Columbia Antisemitism took center stage after longtime Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani sharply criticized the school’s antisemitism task force during a recent University Senate meeting. Columbia Antisemitism concerns have intensified on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack and a documented rise in anti-Jewish incidents at the Ivy League institution.
According to an unofficial transcript obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, Mamdani accused the task force of acting like law enforcement rather than representing the campus community. “It became very clear that [the task force] saw itself not as representing the community, but as a prosecutorial agency,” Mamdani said at the Dec. 12 meeting. Two attendees confirmed the remarks, and a third said the transcript matched his notes verbatim.
Mamdani compared the task force to British imperial colonizers, invoking a race-based “divide and rule” strategy. “In British divide and rule, you set up different sections of the population as independent, as autonomous, as separate constituencies,” he said, adding that such fragmentation creates “a fragmented society like grasshoppers in a bottle.”
Acting Columbia president Claire Shipman thanked Mamdani after his remarks, telling him, “If I have your permission, I will come to you for guidance,” while addressing him as “Senator.” A university spokesman later said Shipman values “listening—particularly to those with whom you disagree.”
Columbia formed the Task Force on Antisemitism in November 2023 after Jewish students reported widespread hostility, including professors labeling Jews and Israelis as “murderers” and “occupiers.” Mamdani admitted he had not read the panel’s final report but stated, “I assume that this is the end of the task force,” adding, “we’ve come to a point where hopefully this period can end.”
Mamdani also questioned why Columbia created a task force on antisemitism but not Islamophobia. A university official previously told CNN there was insufficient faculty support to form such a panel.
