact all of our constitutional rights to speak out for justice.