The three were “permanently removed” from their positions pending an investigation into the leaked exchange of text messages.
Three Columbia University deans have resigned after being placed on leave for engaging in what the institution alleged were “antisemitic tropes” in an exchange of text messages.
Former Columbia College Vice Dean and Chief Administrative Officer Susan Chang-Kim, former Dean of Undergraduate Student Life Cristen Kromm, and former Associate Dean for Student and Family Support Matthew Patashnick sent several messages during a May 31 panel on Jewish student life, which an anonymous attendee leaked, the Columbia Spectator reported.
The event was titled ‘Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future’ and followed weeks of student protests at Columbia and other universities across the US over Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.
At the time, University President Minouche Shafik, and University Provost Angela Olinto announced in an email that: “This incident revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.”
The three were “permanently removed” from their positions pending an investigation into the leaked exchange of text messages.
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Text Exchange Published
On July 2, Columbia’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce published the full text exchange “after requesting that the administrators voluntarily turn over the messages as part of its investigation into the University’s handling of on-campus antisemitism,” the Spectator reported.
Comments during the exchange included from Change: “Did we really have students being kicked out of clubs for being Jewish?” with the reply from Patashnik: “To my knowledge, no one was actively kicked out.”
Further into the exchange, Chang-Kim said: “This is difficult to listen to but I’m trying to keep an open mind to learn about this point of view.”
The resignations came on the same day as a deadline that the Committee had set for the University to “submit priority documents for its investigation into on-campus antisemitism,” the report said.
Columbia became a center of protests earlier this year where students set up encampments, calling for an end to Israel’s genocide and their university’s ties to the occupation state, resulting in violent arrests by police.
In May, students ripped up their diplomas, donned handcuffs, and displayed Palestinian flags during their graduation ceremony to protest the institute’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
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Over 39,000 Killed
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Tel Aviv is currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 39,677 Palestinians have been killed, and 91,645 wounded. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
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Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(PC, MEMO)
The Zionists ARE anti-Semites, by design. By the nature of their own ideologies they represent a constant threat to the Jewish people in Palestine, and everywhere else. Their whole ideology is about exploiting the Jewish people. When Jews get in trouble for protesting what’s happening in their name, that’s a problem.