On college campuses across the United States, Jewish Americans are at risk.
Most alarmingly, in-person classes at Columbia University have been cancelled
today—on the Jewish holiday of Passover—in response to a dayslong, illegal
pro-Hamas demonstration. You must immediately mobilize the National Guard and
any other authorities necessary to ensure the safety of Jewish American students
and citizens.
Over the past several days, a coordinated, anti-Israel action has erupted at
Columbia. Demonstrators have illegally established a “Gaza Solidarity
Encampment” on the university’s campus and engaged in shocking displays of
antisemitism—assaults on Jewish students, the theft and attempted burning of an
Israeli flag, and violent, genocidal rhetoric such as “Never forget the 7th of
October. That will happen not 1 more time, not 5 more times, not 10 more times,
not 100 more times, not 1,000 more times, but 10,000 times.”
Campus police and local law enforcement have failed to secure the campus. On
Sunday, Rabbi Elie Buechler, the Director of the university’s Orthodox
Union-Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, stated that these authorities
“cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety” and recommended that Jewish students
“return home as soon as possible.” And today, on Passover, Columbia University
President Minouche Shafik cancelled in-person classes, citing “too many examples
of intimidating and harassing behavior on our campus.”
In your
statement on Passover, you stated that “in recent days, we’ve seen
harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant Antisemitism is
reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college
campuses, or anywhere in our country.” Now, you must take action to match those
words.
In 1957, pursuant to Executive Order 10730, President Dwight Eisenhower
deployed the National Guard and 101st Airborne Division to ensure the safety of
black students attending Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. I urge you to
similarly mobilize the National Guard and other necessary authorities to protect
Jewish American students on Columbia University’s campus, and any other campus
where Jewish students are at risk. “Never again” means never again.
Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.
