Claire Shipman, acting president of Columbia University, has apologised after it emerged that she called for the removal of a Jewish member of the institution’s board.
A cache of emails, published by the House Committee on Education and Workforce, showed that Shipman said of Shoshana Shendelman: “I just don’t think she should be on the board.”
They also revealed that she agreed with another board member’s characterisation of Shendelman, whom the committee called one of Columbia’s “most outspoken Jewish advocates”, as a “mole” and a “fox in the henhouse”.
In addition to the messages about removing Shendelman, Shipman called for the appointment of an Arab or Middle Eastern board member and described the congressional investigations into Jew-hatred on college campuses as “Capitol Hill nonsense”.
And, in October 2023, she wrote to Minouche Shafik, then-president of Columbia, saying that “people are really frustrated and scared about antisemitism on our campus and they feel somehow betrayed by it, which is not necessarily a rational feeling, but it’s deep, and it is quite threatening”.
Following the publication of the emails, Shipman said: “The things I said in a moment of frustration and stress were wrong. They do not reflect how I feel.
"I should not have written those things, and I am sorry.
"It was a moment of immense pressure, over a year and a half ago, as we navigated some deeply turbulent times. But that doesn’t change the fact that I made a mistake.”
However, the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association has called for Shipman to resign over the comments.
Ari Shrage, the association’s co-founder, told JNS: “[These remarks] cannot be explained by taken out of context.
“Her lack of empathy and disregard for a board member concerned with student safety, as well as deliberate isolation and a suspicion of withholding of information from a board member, make her not fit to serve in the office of president of Columbia University.
"We believe that the interim president should step down immediately.”
Columbia is one of several institutions to have been investigated by the Education Department over allegations of antisemitism on campus, particularly focussing on the wave of pro-Palestine demonstrations that swept US higher education last year.
A number of former students have had their degrees revoked, while some of the participants in a building occupation protest have been expelled.
