Columbia University President Minouche Shafik lucked out (or perhaps pulled a wise move) in being unavailable for the infamous antisemitism hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce last year, in which the robotic answers of the presidents of Penn and Harvard would set off a chain reaction that cost both their jobs. Her luck has now run out, with the university leader set to testify today along with the co-chairs of the Board of Trustees.
Shafik will probably have learned a thing or two from the fate that befell her former Ivy League colleagues and be ready to parry the bad-faith attacks and delineate university policies without sounding like an over-lawyered automaton. Call it the “Supreme Court confirmation” style of response: sound measured and contemplative while saying as little of substance as possible, gracefully sidestepping the traps set.
It is a shame that this circus is what we must expect. In an alternate world, perhaps a hearing like this could be used to actually parse complicated issues and hold people accountable. There has been a distressing and disturbing rise in antisemitism on campuses around the country since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the country’s military response, which the leaders of those institutions have to answer for.
There has also been a litany of speech suppression and official action against pro-Palestinian groups and demonstrators, which have come under fire as crossing from routine enforcement of school policy to targeted harassment.
The campus free speech debate has in recent years become something of a proxy for broader culture war battles, which is unfortunate given that the free exchange of ideas, on campus and in the broader society, is a defining factor of U.S. society that should be safeguarded zealously.
These are significant subjects with real impact, and having a university president appear under oath is a perfect opportunity to delve in. We expect that some members of Congress will indeed use the occasion to ask meaningful questions with a view towards actually understanding Columbia’s approach and decision-making.
Yet this is almost certainly not what will dominate the hearing, nor the ensuing coverage. Our state’s own Rep. Elise Stefanik, basking in the glow of right-wing adoration after her performance at the prior hearing, will no doubt be seeking to collect another head to present to Donald Trump in her bid to be his running mate. Expect questions that have little bearing on anything that might conceivably actually occur on campus to box Shafik in (“how would you handle a bake sale fundraiser for Hamas on top of a burning Israeli flag?”)
The clumsy and obtuse answers of Penn President Liz Magill and Harvard President Claudine Gay deservedly sealed their fates for their equivocating on whether calls for genocide would violate their university policies. We expect Shafik will be much smarter in denouncing support for genocide.
Some moral clarity from Shafik would be nice, even in response to a vague hypothetical.
What we can say is that the last sideshow didn’t really give us much more light into what life is actually like for Jewish students on campus right now, or how the university leadership approaches delicate questions balancing expression and safety. Here’s hoping we’re proven wrong and today is different.
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