This jarring example is just one among many cited in the recently released fourth and final report by the university’s task force on antisemitism, which outlined numerous heinous instances where rogue professors turned classrooms into their personal anti-Israel soapboxes.
“The shocking examples given in the report are a harsh reminder of how deep and pervasive antisemitism is at Columbia,” Columbia graduate and co-founder of the Jewish Alumni Association Ari Shrage told The Post.
“Few, if any, of the professors have been held accountable and the vast majority are teaching today. Tenure is not a free pass to violate student’s civil rights and real change will only come through accountability. Columbia clearly has a lot of work to do.”
Many of the antisemitic or anti-Israel incidents were previously revealed, but the new report offered more in-depth details of the the harassment against Columbia’s Jewish community.
None of the perpetrators were named in the report.
In the case of the public health profession, the Mailman School of Public Health did not renew his contract. He later told the Wall Street Journal that students who complained were “privileged, white students” ignorant of how they’ve been the beneficiaries of a “system of white supremacy.”
The task force report — publication of which followed Columbia receiving an “F” grade in StopAntisemitism’s 2025 report card — strongly condemned instances where an instructor had “singled out” Jewish or Israeli students for “scapegoating,” of which there were multiple instances highlighted.
One such example included an Israeli student who served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and was attending a class that included in-depth discussions of the current conflict with Hamas.
The student said when the IDF came up in class, it was cast as an “army of murderers,” and that the professor pointed their finger directly at her in front of the entire class and said “since she had a combat role in the IDF, she should be considered as one of the murderers,” the report stated.
These occasions, though rare, according to school officials, illustrate the importance of new policies and procedures that have emerged in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack in Israel.
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“Our faculty handbook is very clear that you need to stick to your subject matter, and these examples illustrate why that makes sense,” David Schizer, Dean Emeritus of Columbia Law, and co-chair of the university’s task force on antisemitism told The Post.
“So I don’t think this was a general phenomenon happening in every classroom, but it did happen too often,” he conceded.
Some of the instances highlighted by the report showed an abject lack of respect for students’ private communications with teachers.
One student who emailed a professor to voice their objection to how the Middle East conflict was being presented endured the humiliation of the teacher reading the personal email out loud, giving a line-by-line refutation in front of the entire class.
“Academics are given a lot of discretion in the way they run their classes, and generally that’s appropriate, but it’s important to remind faculty members that academic freedom is not a license to harass or to discriminate,” Schizer said.
“It doesn’t mean that you can do whatever you want.”