Columbia Administrators Exchange Crude Texts During Panel on Jewish Life on Campus

So much rot at Columbia University.

The Washington Free Beacon received text messages Columbia administrators exchanged with each other during a panel on Jewish life on campus.

That is always disturbing. It becomes even worse considering what the school allowed to happen weeks before graduation.

The text messages occurred during reunion weekend:

One, focused on Jewish life on campus, was particularly newsworthy. Student protesters who had broken into and occupied a university building during the academic year had reconstituted themselves to disrupt reunion festivities, and, as the protesters were preparing to erect a new encampment, the university held a panel discussion about the past, present, and future of Jewish life at Columbia.The event featured the former dean of Columbia Law School, David Schizer, who co-chaired the university’s task force on anti-Semitism; the executive director of Columbia’s Kraft Center for Jewish Life, Brian Cohen; the school’s dean of religious life, Ian Rottenberg; and a rising Columbia junior, Rebecca Massel, who covered the campus protests for the student newspaper.In the audience, according to two attendees, were several top members of the Columbia administration. Given the sensitivity of the subject—the eruption of anti-Semitism on campus in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel put a national spotlight on the school, and Columbia recently settled a lawsuit with a Jewish student who accused the school of fostering an unsafe learning environment—the administrators’ presence made sense.The administrators included Josef Sorett, the dean of Columbia College; Susan Chang-Kim, the vice dean and chief administrative officer of Columbia College; Cristen Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life; and Matthew Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support.

The people doubted the Jewish students felt unsafe or intimidation during the massive pro-Hamas encampment on campus:

The administrators expressed skepticism that Jewish students had experienced targeting or discrimination. As Massel, who published a news report in the Columbia Spectator about Jewish students who felt “ostracized,” was asked to dilate on “the experience of Jewish and Israeli students on campus,” Chang-Kim fired off a text to Kromm and Patashnick: “Did we really have students being kicked out of clubs for being Jewish?”

Kromm used the vomit emojis when the panel discussed an op-ed about “the normalization of Hamas” on campus.

Patashnick then accused a panelist of using the pro-Hamas crisis to raise money:

“He knows exactly what he’s doing and how to take full advantage of this moment,” Patashnick wrote to Chang-Kim and Kromm. “Huge fundraising potential.” Chang-Kim responded: “Double Urgh.”

Tags: Antisemitism, College Insurrection, Columbia University, Gaza - 2023 War, Hamas, Israel

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