A House committee released data this week depicting what its Republican chairwoman called a failure by Columbia University to properly discipline students involved in antisemitic unrest earlier this year, as panel members called out the “blatant inaction.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, who heads up the House Education and Workforce Committee, and panel member Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., separately called the New York City college’s leaders spineless and accused them of giving dangerous behavior a free pass.
“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” Foxx said in a statement.
Foxx noted that in the approximately four months since the “takeover of Hamilton Hall,” the majority of students involved remain in good academic standing.
IRANIAN-AMERICAN LAWYER WHOSE RESPONSE TO ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS WENT VIRAL PREDICTS NEW WORLD WAR
Anti-Israel students at Columbia University set up a campsite on the school’s West Lawn, where they placed tents and demanded administrators divest from Israel and take other steps in support of Hamas’ war on the country. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
In remarks to Fox News Digital, Foxx added that Columbia’s actions therefore “only encourages more of the chaos.”
“You can’t leave bad behavior unpunished and then expect good behavior instead. Columbia’s refusal to hold student perpetrators accountable … puts Jewish students, faculty, and staff at risk as they head back to campus,” she said.
Bean added the school made clear via the statistics in the committee’s report that “pro-terrorist students can break the rules and get off scot-free.”
“The university’s failure to hold these students accountable for spewing hatred against the Jewish community and brutalizing Jewish students is unacceptable,” he said.
Bean blasted the school’s leadership, saying that by doing little or nothing to punish the students,…