TJV Editorial:  Columbia’s Reckoning Is Long Overdue — And a National Turning Point for Combating Campus Anti-Semitism

JV Editorial:  Columbia’s Reckoning Is Long Overdue — And a National Turning Point for Combating Campus Anti-Semitism

It should never have come to this — broken glass, violent takeovers of campus buildings, intimidation cloaked in slogans, and overt anti-Semitism parading as “progressive” resistance. But at long last, Columbia University has been forced to reckon with the rot that has festered on its campus for far too long. The recent suspension, expulsion, and revocation of diplomas for students who took part in the mob takeover of Hamilton Hall last April is a necessary, albeit overdue, step toward restoring a sense of order, responsibility, and moral clarity in a space that has abandoned all three.

Let’s be unequivocal: these weren’t peaceful protesters expressing dissent. They were lawless agitators — vandals who smashed property, occupied a building through coercive force, and unfurled banners calling for “intifada,” a term with unmistakably violent implications for Jews everywhere. This wasn’t civil disobedience; it was intimidation dressed in ideological pretense. And Columbia, like so many other elite institutions, stood by, paralyzed by its own ideological contradictions, until it faced the only kind of pressure that seems to move it: financial.

The university’s sudden burst of disciplinary activity was not an act of moral awakening — it was an act of self-preservation. Only after the Trump administration moved to suspend $400 million in federal funding, and made clear that further penalties were on the horizon, did Columbia begin taking even modest action. Without that intervention, there’s every reason to believe these dangerous antics would have been met with the same tepid hand-wringing and bureaucratic inertia that has typified university responses for years.

Let’s not kid ourselves: Columbia didn’t just fail to act — it enabled. For over a year, the administration allowed anti-Semitic intimidation to fester under the banner of academic freedom and political expression. Jewish students reported being harassed, marginalized, and threatened, while administrators twisted themselves into knots to avoid naming the disease that was spreading on their watch. They coddled radicals while betraying the very students whose safety and dignity they were duty-bound to protect.

This is not an isolated case — it is a national crisis. Across the country, university campuses have become sanctuaries for a brand of ideological extremism that not only tolerates anti-Semitism but masks it in the language of liberation and resistance. What was once the fringe is now institutionalized: DEI bureaucracies that embrace radical frameworks, Middle Eastern Studies departments that have become echo chambers for agitprop, and student groups that treat Zionism as a crime and Jewish identity as a provocation.

The measures now being pushed by the federal government — including a formal, enforceable definition of anti-Semitism, restrictions on face coverings meant to intimidate, and a proposed academic receivership for Columbia’s Middle Eastern Studies department — may sound bold, but they are in fact the bare minimum required to reclaim the moral and academic integrity of our campuses. If universities are going to enjoy the privilege of taxpayer funding, then they must also shoulder the responsibility of enforcing baseline standards of civil conduct and intellectual honesty.

And there is a broader shift underway — one that Columbia and other universities would be wise to acknowledge. The days of unchecked campus radicalism funded by the federal purse are coming to an end. The recent moves to slash funding for DEI bureaucracies, cap inflated “overhead” charges, and tie institutional grants to civil rights enforcement are a long-overdue correction to decades of moral drift.

Universities must choose: either recommit to the principles of pluralism, civility, and academic rigor — or continue down the path of ideological tribalism and institutional decay. The federal government, under renewed leadership, is drawing a line. And if that means the gravy train of blank-check funding slows down, so be it. Excellence and integrity are not entitlements — they must be earned.

Columbia’s response may be too late to undo the damage already done to Jewish students who were made to feel unsafe and unwelcome on their own campus. But it can — and must — serve as a turning point. Other universities are watching. And they should understand that there is no longer any tolerance for selective law enforcement, for moral cowardice, or for the perverse notion that anti-Semitism is acceptable so long as it is cloaked in the right kind of politics.

This is not merely about campus discipline. It is about reclaiming the soul of higher education — from the activists who seek to burn it down, and from the administrators who stood idly by as they lit the match.

Let Columbia’s punishment be a warning. Let accountability be contagious.