A new development is coming to light which shows just how deep the rot is at Columbia University. Prior to assuming the role of acting president at the school, Claire Shipman allegedly felt that they needed to replace a Jewish board member with someone of Arab descent.
She apparently saw this as an urgent matter.
From the Washington Free Beacon:
Columbia President Claire Shipman Privately Said School Needed To Add an ‘Arab’ Board Member—and Remove a Jewish OneBefore she became the acting president of Columbia University, Claire Shipman argued that the school needed to get an “Arab on our board” and suggested that a Jewish trustee should be removed over her pro-Israel advocacy, according to text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce.”We need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board,” Shipman, then the co-chair of Columbia’s board of trustees, wrote in a message on January 17, 2024. “Quickly I think. Somehow.”A week later, Shipman told a colleague that Shoshana Shendelman, one of the board’s most outspoken critics of campus anti-Semitism, had been “extraordinarily unhelpful,” adding, “I just don’t think she should be on the board.”The messages were included in a letter sent to Columbia on Tuesday by committee chair Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., NY). Addressing Shipman by name, the committee requested “clarifications on the attached correspondence,” arguing that it appeared to downplay anti-Semitism on Columbia’s campus and could even violate civil rights law.The remark about needing an Arab board member “raises troubling questions regarding Columbia’s priorities just months after the October 7th attack, which was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” they wrote. “Were Columbia to … appoint someone to the board specifically because of their national origin, it would implicate TItle VI concerns.”
And that’s not the end of the bad news for Columbia.
CBS News reports:
Columbia University formally notified its accreditation “may be in jeopardy.” Read the letter.Columbia University was formally notified Monday that its accreditation is at risk.A letter from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education to Columbia Acting President Claire Shipman serves to “warn the institution that its accreditation may be in jeopardy” because of “insufficient evidence that the institution is currently in compliance” with MSCHE’s standards on ethics and integrity.This comes on the heels of the Education Department claiming the university had violated antidiscrimination laws, citing antisemitism on campus after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.The school remains accredited while it is “on warning.”
Just two years ago, before the October 7th attacks, it would have been hard to imagine where we find ourselves now. The problems in American higher education are far worse than anyone suspected.
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