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Columbia students call for response against racism

By David Freedlander, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

November 6, 2007

Student leaders at a Columbia University graduate school Monday decried the recent spate of anti-Semitic incidents on campus and called on the school's administration to respond more vigorously.

Last week, Elizabeth Midlarsky, a Holocaust scholar and professor at Teacher's College, found a large swastika spray painted on her office door. The same professor has reported finding anti-Semitic cartoons in her campus mailbox. And last month, anti-Semitic graffiti was found in a bathroom stall.

"On campus there are professors, administrators, and students in positions of power and influence to denounce such anti-Jewish expressions," said Rebecca Pasternak, a graduate student at the school. "The outcry has amounted to a whisper."

Students said anti-Semitism is rising on campus, and that the administration has failed to address it adequately.

A university spokesman did not return phone calls seeking comment.

"I think there is a lot of awareness of race on campus, and it is played up to the expense of other 'isms,'" said Michael Weinberg, 38, a doctoral student at Teacher's College. "The issue of diversity has become watered down and meaningless."

Columbia has been at the center of several controversies involving Israel and Jewish life in the past few years. In October, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a myth and said that Israel should be "wiped off the map," gave a lecture on campus, unleashing a torrent of protest. Last week, the university awarded tenure to Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropology professor who some have accused of being anti-Israel.

Midlarsky, a 17-year veteran of the faculty at Teacher's College, said that all of the attention could have precipitated the incident on her office door.

"These attacks have not occurred in a vacuum," she said.