IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

February 13, 2024

Contact: Avi D. Gordon, Executive Director Alums for Campus Fairness

917-512-4585, [email protected]

Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF) today announced a six-figure advocacy and awareness campaign imploring Columbia and Barnard to define and denounce antisemitism. The announcement comes immediately following the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce expanding its investigation of antisemitism in higher education to include Columbia and Barnard, along with Harvard, Penn, and MIT. The committee, which previously held a high-profile hearing that led to the resignations of two university presidents,  mentioned ACF in its letter, citing the organization’s work going back as far as 2019.

Alums for Campus Fairness Executive Director Avi D. Gordon released the following statement:

"Columbia and Barnard leaders have consistently failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitic discrimination and harassment. By refusing to take meaningful action against antisemitism and, in some cases, enabling it themselves, Columbia and Barnard leadership is complicit in creating a culture of hatred on campus."

More than 100 faculty members at Columbia, including 33 at Barnard, signed a letter defending the October 7 massacre as a “military action." More than 10% of faculty at Barnard College – a women’s college – justified atrocities, including sexual violence against women and girls, by seeking to place them “within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel." Barnard President Laura Rosenbury refused to condemn or even comment on it. Jewish and Israeli women sit in Barnard classrooms knowing full well that many of their professors would defend sexual violence committed against them, depending on the context. They also know that the president of their college wouldn’t even speak out against it.

After a trying fall semester that led the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to open an investigation, Barnard decided to open the spring term by canceling classes for a “Day of Dialogue and Reflection” with one of the country’s leading antisemites serving as the headline speaker. President Rosenbury’s invitation to Hatem Bazian, the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, is among the most egregious actions taken by any college president in the country since October 7. Bazian's organization "continues to facilitate fundraising for groups that funnel money to Hamas," according to federal court filings.

ACF will continue sounding the alarm about Columbia and Barnard until the universities apologize for hosting Hatem Bazian, adopt the internationally accepted IHRA working definition of antisemitism, enforce the student code of conduct for all, and make clear that it is not acceptable for students and faculty at Barnard or any Columbia institution to defend Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, including mass rape and sexual violence.

About ACF: Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF) leverages the unique power of alumni to combat antisemitism on college campuses. ACF helps organize and cultivate alumni chapters for colleges and universities across the country, equipping members with tools, tactics, and training to proactively engage with administrators. Learn more at www.campusfairness.org.