The resignation of the three Columbia University deans caught mocking the concerns of Jewish students strikes us as a promising — albeit belated — step to scrub the stain of antisemitism from Morningside Heights. These administrators, who disparaged and trivialized Jewish students speaking on a panel about antisemitism, crossed a line that warranted their removal. However, there is much more to be done before Jewish students arrive back on campus. 

That is, if the university wants to ensure that its Jewish students are not subjected to another academic year of harassment, hostility, discrimination, and threats of violence — whether from students or faculty. Antisemitism, Columbia’s Jewish Alumni Association claims, has become “a regular, defining feature of life on Columbia University’s campus,” and further —  “so too, unfortunately, is the University’s shameful denial that it exists.” 

It’s hardly the first time that accusations of antisemitism have been leveled against Columbia’s leadership, though as recently as 2020, its former president, Lee Bollinger, suggested that such accusations were “preposterous.” Odd, since he faced multiple crises in 2004, only two years after his appointment, stemming from comments from professors against Jews and the release of a documentary titled “Columbia Unbecoming.” 

This time, Columbia’s leaders denounced the texting incident as contrary to the values of the school and promised to do better. The affair, President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik said, served as “an important moment to implement changes that will build a stronger institution as a result.” With fall just around the corner, though, and no plan set up to thwart another semester of protests, are they merely hoping that the activists will voluntarily cease and desist? 

Fat chance. Columbia’s anti-Israel groups have made clear their intention to the contrary. Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of anti-Israel student organizations, pledged over the summer to “not stop” in spite of  “the trumped-up charges and other mechanisms our enemies use to beat us down,” promising their strategy will “only escalate.” Added they: “This is just the beginning.” 

Why would they not feel emboldened to set up another tent city in the fall? Justice was not served to the students and outside agitators arrested for violently occupying Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall in April, as the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, chose to dismiss a majority of the cases. Not to mention that Ms. Shafik has not pledged immediately to disband a new anti-Israel encampment should one reappear on campus. 

Appeasement seems to be the Columbia administration’s approach for dealing with supporters of Hamas. The administration in May abandoned the pageantry of the usual customary campus-wide commencement in favor of muted ceremonies at the individual schools. That development spoiled an irreplaceable moment for students and parents alike and marked a collapse of leadership on the part of the university trustees and administrators. 

While the resignations of the three deans will be welcomed by well-meaning students and faculty at Columbia, it remains a question whether the university intends to stand up for its Jewish students with anything resembling the concern it has expressed toward their violent, law-breaking peers. Until the school can prove otherwise, there is little reason to believe that the university will be able to rid the campus of antisemitism before the fall.

Columbia, of course, is not alone in facing this challenge. Harvard will be going to trial after six Jewish students who sued the school for failing to adequately address antisemitism on campus successfully beat out the university’s motion for a dismissal. On the Coast, students of UCLA are taking their school to court to ensure that the administration implements a plan to prevent the recreation of so-called “Jewish exclusionary zones” on campus.

The extent of antisemitic violence on college campuses across the country compelled the Anti-Defamation League, with the help of other prominent Jewish organizations, to set up a comprehensive set of recommendations for these schools to follow. “What Jewish students faced on campus last year cannot be allowed to continue into the new academic year,” said the head of the American Jewish Committee, Ted Deutch. Will the colleges do what it takes?