Jewish Student Files Lawsuit Against Columbia for Failing ‘to Maintain a Safe Learning Environment’
“Had Plaintiff known that Columbia would not provide an in-person educational free of harassment, Plaintiff would not have chosen to enroll at or pay tuition to Columbia.”
A Columbia University Jewish student identified as C.S. filed a class action lawsuit against the school, claiming it has done nothing to provide a safe environment.
“Plaintiff C.S. brings this lawsuit to hold Columbia accountable for failing to provide a safe educational environment for its students,” according to the lawsuit. “Plaintiff also seeks an emergency injunction, through a motion filed contemporaneously with this complaint, requiring Columbia to enforce its Statement of Ethical Conduct and Administrative Code of Conduct to provide safe and secure access to education free from harassment and discrimination so that Plaintiff and the Class members can safely complete the semester in person with the rest of the student body.”
The anti-Israel…people…have been contaminating Columbia’s campus for over a week.
C.S. provides evidence that the so-called peaceful protesters have targeted and harassed Jewish students:
Since its formation, the encampment has been the center of round the-clock harassment of Jewish students, who have been punched, shoved, spat upon, blocked from attending classes and moving freely about campus, and targeted by pro-terrorist hate speech–– both verbal and in written form on massive banners and signs––with statements such as: “Death to the Jews”; “Long live Hamas”; “Globalize the Intifada”; “there is only one solution, Intifada revolution” (invoking Hitler’s “final solution” of killing all Jews); “Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too”; “Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas’ fight”; “It is right to rebel, Al-Qassam, give them hell”; and “go back to Poland” (a not too-veiled reference to the concentration camps where Jews were mass murdered during the Holocaust).
I know you guys are smart, but just as a reminder, “Intifada” refers to attacks against Israelis from 1987 to 1993 and 2000 to 2005.
Al-Qassam is Hamas’s military wing.
The lawsuit states that people have harassed and intimidated C.S. on campus since October 7. Everything escalated after the encampment began on April 18.
C.S. calls out Columbia’s quick retreat from its DEI commitment by allowing these people to target and degrade Jews:
Indeed, despite its supposed commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, Columbia has allowed a small group of fringe demonstrators to target Jewish students and faculty with harassment, hate speech and violence for the sole reason that they are (or appear to be) Jewish. Columbia’s inaction and willingness to allow for such vile conduct is antithetical to fostering an environment of diversity, equity, and inclusion. For instance, when one of these extreme demonstrators noticed a female student approaching the encampment wearing a Star of David necklace, he proclaimed, “Attention, everyone! We have Zionists who have entered the camp!” He then ordered more than 100 protesters to lock arms and instructed, “So that we can push them out of the camp, one step forward! Another step forward!” More than 100 students marched in unison towards a lone Jewish student until she had no choice but to leave. A video emerged a few days later of the same encampment leader declaring, “Zionists6 do not deserve to live.”
This might actually be the most disturbing thing I've seen since October 7th.
Hundreds of @Columbia
drones reminiscent of the Nazi youth, chant and surround a group of Jewish students.WHERE THE HELL IS THE ADMINISTRATION?!?!?!pic.twitter.com/RRsmbmBZmq
— Yehuda Teitelbaum (@chalavyishmael) April 22, 2024
Genocidal Rhetoric from one of the @Columbia pro-Hamas encampment's leaders:
"Zionists do not deserve to live!"
You may recognize this Columbia student for leading a chant at the encampment a few days ago, shouting "Zionists have entered the encampment!"pic.twitter.com/Zrw20aKMtu
— Shelley G (@ShelleyGldschmt) April 25, 2024
I don’t know how these actions could not break a person’s heart.
Columbia President Nemat Shafik has been a coward from the start. She has pulled back the police, tried to negotiate with them, and done nothing overall.
The nothing includes reaching out to Columbia’s Jewish population:
Although Columbia publicly broadcasted that it was eager to negotiate with these individuals, it made no public nor, on information and belief, private effort to engage with the Jewish students who have been displaced. This sends a clear message about Columbia’s priorities. In fact, Columbia’s administration ultimately agreed to allow both these extreme demonstrators and the encampment to remain in place, and in a shocking twist, decided to bar the only Jewish professor speaking out on behalf of the Jewish students from entering campus, citing safety concerns.
Columbia has in no uncertain terms announced that the university is not safe for its Jewish students. But rather than clear the encampment, the administration decided to take the extraordinary step of shifting to a “hybrid” model of education for the remainder of the academic year, where students that don’t feel safe enough to attend class in person can view the class online. This absurd shift makes no attempt to solve the safety problem on campus, and at the same time, creates two very different educational experiences for Jewish and non-Jewish students. The vast majority of the student population, including these extreme demonstrators, get to attend classes in person, take tests in person, communicate with professors in person, and otherwise take advantage of the campus.
The campus is not safe for Jewish students and faculty. I imagine the people would not be friendly to the non-Jewish students and faculty who are against them.
“The Jewish students, on the other hand, get a second-class education where they are relegated to their homes to attend classes virtually, stripped of the opportunity to interact meaningfully with other students and faculty and sit for examinations with their peers,” added the plaintiffs. “This policy shift is a clear admission that the campus is not simply experiencing a protest movement, which has happened to universities across the country for decades, but instead, has become a place that is too dangerous for Columbia’s Jewish students to receive the education they were promised.”
The lawsuit also brings to light that some Jewish students had to extend the spring term into the summer because they couldn’t complete their final examinations.
C.S. tried to finish a project on April 21, but Columbia shut down the campus except for the main entrance. However, protesters blocked the main entrance. She tried to get help from Columbia’s Public Safety Department.
The department’s response?
No one could arrange a safe passage to the school for her that day.
C.S. couldn’t complete the final exam project.
“Had Plaintiff known that Columbia would not provide an in-person educational free of harassment, Plaintiff would not have chosen to enroll at or pay tuition to Columbia,” concludes the lawsuit. “As a direct, proximate, and foreseeable consequence of the foregoing breaches, Plaintiff has been damaged and continues to sustain substantial damage in amounts to be determined at trial.”
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Comments
But, but, but, anti-Zionism is not anti- Semitism!! Their own words!
It’s the deep pockets effect.
1 million dollars for every enrolled Jewish student sounds reasonable and permanent expulsion for leaders, 2 year ban for all those who participated in the demonstrations.
Yeah, those Jews are all about the Benjamin’s, right? Now tell us again how they bring it on themselves by thinking of themselves as Jews.
[D]espite its supposed commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, Columbia has allowed a small group of fringe demonstrators to target Jewish students and faculty with harassment, hate speech and violence for the sole reason that they are (or appear to be) Jewish.
DIE was never about diversity, let alone inclusion. The genocidal maniacs who run DIE offices have always used their power to discriminate against, harass, bully, and dehumanize politically unfavored groups.
The real purpose of DIE is the slippery term “equity”. To DIE proponents it means the power to pick and choose winners and losers, those who do and do not have rights, and (one day) those who will live and those who won’t.
Unfortunately I do believe the professors and and administrators who support and believe in this hate filled violent bigoted ideology are the majority… therefore the number of students who also believe and support this can no longer we considered fringe… not the majority as of yet… but in no way fringe. To believe that is to continue to remain blind as to just how extreme our universities and government had become. Over 80 percent I would guess, of people in power in our government and banks and other industries seen and unseen were spawned from these American hating hellholes. Explains a lot I think.
The head-scratching is phenomenal. Columbia’s President Minouche Shafik is an Egyptian-born Muslim.
Is it a requirement that you have to be an America hating no accomplishments female to be a Poison Ivy League president….?
You mis-spelled her name. It’s Douche Shafik. Fixed it for ya😉
FJB
This probably explains Columbia’s problem, an Affirmative Muslim dud. Minouche Shafik’s academic work should be carefully reviewed, she should be removed and promptly exported.
Baroness Nemat Shafik now goes by “Minouche” which is not any part of her actual name. Is it to cover the tracks to her spotty record as a scholar?
She is the former President of the London School of Economics, which I would have assumed to be a prestigeous resume. All the world is leftist, I guess.
College admins are clearly on the side of the extremists
Florida encouraging Jewish students to transfer to universities in their state. See around 2:00 . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImR-6UUV5ng
The “reasonable amount” should be equal to Columbia’s endowment.
Doubtless the terms and conditions include “May be changed at any time by the U, at it’s sole discretion.” Worst case, they’re obligated to “best reasonable effort” like airlines. (Much like airlines, “best reasonable effort” includes over- and under-subscribing, relief from considering obvious impacts on their ability to deliver, strategic willful incompetence, and raw stupidity. What, you expect us to keep all the parts on the airplanes?)
There’s a fraud case here for individual courses, degree programs, common professional qualifications, institutions, and the industry as a whole.