Columbia’s new prez called Congress hearings on antisemitism ‘Capitol Hill nonsense’

In a Dec. 28, 2023, text message, Shipman wrote to then university president Minouche Shafik she thought Columbia would be spared from the “capital hill nonsense,” referring to December 2023 Congressional hearings that saw the presidents of Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania and MIT testify about campus protests against the war in Gaza. 3 Shipman, a graduate of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, joined the university’s board of trustees in 2013 and became co-chair in 2023. The tense hearings famously resulted in Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill resigning after they were grilled on whether calling for the killing of Jews would violate their school’s bullying and harassment policies — and answered that it depended on the context.

Author: Gabrielle Fahmy

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