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\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n The university denounced the protest and disciplined the students involved. Shortly after, activists protested against the university\u2019s response by occupying a campus building and a library, causing the disruption or cancellation of classes. At least one professor canceled a class so students could join the protest, the report said.<\/p>\n The task force also reported that university instructors singled out Jews and Israelis for \u201cpersonal scapegoating\u201d during classes, noting that the practice violated federal Department of Education guidelines.<\/p>\n An instructor told an Israeli student, \u201cYou must know a lot about settler colonialism. How do you feel about that?\u201d Another Israeli was called an occupier. An Israeli IDF veteran attended a class about the conflict, saying that the IDF was presented as an \u201carmy of murderers.\u201d The instructor pointed at the student in front of the rest of the class and said she should be considered one of the murderers, the report said.<\/p>\n A Jewish, non-Israeli student was told, \u201cIt\u2019s such a shame that your people survived in order to commit mass genocide.\u201d Other students avoided identifying as Jewish or Israeli in class.<\/p>\n During a required introductory course for more than 400 students at the Mailman School of Public Health, a teacher told students that three Jewish donors to the school were \u201claundering blood money\u201d and called Israel \u201cso-called Israel.\u201d The teacher later dismissed complaints as coming from \u201cprivileged white students.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Some instructors encouraged students during class to attend anti-Israel protests, canceled classes for the protests, moved classes off campus to use the classes as \u201cpolitical organizing sessions,\u201d and held classes in the protest encampment, where \u201cZionists\u201d were not welcome.<\/p>\n Many students told the task force that teachers issued moral condemnations of Israel in unrelated classes. An introductory astronomy class started with a discussion of the \u201cgenocide\u201d in Gaza, and in an introductory Arabic class, a teacher taught students the sentence, \u201cThe Zionist lobby is the most supportive of Joe Biden.\u201d Another instructor told her students in a class on advocacy that reports of sexual violence by Hamas were exaggerated or fabricated.<\/p>\n Graduate students told each other to \u201cteach for Palestine,\u201d regardless of subject, and anti-Zionist content was a \u201ccentral element\u201d in classes on feminism, photography, architecture, music and nonprofit management.<\/p>\n Classes on the Middle East were saturated with condemnations of Israel and included falsehoods. An instructor said Theodor Herzl was an antisemite and that Eastern European Jews were not actually Jewish.<\/p>\n Jewish and Israeli students who wanted to study the Middle East at Columbia said they were unable to because almost all classes treated Zionism and Israel as \u201cfundamentally illegitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cColumbia lacks full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist,\u201d the report said, urging the university to \u201cwork quickly to add more intellectual diversity to these offerings.\u201d<\/p>\n \t One student objected to a teacher about a course\u2019s framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an email that the student had considered private. The instructor then read the email aloud to the class, without the student\u2019s permission, arguing against the email\u2019s positions.<\/p>\n The report noted that Jews are a protected class under federal law, and that referring to Jews or Israelis as \u201cZionists\u201d does not negate discrimination against Jews.<\/p>\n The report called for safeguards in the classroom, such as preventing classroom disruptions, harassment, pressure to join protests, using stereotypes, and introducing fraught subjects into unrelated courses.<\/p>\n The task force denounced the boycotting of Israeli universities, a central demand of anti-Zionist protesters, who have urged Columbia to sever ties with Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\n Seeking to balance \u201cvitally important\u201d free speech protections, the report warned against faculty speaking out in the media and on social media to express views \u201con which they are not academic experts.\u201d The report noted that students were outraged that statements from faculty appeared to \u201ccondone (or even celebrate) terrorist atrocities, deploy antisemitic tropes, and peddle bigoted stereotypes.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20240202_untitled_06847-e1761683103953.jpg\")
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\n\t\tIllustrative: Police protect Jewish students during an anti-Israel protest outside Columbia University in New York City, February 2, 2024. (Luke Tress\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AP25141619127136-e1748042402302.jpg\")
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\n\t\tA group of pro-Palestinian protesters march away from Columbia University on May 21, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo\/Heather Khalifa)<\/p>\n