Guests
- Marianne Hirschprofessor emerita at Columbia University.
Haley Van Erem, a former career attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, has filed a complaint claiming the Trump administration task force charged with investigating antisemitism pushed universities into massive settlements despite turning up little to no evidence of anti-Jewish discrimination on campus. Van Erem said in her complaint that the government’s probes into schools like Harvard, Brown and Columbia were “an unlawful process designed to achieve predetermined political goals.”
“Columbia affiliates, from the Board of Trustees down, have actually collaborated with the federal government in these sham investigations,” says Marianna Hirsch, professor emerita at Columbia University. “These were not probes into antisemitism accusations, but they were efforts to dismantle higher education brick by brick.” Columbia and Brown settled with the administration for $200 million and $50 million, respectively. Harvard refused to settle, and a judge threw out the case against the university.
Transcript
ANJALI KAMAT: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Anjali Kamat.
We turn now to new revelations from a former Justice Department attorney who’s filed a whistleblower complaint claiming that the Trump administration task force charged with investigating antisemitism pushed universities into massive settlements despite turning up little to no evidence of antisemitism on campus.
Haley Van Erem, a former career attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in her complaint that the government’s probes into schools like Harvard, Brown and Columbia were, quote, “an unlawful process designed to achieve predetermined political goals.”
Brown University settled for $50 million. Columbia settled for $200 million. Harvard refused to settle, and a judge threw out a case against the university.
Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has launched a probe into the whistleblower allegations. He wrote in a statement, quote, “It has been apparent that its investigations have been structured deliberately to harass and intimidate rather than protect anyone from discrimination.”
For more, we’re joined by Marianne Hirsch, professor emerita at Columbia University, whose work has focused on the transmission of memories of violence across generations. She joins us from Norwich, Vermont.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Professor Hirsch, your reaction to these revelations from this whistleblower?
MARIANNE HIRSCH: Well, thank you so much for having me.
Well, it’s what we’ve been saying all along. So, I’m so grateful for this whistleblower report. We are also grateful because it restores a sense of reality and a sense of truth and trust in human decency and in justice to expose what we’ve known all along, that these were not probes into antisemitism accusations, but they were efforts to dismantle higher education brick by brick.
So, it couldn’t have come at a better time, at the beginning of a new school year, when, as you’ve just reported in your last two segments, the genocide in Gaza, the expropriations in the West Bank are going on. And this is what our students have been protesting over since 2023. And these protests have been squashed. They’ve been silenced. Pro-Palestinian voices have been silenced, all under the guise of protecting Jews. And then, with the establishment of the antisemitism task force by the federal government, they’ve been used as a ruse and as a pretext to enact major funding cuts.
They’ve also encouraged our universities to settle to concede some of these accusations, to concede that they haven’t done enough to combat antisemitism, when that is absolutely untrue. I don’t know how they could have done more than they’ve already done, certainly at Columbia. And I feel that, certainly at Columbia, which is the university I know best, Columbia affiliates, from the Board of Trustees down, have actually collaborated with the federal government in these sham investigations.
ANJALI KAMAT: So, Professor Hirsch, what happens next? Will these universities get their money back?
MARIANNE HIRSCH: Well, I think that by the time the settlements were reached, the antisemitism accusation was no longer the major one. As far as I know, a lot of other infringements were found in order to extract the money from our universities. In fact, some of the research funding was returned, but in exchange for, at Columbia, the $200 million settlement, and then a $21 million fund to compensate Columbia affiliates who say — who claim that they’ve suffered antisemitism on campus. But there were — Columbia, when it settled, did not admit wrongdoing. So, I don’t know where that leaves the $200 million settlement. On the other hand, they did not need to admit wrongdoing, because they had already done so. I think they laid the stage for this sham investigation from the fall of 2023 on in multiple ways.
ANJALI KAMAT: And, Professor Hirsch, can you describe the impact of these investigations and this — the kind of climate of fear that it’s created on campus and the repression that students like Mahmoud Khalil have felt? You know, professors have been forced out at different universities. Talk about what you’ve experienced at Columbia.
MARIANNE HIRSCH: Well, I think Columbia is just the shell of what it was before all this started. I think there’s tremendous fear and suspicion that — across the campus. I think there are certain topics that cannot be discussed, and this is an academic community, where academic freedom is the — of which academic freedom is the cornerstone. We no longer have that. People are afraid to discuss certain topics in class for fear of being reported on by students, by fellow faculty members. And that’s happened. There have been just very similar kinds of sham investigations by the Office of Institutional Equity at Columbia against faculty who have been reported on by students for antisemitic infringement, for infringements of Title VI. So, I mean, I think there’s an atmosphere of unfreedom and of silencing.
At the same time, there have been much more dire consequences, which is that some of our students have been named and arrested and slated for deportation, in ways that I think the tactics that have been used for this are very much aligned between the university and the Trump administration. For example, if you will allow me one example, Gerald Rosberg, who was the senior executive vice president of Columbia at the time, when two student groups, pro-Palestinian student groups, were suspended in the fall of 2023, he said they had engaged in threatening rhetoric and intimidation of pro-Israeli bystanders. That was the reason that was used. Now, that was exactly the same phrase that was used against our student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested and slated for deportation, used by Marco Rubio to say that he was a threat to U.S. foreign policy. These alignments are extremely troubling, and I think there’s a lot more that we need to find out about how the revelations of the whistleblowers aligned with what happened at Columbia itself, with Columbia’s own antisemitism task force, which just recently issued its fourth report with equally unfounded, nonevidentiary findings that were predetermined, just as the ones for the Justice Department.
Now, when that happens inside the university, as well as outside, where is the trust that makes education what it’s supposed to be, a system of free inquiry, an atmosphere of trust where we can meet with each other and discuss some of the burning issues of our moment? There is — you know, it’s very, very difficult to find a space at American universities and at Columbia to discuss what’s going on in Gaza and the West Bank, according to your last two segments. And there are pockets in the university where we find these spaces, but it’s very difficult to do so openly without setting ourselves up for major harassment, and then also the Trump administration’s threats.
ANJALI KAMAT: Marianne Hirsch, professor emerita at Columbia University, thank you very much. You know, part of the $200 million settlement with Columbia included a $21 million fund, and you have, along with other Jewish faculty members, filed claims to say that your support for Palestinian rights was part of the antisemitism.
And that does it for today’s show. Happy birthday, Kouross Esmaeli! Amy Goodman will be back hosting next week. She’ll also be speaking at Middlebury College in Vermont on August 28th. Visit democracynow.org for more information. I’m Anjali Kamat. Thank you for joining us.
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