The assault on basic values of morality, human decency and peaceful resolution of geo-political conflicts that, pre-October 7, many naively believed were shared in the elite halls of American academia began while the bodies of innocent Israelis were still warm.

From the moment the attack became known, this elite cadre – at Columbia, Harvard, Penn, MIT and beyond – began to show their support for the terrorists who had perpetrated the horrors.

Their rallies were not measured or thoughtful but rather euphoric and defiant. Blame for the attack was put squarely on the Jewish state and, by extension, all Jews on and off campus.

Celebrations of the attack were accompanied by protests calling for more of the same. Slogans, recognizable to all as calls for the indiscriminate murder of Jews and the total destruction of the only Jewish state in the world – were screamed on Columbia’s campus by groups numbering in the hundreds:

Less than a month after the attack, dozens of faculty members had released a statement calling the attack a “military action” caused by Israel’s “occupation” of the Gaza Strip (from which Israel completely departed in 2005).

Jewish students were attacked and threatened. They were spat on for speaking Hebrew. Swastikas were drawn on school property.

Speaking to the Israeli news outlet Times of Israel, Andrew, a graduate student in Columbia’s architecture school, said, “I always felt comfortable and safe here. Then October 7 happened and a war broke out in Israel — and a second war broke out here in the US. It’s a war of antisemitism and public opinion, and Columbia is ground zero.” Out of concern for his safety, Andrew declined to give his last name.

Another graduate student concurred. “I know college campuses are very pro-Palestinian, but when October 7 happened, it was so gruesome and well-documented that I felt like there would be some compassion. However, it’s been very toxic and very painful,” said Ariana Pinsker-Lehrer. “It’s going to class and hearing ‘Intifada.’ For me that is my childhood trauma.”

Jewish students looking to the administration for solutions or safety were sorely disappointed. 

Columbia’s administration has done little to nothing to quell the overt support for terror and antisemitism blatantly displayed on its campus. Instead, university officials have issued platitudes decrying both antisemitism and Islamophobia (the latter of which they have failed to provide proof of).

A permanent statement, which can be found on the university’s website outlining regulations for events on campus, is so carefully worded that the ostensibly aggrieved groups are even listed alphabetically:

“Since October 7, 2023, the atmosphere on Columbia’s campus has been highly charged. Many community members—including Arab, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian students—have told University leadership that they feel unsafe on campus during this period of heightened protest activity.”

In other remarks, the administration characterized the ongoing glorification of Palestinian terror by Columbia’s student groups and the harassment of Jewish students as an “abhorrent breach of our values.”

A more accurate picture of the problem came from Columbia professor Amy Werman.

“The rhetoric is what scares … me. It’s so harsh and caustic. Who says dismembering, raping, and decapitating is a form of resistance? That’s a level of barbarism I could never imagine,” Werman said.

On October 18, 2023, Shai Davidai, a Jewish-Israeli professor at Columbia’s business school, emerged as the leading voice calling out and documenting Columbia’s lack of response to the demonization of Jews and open support for terror at the university.

In an impassioned speech on campus, Davidai excoriated the president of Columbia for refusing to speak out against the pro-Hamas student organizations at Columbia and the fact that these groups had made every Jew a target. 

Watch Professor Shai Davidai excoriate the president of Columbia University for failing to speak out against the pro-terror mob at Columbia:

On November 10, 2023, under mounting pressure from outside voices to respond to the horrendous displays of antisemitism, Columbia’s administration took the step of temporarily suspending two of the most offending campus groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. The cited offense was holding unauthorized protests on campus.

Yet, with the exception of one recent case (see below), the university has taken no action against these suspended groups, which have continued to hold “unauthorized protests” on campus.

As Davidai notes, “They [the university administrators] know who the organizers are. They know who the faculty advisers are. And they are letting them organize on campus without any consequences.” 

On November 16, 2023, administrators at Columbia Law School stood by as anti-Israel protesters took over the law school's lobby in an unauthorized demonstration. The protest disrupted classes for close to three hours and violated several school policies.

Yet, the law school said nothing about whether the demonstrators would suffer any consequences. To date, no measures have been taken and no consequences for them have followed.

On December 6, 2023, Columbia administrators appeared to look the other way when an event at Columbia’s School of Social Work, which administrators said they had canceled, was allowed to take place. As documented on X (Twitter) by Jason Greenblatt: 

Columbia has a clearly stated anti-retaliation policy. Yet on March 8, 2024, Davidai announced that the administration had “opened an investigation into me for my advocacy for the Jewish and Israeli students, faculty, and staff at the university.”

The most egregious post-October 7 display at Columbia took place on March 24, 2024, when an unauthorized event called "Resistance 101" was held for Columbia students.

The event featured Charlotte Kates and former Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) official Khaled Barakat. Kates and Barakat are the heads of Samidoun, an organization banned in Germany and Israel for its ties to terrorism and the PFLP. At the event, students heard from Kates, "There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas.”

In what can only be characterized as a recruitment event to violence, the speakers voiced their support of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (all U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations).

Another speaker at the event was Nerdeen Kiswani, the head of Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel group responsible for the disruptive protests across New York City. In 2021, a number of the group’s activists were responsible for brutal attacks on Jews in New York.

Kiswani is famously known for saying, “I hope that pop-pop is the last noise that some Zionists hear in their lifetime!”

A speaker from the group Masar Badil also participated in the event. Masar Badil put out a statement on October 7 supporting a continuance of the attack, writing, “We call on revolutionary forces and liberation movements to support the heroic Palestinian resistance.” 

Massar Badil also openly threatened the West with October 7-style massacres, saying, “The Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, affirms that the racist imperialist West that will enviably pay the price for the Zionist entity … in every city and capital and in its security and economic interests. Gaza will not remain alone, and the crimes of Western imperialism will not be subject to a statute of limitations.”

Although Columbia claims it did not sanction the “Resistance 101” event, Davidai noted that the administration knew about the event and only took action to change its location after Jewish students complained. (The event was originally scheduled to take place at Barnard College, but was moved to Columbia's "Q House," an "LGBTQ+ special interest community at Columbia University.")

Columbia SJP organizes an annual Israel Apartheid Week (now called Palestine Awareness Week). The group was the primary force in pushing an antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) resolution at Columbia which was ratified by the undergraduate student body in 2020 after a four-year effort. 

In reality, CUAD was a reconstitution of a coalition of Columbia and Barnard SJP and JVP groups formed in 2016 to pass a BDS resolution at the schools. After the resolution’s passage in 2020 (which was overturned by then Columbia President Lee Bollinger), the group was deactivated.

As in 2016, today’s CUAD leaders overlap with the leaders of SJP and JVP, while CUAD’s mission remains the same as that of these campus groups.