Columbia University is making headlines again. Last we’d heard, Columbia settled with the Trump administration late last July, promising to redress its campus Jew-hatred problem. Six months on, what’s changed?
To assess, let’s consider three recent news items. First, The Washington Free Beacon reported on a December 2025 court filing regarding Khymani James, the undergraduate encampment leader Columbia suspended in April 2024 for saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Columbia denied James’ “request to re-enroll at Columbia University for the Fall 2025 semester,” but he’s eligible to “reapply to return for the Fall 2026 semester.” Apparently, James’ threatening speech isn’t a permanent deal breaker.
Next, The Free Press covered Columbia’s announcement that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had approved the university parting ways with Bart Schwartz, the veteran compliance consultant who had been tasked with overseeing Columbia’s adherence to the agreement, which included a $200 million fine that Columbia agreed to pay over three years as well as a $21 million settlement” for allegedly violating Jewish employees’ rights. Columbia claimed “‘administrative and logistical reasons’” drove the change, but The Free Press alleged that “six people familiar with the university and monitorship say Columbia withheld information Schwartz needed to conduct a proper analysis of the university.”
Columbia “appears to be withholding information from the independent monitor and complaining about the cost of compliance,” Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at The Lawfare Project, told me. “Worse, it seems to have hoodwinked the DOJ into agreeing to simply replace the monitor rather than address the non-compliance. Complaining about oversight expenses after years of failure to protect Jewish students smacks of the same institutional arrogance and misconduct that led to the deprivation of rights of so many Jewish students.”
That would make changing the monitor a big step backward for Columbia’s Jewish students and staff at a pivotal moment, as last week’s third big Columbia story was the university’s appointing its fourth president in two years. According to JTA, “At least two other candidates reportedly declined,” before Columbia selected Jennifer Mnookin, who has been the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s chancellor since 2022, where she had to handle her own post-October 7 fallout.
“At Wisconsin, [Mnookin] first sent law enforcement to shut down a student encampment, then negotiated with protesters after they established a second one.” Students for Justice in Palestine had to follow campus protest rules in order “to present their divestment demands to ‘decision makers,’ who did not accede to them.”
Given Columbia’s campus turmoil following October 7 and its federal agreement, it’s worth asking how this hire will affect Jews. Can, and will, Mnookin, who is Jewish, improve the campus climate for everyone, including Columbia’s Jews?
UCLA Computer Science Professor Judea Pearl told me he met Mnookin “several times” during her time at UCLA School of Law (predating Wisconsin). Pearl called Mnookin “clear-minded and open to new ideas” and considered her a “good choice” with “the soul and substrate to lead Columbia out of its current mess.”
By contrast, Shai Davidai, a Zionist activist, former Columbia professor and host of the podcast Here I Am with Shai Davidai told me, “I truly believe in giving everyone 100 days of grace, so I can’t comment on the new president. But I will say this: Columbia is trying to play both sides and refuses to deal with the systemic issues it has. Even as it hired a new Jewish president and announced to much fanfare the hiring of the father of a former hostage [as a visiting professor], the Middle East department is interviewing a list of biased, anti-Israel candidates to replace Rashid Khalidi as the Edward Said Chair. The problems highlighted in the last two years – indoctrination, anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, and anti-American hatred, and complete disregard for thought and ideological diversity – are alive and well at Columbia.”
Finally, Filitti is concerned about Mnookin’s “commitment to upholding the civil rights of Jewish students,” observing that “Jennifer Mnookin’s leadership record at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been unimpressive at best; the Department of Education opened a Title VI [civil rights] investigation after numerous unresolved complaints highlighting the school’s failure to meet its legal obligations to protect Jewish students.”
Columbia has repeatedly disappointed. But within 100 days of Mnookin’s start, it should be clear whether she’s a Jewish role model or someone Columbia’s Board of Trustees picked to protect the broken status quo.
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