Columbia University’s New President Called House Hearings on Antisemitism as “Nonsense”

Claire Shipman, a former CNN White House correspondent who was recently appointed President of Columbia University called the 2023 Congressional hearings on antisemitism “Capitol Hill nonsense,” in text messages, the New York Post reported over the weekend.

Shipman, who previously served as co-chair of the university’s board of trustees, was officially named president on Friday night, replacing interim leader Katrina Armstrong, who had taken the position after Minouche Shafik stepped down amid violent takeovers of school grounds and threats to the safety of Jewish students by pro-Hamas protestors.

In a text message sent on Dec. 28, 2023, Shipman told then-President Shafik that she believed Columbia would avoid the “Capitol Hill nonsense.” Her comment referred to Congressional hearings held that month, during which the presidents of MIT, Harvard Universit and University of Pennsylvania testified regarding campus protests and the schools’ handling of rampant antisemitism. The university heads spoke of antisemitism in legal terms and would not, under repeated questioning, admit that calling for genocide against Jews would break college rules, saying that it would depend on the context.

The hearings led to the resignations of Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill.

Shipman’s remarks regarding the hearings were disclosed in an October report from the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The 325-page document included leaked messages between Columbia officials, revealing that the university’s leadership had expressed disdain for the investigation.

In the same text exchange, Shipman suggested lifting the suspensions of student groups that had participated in the violent protests and takeovers of school property, including groups which openly called for the destruction of Israel, such as Students for Justice in Palestine.

“I do think we should think about unsuspending the groups before semester starts to take the wind out of that,” she wrote to Shafik.

Armstrong’s resignation marked the second time in less than a year that Columbia’s leadership changed amid controversy over campus protests.

She stepped down days after conceding to the Trump administration’s demand to enforce a mask ban during campus protests as a condition for retaining $400 million in federal funding—while allegedly assuring faculty in private that she would not comply with the requirements.