One month after Columbia University’s scaled-down graduation ceremonies, most students are away from the school’s Manhattan campus. Still, news of the disparaging text messages a group of Columbia administrators exchanged amid a panel on campus anti-Semitism spread quickly among Jewish students.
For five Jewish students at Columbia, the texts were both astonishing, given their vitriol, and unsurprising, given the administration’s track record in the wake of Oct. 7. The texts, those students say, reflect an administrative indifference toward anti-Semitism that has fostered a hostile campus climate for Jewish students.
“They’re all cut from the same cloth,” said Alon Levin, a third-year Ph.D. student. “They have a fake sweetness, like, ‘Yeah, we’re listening to you and you’re so brave for coming to us, but we’re not going to do anything.'”
Levin and four other Jewish students at Columbia—as well as one recent graduate—spoke…
