Chairman of House Education Committee to Columbia president: We will hold you accountable

US Representative Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, wrote a letter to Columbia University President Minouche Shafik on Sunday charging the university with a failure to meet its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to ensure an environment of equal opportunity for Jewish students.  

Foxx, a Republican who represents a constituency in North Carolina, wrote that "Columbia’s continued failure to restore order and safety promptly to campus constitutes a major breach of the University’s Title VI obligations, upon which federal financial assistance is contingent, and which must immediately be rectified.

"If you do not rectify this danger, then the Committee will not hesitate in holding you accountable," the congresswoman wrote. 

The university has been roiled by protests all week, since students set up an encampment on a campus lawn the night before Shafik was set to testify before the House of Representatives. Shafik authorized the New York Police Department (NYPD) to dismantle the encampment on April 18, leading to the arrest of over a hundred students, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator.

Letter cites 24 separate incidents of pro-Hamas rhetoric, violations of policy 

The letter, which ran seven pages, cited 24 separate incidents, including physical assaults, and cites twelve different slogans chanted at demonstrations, including "From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab," "Settlers, settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone," and "Brick by brick, wall by wall Israel will fall." 

Condemnation of the protests, building throughout the week, poured in on Sunday following news that a campus rabbi had advised students to return to their families rather than remain on campus out of concerns for their safety. The White House, the President of Israel, and the Mayor of New York as well as other elected officials have demanded that the university do more to protect Jewish students. 

The statement by Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday similarly cited a number of specific incidents in which students had expressed support for Hamas, the jihadist group that invaded Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, taking 250 people hostage, and opening the ongoing war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians as well as more than 500 Israeli soldiers.