In her previous role as the co-chair of Columbia University’s board of trustees, now acting president Claire Shipman privately pushed for the school to get an “Arab on our board,” and later suggested that a Jewish trustee be removed over her pro-Israel advocacy, text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce show.
“We need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board,” Shipman said in a message sent on January 17, 2024. “Quickly I think. Somehow.”
Shipman told her colleagues a week later that Shoshana Shendelman, one of the board’s most outspoken critics of the disruptive anti-Israel protests taking place on campus, has been “extraordinarily unhelpful.”
“I just don’t think she should be on the board,” she said.
1/17/24 message (click to enlarge)
1/25/24 messages (click to enlarge)
The WhatsApp messages were included in a letter committee chair Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) sent to Shipman on Tuesday, first obtained by The Washington Free Beacon. The committee specifically asked Shipman to provide “clarifications on the attached correspondence” and said the messages “raise troubling questions regarding Columbia’s priorities just months after the October 7th attack, which was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” as well as civil rights concerns.
“Were Columbia to act on this suggestion and appoint someone to the board specifically because of their national origin, it would implicate Title VI concerns,” the letter reads.
More messages included in the letter show that during the anti-Israel encampment at Columbia last year, Shipman told vice-chair Wanda Greene not to talk to Shendelman about the school’s plans to negotiate with protesters rather than involve police, and claimed Shendelman was “fishing for information.”
“Do you believe that she is a mole?” Greene asked on April 22, 2024. “A Fox in the henhouse?”
“I do,” Shipman answered.
4/22/24 messages (click to enlarge)
The Free Beacon noted that Shendelman was one of several trustees who favored restoring order to campus by involving police. Ultimately, the school did not call police until activists “occupied a campus building—and allegedly took a janitor hostage—more than one week later, resulting in dozens of arrests,” according to the report.
Shendelman herself had to go to campus to pick up her daughters, along with several of their friends who attend the university, because they were trapped inside Butler Library by protesters and could not get back to their dorms. Shendelman explained the situation in a trustees call and her concerns were allegedly dismissed as an overreaction, a source familiar with the matter told Breitbart News. Shipman appeared to reference the incident in the messages when she said Shendelman should not be on the board: “And like driving to campus and loading people into a suv. I just don’t know.”
Shipman and Greene additionally expressed a dislike of Shendelman, a biotech executive whose family fled Iran during the Iranian revolution.
“I’m tired of her,” Green messaged.
So so tired,” Shipman replied.
4/22/24 messages (click to enlarge)
Lawmakers specifically noted the exchanges about Shendelman, and said the messages “raise the question of why you appeared to be in favor of removing one of the board’s most outspoken Jewish advocates at a time when Columbia students were facing a shocking level of fear and hostility.”
A Columbia University spokesperson told Breitbart News the messages are “now being published out of context.”
“These communications were provided to the Committee in the fall of 2024 and reflect communications from more than a year ago. They are now being published out of context and reflect a particularly difficult moment in time for the University when leaders across Columbia were intensely focused on addressing significant challenges,” the spokesperson told Breitbart News via email on Wednesday.
“This work is ongoing, and to be clear: Columbia is deeply committed to combating antisemitism and working with the federal government on this very serious issue, including our ongoing discussions to reach an agreement with the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism,” the spokesperson continued. “Acting President Claire Shipman has been vocally and visibly committed to eradicating antisemitism on campus; the work underway at the university to create a safe and welcoming environment for all community members makes that plain.”
Following the release of the letter and messages, The New York Post obtained an email that Shipman allegedly sent to “trusted groups of friends and colleagues” in which she said she “made a mistake” and “[promised] to do better.”
“Let me be clear: The things I said in a moment of frustration and stress were wrong,” Shipman reportedly wrote.
“They do not reflect how I feel… It was a moment of immense pressure, over a year and a half ago, as we navigated some deeply turbulent times. But that doesn’t change the fact that I made a mistake,” she said.
Shipman also allegedly said in the private email that she apologized directly “to the person named in my texts.”
“I have tremendous respect and appreciation for that board member, whose voice on behalf of Columbia’s Jewish community is critically important,” she wrote. “I should not have written those things, and I am sorry.”
Shendelman told Breitbart News she is “extremely disappointed” by the messages released in the committee’s letter.
“The cavalier attitude towards student safety and the casual cruelty that is captured within the texts don’t leave much to interpretation and is understandably alarming to parents of college students nationwide,” she said. “I can’t control what others do, but I will do my best to change things in a positive way for the sake of our students, our universities and our nation. I will continue to lead by example – to work hard and to do the right thing with moral clarity.”
Other messages were included in the letter, including Shipman writing to then-president Minouche Shafik in December 2023, referring to “the capital [sic] hill nonsense,” which appears to be a reference to Shafik having to appear before a House committee to testify about antisemitism on campus.
12/28/23 messages (click to enlarge)
“Your reference to ‘capital [sic] hill nonsense’ is disturbing given Congress’s role in conducting oversight to ensure universities are fulfilling their obligations to protect Jewish students,” the committee’s letter reads. “Congress’s efforts to ensure the safety and security of Jewish students—who make up almost a quarter of your campus population—is not ‘capital [sic] hill nonsense.’
Lawmakers also pointed to Shipman’s October 30, 2023, message to Shafik stating,“people are really frustrated and scared about antisemitism on our campus and they feel somehow betrayed by it. Which is not necessarily a rational feeling but it’s deep and it is quite threatening.”
10/30/23 messages (click to enlarge)
“Your description—that people feel ‘somehow’ betrayed and that this is ‘not necessarily a rational feeling,’ but that it is ‘threatening’—is perplexing, considering the violence and harassment against Jewish and Israeli students already occurring on Columbia’s campus at the time,” lawmakers wrote.
In a statement to Breitbart News, Rep. Walberg slammed Columbia University for claiming the messages have been released “out of context.”
“Two years ago, college and university administrators famously stated ‘it depends on the context’ to defend their lack of response to antisemitism on their campuses. Now, Columbia University is using this tired practice of blaming ‘context’ for their acting president’s questionable texts and emails,” Walberg said. “Americans are smarter than these institutions seem to think and can see through this overused line.”
The revelations come as Columbia continues to try to keep federal funding, after the Trump administration slashed $400 million in grants and contracts to the school in March, accusing the school of failing to act “in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” In June, the Trump administration alleged that Columbia University failed to meet accreditation standards, noting that the university is “in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws.”
Amid the ongoing battle, Shipman has agreed to some of the administration’s demands, including a mask ban and allowing campus police to arrest students remove them from campus when necessary,” The Post reported.
In a private letter, Shipman said the school is “committed to restoring our critical partnership with the federal government as quickly as possible, so that thousands of our faculty and researchers and students can get back to the essential work they do on behalf of humanity.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
Read the full article here
