Columbia University president to testify in Congress on college conflicts over Israel-Hamas war

Four months after a contentious congressional hearing led to the resignations of two Ivy League presidents, Columbia University’s president is set to appear before the same committee over questions of antisemitism and the school’s response to conflicts on campus over the Israel-Hamas war.

Nemat Shafik, Columbia’s leader, was originally asked to testify at the House Education and Workforce Committee’s hearing in December, but she declined, citing scheduling conflicts.

The December hearing instead featured the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose lawyerly responses drew fierce backlash and fueled weeks of controversy. The presidents of Penn and Harvard have since resigned.

During a heated line of questioning at the December hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., asked the university leaders to answer whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate each university’s code of conduct.

Liz Magill, the then-president of Penn, and Claudine Gay, then-president of Harvard, both said it would depend on the details of the situation. MIT president Sally Kornbluth said that she had not heard a calling for the genocide of Jews on MIT’s campus, and that speech “targeted at individuals, not making public statements,” would be considered harassment.

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