House Committee Drops Subpoena on Columbia as Part of Anti-Semitism Probe

Request could shed light on university’s decision to ease off on discipline for arrested students

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued a subpoena to Columbia University on Wednesday after the school failed to turn over documents regarding the administration’s response to anti-Semitism.

The subpoena, delivered to Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong, requires the university to produce all messages exchanged between top administrators—including former Columbia president Minouche Shafik—about anti-Semitism on campus, as well as meeting minutes from the university’s board of trustees. It comes in the wake of a months-long back and forth over what documents fall within the scope of the committee’s requests, which are part of the committee’s ongoing probe into Columbia’s treatment of its Jewish students.

“University administrators have slow rolled the investigation, repeatedly failing to turn over necessary documents,” Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the chair of the House committee, said in a press release. “The goal of this investigation has always been to protect Jewish students and faculty, and if compulsory measures are necessary to obtain the documents the Committee requires, so be it.”

The university has until September 4 to comply with the subpoena.

“Columbia is committed to combating anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination,” a university spokesman said. “We have provided thousands of documents over the past seven months in response to the committee’s dozens of ongoing requests, and we remain committed to cooperating with the committee.”

The subpoena, which covers communications related to disciplinary cases, could shed light on how Columbia decided to let the students arrested for occupying a campus building in April return to campus this Fall, after promising at the time of the incident that the perpetrators would “face expulsion.”

Just 4 of the 22 students who took over Hamilton Hall have faced any kind of discipline. The rest remain in good standing with the university and have not yet concluded their disciplinary hearings, in part because Columbia’s faculty senate, which has a say in disciplinary matters, objected to administrators’ efforts to expedite the process.

Faculty activism also played a role in the resignation of Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s former president, who lost a vote of no confidence in May after she directed New York City police to clear Hamilton Hall.

Columbia is the second Ivy League school to be hit with a congressional subpoena over its response to anti-Semitism. In February the committee served subpoenas to top Harvard officials, including the head of the Harvard Corporation Penny Pritzker, after they refused to satisfy its requests.