BY CONCERNED FACULTY AT COLUMBIA, BARNARD, AND TEACHERS COLLEGE

We are publishing this letter at the request of several AAUP members from Columbia, Barnard, and Teachers College. The letter was drafted on May 13, 2025, in response to recent events on their campuses.

We, a group of faculty members from Columbia University, Barnard College, and Teachers College, write to express our grave concern over the militarized escalation of force and repression against students. Of particular concern is the weaponization and misuse of the charge of “antisemitism,” which has been irresponsibly and repeatedly invoked by the administrations of Columbia, Barnard, and Teachers College against student protests related to the atrocities unfolding in Gaza. This unfounded accusation has directly contributed to the physical and mental harm of our students and set the stage for their imprisonment, expulsion, and disenrollment.

We unequivocally oppose antisemitism, which we understand as hatred, prejudice, and discrimination directed categorically against Jewish people. However, we reject the IHRA definition adopted by the current U.S. government because it conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel, and/or Zionism as a political project, and has been systematically used to police political activism and suppress legitimate calls for justice, including efforts to oppose the killing and displacement of Palestinians. This definition effectively criminalizes Palestinian community members, as anti-Zionism in response to the establishment of the State of Israel has been central to their anti-colonial struggle to assert their rights to land, self-determination, and return. Criminalization of pro-Palestinian voices in this way risks making Palestinian identity a status offense on campus in ways that have historically harmed Black people and other groups. The conflations within the IHRA definition have been used by Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism to argue that Jewish students face widespread antisemitism on our campus, and are being weaponized to silence students and faculty on our campus who speak out against injustices. This definition of antisemitism is being weaponized to silence students and faculty, many of whom are Jewish and at the forefront of anti-Zionist campus activism, for speaking out against these injustices, and has fostered a hostile environment that threatens academic freedom and the right to protest.

Our students have protested what they, along with many governments, international organizations, and legal bodies, recognize as a genocide. Rather than engaging with their calls for justice, the University has chosen to criminalize their activism, turning peaceful protest into a pretext for surveillance, disciplinary action, and police violence. This response betrays the very mission of a university committed to critical inquiry and the defense of human rights.

Inaccurate and irresponsible charges of antisemitism by university leaders and law enforcement have not only criminalized students who have committed no crimes but have also severely impacted their mental and physical well-being. These accusations have had dire consequences, justifying detentions and creating a climate that encourages the deportation of our students and community members, notably Mahmoud Khalil, Ranjani Srinivasan, Yunseo Chung, and Mohsen Mahdawi. The continued reliance on these unfounded claims, often amplified by media outlets and political actors hostile to academic freedom, appears designed to appease a right-wing government that is currently withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in already-awarded research funding. This climate has chilled free expression on our campus.

Students now fear that protected political speech will be mischaracterized as hate speech, subjecting them to institutional discipline, public condemnation, and even legal jeopardy. This atmosphere of fear undermines the intellectual freedom essential to our mission as an institution of higher learning.

This repression intensified in April 2024 when the University invited the NYPD onto campus. The Department deployed its Strategic Response Group, whose record of racial bias, misconduct, and excessive force against protesters is well documented. This action established an ongoing police presence affecting the entire Harlem neighborhood. Columbia has since announced plans to hire thirty-six Public Safety officers with arrest power. The combination of inflammatory rhetoric about antisemitism and the presence of armed police has created dangerous conditions, particularly for the safety and mental health of members of regularly racially-profiled communities. During the four mass arrests on the Columbia and Barnard campuses in the past year, many students were injured, some requiring hospitalization. Most recently, one student was placed in a chokehold simply for recording the protests, and black members (and former members) of the faculty were assaulted by police outside Columbia’s gates. Yet the acting president’s public statements have ignored and erased the harm inflicted on students exercising their right to free speech, while praising the professionalism of the NYPD and Columbia Public Safety personnel officers. It is the duty of our institutions to de-escalate tensions and protect the safety and well-being of our students, not to inflame tensions and expose students to harm at the hands of law enforcement, including the NYPD and Columbia’s own Public Safety.

We are witnessing the dehumanization of our student body. The University’s actions and public statements reflect a discriminatory logic in which students who express certain political views are presumed to be antisemitic. This mirrors right-wing character assassinations of people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and those who refuse to remain silent in the face of mass civilian deaths and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Moreover, in addition to students, faculty and staff are experiencing intimidation and feel increasingly unsafe in this workplace, while faculty members across the board find their academic freedom and ability to perform their duties increasingly compromised.

The University must reverse course. Our students will not, and should not, retreat from their right to protest. The University can choose dialogue with them; can re-establish peaceful venues in which they can communicate with their peers; can treat all students with equal respect. Or it can continue down the path of escalating repression and divisiveness, through its rhetoric as much as its actions. Police violence on Columbia’s campus in 1968 was a precursor to the devastating killing of students at Kent and Jackson State universities. As educators committed to academic freedom, critical inquiry, and the defense of human rights, we refuse to stand by as our institutions abandon their core principles. We call upon our institutions to use their power to de-escalate tensions and stop brutalizing our students. Columbia University, Barnard College, and Teachers College: stop weaponizing antisemitism to police our campus and our neighborhood.