"The Classroom Experience at Columbia," the final report from Columbia's Task Force on Antisemitism, details the day-to-day lives of Jewish and Israeli students who face discrimination on campus due to their race or religion.
The task force was created in late 2023 in response to the rise in antisemitic incidents and concerns on campus following Hamas' October 7, 2023, terror attack that left more than 1,000 Israelis dead.
Extensive anti-Israel protests broke out on campus, isolating Jewish students and resulting in gaps in academic offerings on Middle East issues. The turmoil and criticism also led former President Minouche Shafik to resign in August 2024. Interim President Katrina A. Armstrong did likewise in March 2025.
"Going forward, the university will continue to work on implementing the recommendations of the task force and addressing antisemitism on our campus, guided by the Office of the President," Acting President Claire Shipman stated in a comment provided to The College Fix via email last week.
But Jake Donnelly, educator at Club Z, finds the report – and the university's response – "underwhelming."
"It doesn't seem like really anything concrete has been done, [but] the report itself kind of congratulates itself for what it did," he tells AFN.
Professors are reportedly "scapegoating" Jewish and Israeli students in class with comments like, "You must know a lot about settler colonialism" and descriptions of the Israel Defense Forces as "an army of murderers."
Students are still being "harassed," classes are still getting interrupted, and the students' civil rights are routinely violated, so Donnelly does not see much progress from the university.
He observes that Jewish, Israelis, or Zionists who want to go to Columbia "should expect that you are going to be harassed for your perspective and for your beliefs and for your nation of origin."
Meanwhile, that is a civil rights violation under Title VI.
