Columbia University announced on July 23 that it had accepted an unprecedented “deal” with the federal government to settle claims brought by the Trump administration that it had discriminated against Jewish students. While the settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing by the university, Columbia has agreed to meet a wide range of demands, which include paying more than $200 million to the federal government, new restrictions on demonstrations, new disciplinary procedures, and the approval of public safety officers with the power to arrest people on campus. Columbia also agreed to take on unprecedented university oversight of the Middle Eastern Studies Department, including reviewing its curriculum, and to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism into its anti-discrimination policy, expanding the university’s ability to punish students and faculty who criticize Israel and Zionism.
The $200 million payout was made public one day after Columbia punished nearly 80 students for protesting in support of Palestine, the majority of whom were expelled or suspended for two years. In response to these actions, Jewish Voice for Peace stated, “This is the latest in a series of recent moves by Columbia University that flagrantly — and falsely — invoke Jewish safety in an effort to appease authoritarian forces.”
While Columbia has repeatedly shown itself willing to punish its students, suppress speech, and side with a repressive federal government, these latest actions are the most sweeping, and in essence hand over the keys to the university to an increasingly authoritarian executive.
Columbia’s actions come at a time in which Israel has manufactured mass starvation in Gaza. At least 115 Palestinians have died by starvation due to Israel’s siege of Gaza and near-total blockade of humanitarian aid. In addition, more than 1,050 Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks trying to access food from the militarized Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. These brutal killings of people desperate for food are part of Israel’s more than 22-month military assault on Gaza, in which nearly 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 17,000 children.
The federal government has used protests over Israel’s nearly two-year genocide of Palestinians in Gaza as an excuse to weaponize claims of antisemitism, all in a bid to pressure universities across the country to capitulate to its demands. It’s worth noting that this is a federal government with more ties to actual antisemitic extremists than any in recent history, and that this same government has been using authoritarian tactics to punish and extract ideological concessions from a wide range of institutions.
While all of Columbia’s actions this week are troubling, its adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism is of particular concern because it is the most likely to be taken up at campuses across the U.S., and perhaps least likely to receive the kind of attention we have seen since Columbia’s deal was announced. The IHRA definition has faced considerable criticism since its inception and growing adoption for equating varying critiques of Israel as forms of antisemitism. Of the 11 examples of antisemitism included in the definition, seven are related to Israel. A wide range of scholars and activists, including me, argue that this definition weaponizes antisemitism, misusing it to repress legitimate debate about and critiques of the state of Israel and Zionism.
Like those who celebrated Columbia’s “deal,” advocates of the IHRA definition say it is necessary for Jewish safety. Yet, in practice, that definition is being used as a political instrument to suppress speech, punish those who support Palestinian human rights, and as one of many tools to attack and dismantle higher education. Columbia’s adoption of IHRA not only threatens what can be studied, debated, and fought for on its campus; it is yet another canary in the coal mine when it comes to the future of free speech and activism on campuses across the country.
Maligning Calls for Justice Undermines Safety for All
If you have been on a college campus in the U.S. since October 7, it’s likely that you experienced, witnessed, or were indirectly impacted by the chilling effects of the Palestine exception to free speech, a term used to describe the pattern of suppression, punishment, and censorship related to speech in support for Palestine that would should be protected by the First Amendment. While the Palestine exception existed long before October 7, repression of Palestinian advocacy reached a fever pitch and was met with unprecedented state violence in the spring of 2024.
On April 17, 2024, students at Columbia launched the first encampment in support of Palestine demanding the university divest from companies with ties to Israel, igniting student activism across the U.S. and globally leading to more than 120 other encampments. The students were drawing on the campus’ rich history of student activism, from the 1968 protests against the war in Vietnam to the 1985 protests against apartheid in South Africa. Like their peers of the past, students at Columbia played an important role in raising consciousness about the genocide in Palestine.
Now, the adoption of the IHRA framework threatens to codify these protests as categorically antisemitic, further cementing the Palestine exception, and giving even greater power to university administrators to crack down on students and social movements. This new anti-discrimination policy allows administrators to falsely and formally label those supporting Palestine as antisemites, increasing the chilling effect of the Palestine exception by expanding the material consequences for anyone daring to speak out, including more frequent suspensions and expulsions, and defaming students and faculty as to frighten or at least to raise questions from peers and any future employers.
The institutional chilling of speech on Palestine has already undermined the ability of many universities to respond to the Trump administration’s attacks, including its sweeping assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion, university governance, and the targeting and of immigrant students for deportation. This silence not only creates a climate of repression for anyone speaking up against genocide; those who focus on Palestine specifically – often who themselves are Palestinian – are left even more vulnerable to punishment. Notably, the lead drafter of the definition, Kenneth Stern, insisted that it wasn’t intended to stifle free speech, rather it was created to support governments in collecting data. Nor does he agree that antizionism should be equated with antisemitism.
Importantly, the IHRA definition limits the ability of universities to actually address antisemitism on their campuses. This is because IHRA framework positions Jewish safety as necessarily in conflict with the safety of other minoritized groups, Palestinians in particular. The Diaspora Alliance writes that repressive forces “claim to protect Jews while dangerously endorsing an antagonism between the human rights and safety of Jewish people, on the one hand, and the human rights and safety of other minoritized groups, on the other.”
While scholars have debated the utility of definitions in addressing all forms of racism, including against Jews, there are other definitions and frameworks for developing a shared understanding of antisemitism. These include the Jerusalem Declaration, which has been the subject of some critique itself, the Oxford English Dictionary Definition, and the Diaspora Alliance’s explainer on antisemitism, each of which in varying degrees open more possibilities for solidarity, and shared struggle for collective safety. There are so many actions universities can take to address antisemitism; but adopting the IHRA definition is not one of them, and instead interrupts movement toward solidarity while handing over more power to authoritarians.
A Green Light for Authoritarianism
Columbia became the second university this year to adopt the IHRA framework, following Harvard, which adopted the definition in January. While the IHRA’s usage has been debated on campuses across the U.S., its adoption at Columbia and Harvard are significant because of the IHRA’s incorporation into anti-discrimination policy, and the circumstances under which they occurred. Both campuses have faced attacks from the federal government since the spring of 2024 under the pretense of their alleged failure to address antisemitism. The attacks only increased following the election of Donald Trump, who leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding in an attempt to force universities to capitulate to his demands.
Columbia caved to the pressure early on. But while Harvard is notably fighting the Trump administration’s withdrawal of federal funds in court, they nonetheless adopted the IHRA definition as part of the settlement agreements of separate lawsuits. Both universities have also begun partnerships with the Anti-Defamation League, a fervent supporter of Israel, Zionism and the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The organization has played a significant role in attempts to repress speech and activism for Palestinian human rights, including on college campuses.
Historian and McCarthyism scholar Ellen Schrecker argues that the repression of today is much worse than that of the McCarthyist period because it “the repression that’s coming out of Washington, D.C., attacks everything that happens on American campuses.” During the McCarthy era, roughly 100 professors were targeted for being affiliated with the Communist Party or even having progressive political leanings. Today, faculty and staff have been targeted and fired for supporting Palestine, and students have been abducted by ICE, threatened with deportation, arrested, suspended, and expelled from their campuses for their expressed beliefs. Notably, universities are not alone in their increasing capitulation to the federal government, as prominent law firms, news outlets, and social media organizations have also caved in to the administration.
The attempts to limit debate and critique of Israel and of Zionism alone warrant alarm, and in the context of an ongoing genocide, should be understood as complicity. But the willingness of institutions to bend and manipulate the definition of antisemitism has even more far-reaching implications. By turning discrimination on its head to protect only certain political identities, these institutions are giving a green light to an authoritarian executive to set the limits of political debate and inquiry.
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