The adoption of a new definition of anti -Semitism by the University of Columbia (New York) seems to bring the agreement with the US government to recover 400 million dollars of federal funds for research programs for its response to the alleged messages of anti -Semitic hatred on the campus.
After months of struggle to recover financing, vital for the maintenance of research programs, especially doctors, Columbia has adopted, according to local media, a new set of policies that include rejecting any dialogue with the coalition of protesters that mounted tents in its main campus in the spring of 2024. The university has also agreed to adopt a definition of anti -mitism that establishes that criticism of Israel discriminates Jews
The announcement, made late on Tuesday, occurs in the midst of incessant rumors that Columbia is about to reach an agreement with the federal government, although the acting rector, Claire Shipman, has pointed out that any possible agreement is only “a starting point for change” and not a claudication of the university, as he did in March to gain the forgiveness of the White House.
Shipman is the third rector who takes the reins of Columbia since the mobilization in the Campus against the Gaza War put the academic authorities against the strings for the pressure of Jewish donors, students and teachers. To this pressure has especially added the offensive of the Republican Administration, which has triggered the excessively liberal universities of the country. Columbia and have still been his favorite whites ,.
“The fact that we have faced does not make the problems of our campus less real,” Shipman wrote in a message addressed to the Columbia community and entitled “Our additional commitments to combat anti -Semitism.”
Under Shipman’s announcement, the university will not recognize or negotiate with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (Cuad, in its English acronym), the main animator of protests; its allied student representatives or groups. It is a measure similar to that adopted by Barnard College, one of its faculties, in recent weeks. Linked to Cuad was in the government offensive against critical voices with Israel on campus, which – including the request for deportation of the government – continues.
In the spring of 2024, Cuadente encouraged the massive camping that occupied the main campus, and his representatives met with those responsible for the university, who demanded that they dismantle the tents. The failure of the dialogue pushed the administration of Columbia to request the intervention of the police to evict the camping, which made twice, in addition to a building occupied by the protesters.
“Organizations that promote violence or disturb our academic mission are not welcome on our campus and the university will not relate to them,” writes Shipman in his letter to students and teachers.
The letter also explains that the revised interpretation of anti -Semitism that Columbia has adopted is based on the definition of anti -Semitism by the International Alliance for Holocaust memory (IHRA, in its English acronym). Universities increasingly use this framework to respond to protests on campus, something that many supporters of Israel welcome with satisfaction, when they do not demand, but that protesters criticize for attacking against freedom of expression.
The adoption of this official definition was one of the previous requirements of the Trump administration to resume negotiations on the resumption of federal financing. Columbia had previously refrained from fully adopting this approach in open disciplinary cases, although, such as the prohibition of masks in protests, the hiring of security agents empowered to stop students and the supervision of sensitive departments such as studies of the Middle East.
