Top Columbia University officials conceded in private that their rules for managing student protests “don’t work,” according to new text messages released this week by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, raising questions about the school’s commitment to keeping order on campus.
The messages, sent during a May 31 panel on Jewish life, reference the cards that Columbia administrators, or “delegates,” have been handing out to protesters since last year in an effort to break up unauthorized gatherings. The cards instruct recipients to show their student IDs and notify them of possible sanctions, including a semester’s suspension, if they don’t pack up and leave.
But when a cochair of Columbia’s anti-Semitism committee, David Schizer, told the panel that he’d “like to see” this tactic used more aggressively, officials in the audience dismissed the cards as a paper tiger.
“The delegate cards don’t work,” Matthew…
