‘Keep Heads Down’: Chuck Schumer Recommended Columbia Administration Not Pay Attention to Antisemitism Criticism

US Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) advised the Columbia University administration to “keep heads down” in response to criticism they faced for their handling of surging antisemitism on campus, according to a new report from the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

“Universities’ political problems are really only among Republicans,” Schumer reportedly said, suggesting Democrats did not have a problem with the way administrators were handling antisemitism on campus.

The report sparked backlash against Schumer because in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct 7. attack on Israel, in which the Palestinian terrorist group killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, anti-Israel and oftentimes pro-terrorist activism exploded on college campuses across the US. In the weeks following last Oct. 7, dozens of videos of young people tearing down posters put up to cultivate awareness about the hostages went viral. Additionally, Students for Justice in Palestine chapters across the country came out in support of the terrorist attack, framing it as legitimate resistance.

When asked, Schumer and his staff indicated they did not believe it was necessary for the university’s leaders to meet with Republicans,” the congressional report stated.

One of Columbia’s board of trustees co-chairs, David Greenwald, wrote in a message to the school’s president that “if we are keeping our head down, maybe we shouldn’t meet with Republicans.”

The more than 300-page report found “a stunning lack of accountability by university leaders for students engaging in antisemitic harassment, assault, trespass, and destruction of school property.”

In a statement to the New York Post, Schumer spokesman Angelo Roefaro said the report was not accurate.

“Sen. Schumer regularly and forcefully condemned antisemitic acts at Columbia and elsewhere, saying ‘when protests shift to antisemitism, verbal abuse, intimidation, or glorification of Oct. 7 violence against Jewish people, that crosses the line.’ He conveyed this point publicly and to administrators privately,” Roefaro said.

He added, “It’s worthy to note here that Republicans are citing words from someone who is not Chuck Schumer. That is called hearsay.”

This incident reportedly occurred a few months into the Israel-Hamas war, and before “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” began to pop up on campuses across the country during the spring, and another wave of scrutiny followed.

The Algemeiner documented dozens of statements at Columbia just within the first week of the movement that were explicitly pro-terrorist.

Some encampments had to be forcefully removed after protesters got violent, invaded school buildings, and/or resisted the police when asked to disperse.

The response by universities to all of this was lackluster, claimed the report, which concluded that there was “a stunning lack of accountability by university leaders for students engaging in antisemitic harassment, assault, trespass, and destruction of school property.”

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