Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently started a position at Columbia University despite the controversies surrounding the Ivy League school's response to antisemitic incidents on campus and at affiliate schools.
On March 1, Pompeo began a yearlong position as a fellow at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs’ Institute of Global Politics. He stated that he expects to be active on campus two or three times a month and looks forward to teaching young people and attending events.
He told the New York Post, "We’re still working on precisely what the role is going to be and how we’re going to shape it."
The Post asked Pompeo about his decision to accept the position while another former member of the executive branch, former US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt, decided not to accept a position at Columbia due to the school's failures to confront the wave of antisemitism on campus.
Pompeo responded that Lipstadt "said there were three things. She didn’t want to serve as a prop or fig leaf. She didn’t think that security would be adequate. And then she didn’t think she could make a difference. And I just disagree with all three of those."
“It’s not that I don’t see the shortcomings of Columbia the institution and how it was unsuccessful with maintaining appropriate order over the last year-and-a-half or two. I see that, and to think I’m going to show up and change it all is not my mission set. My mission set is to make sure that a set of voices that are different from large segments of the faculty here are actually on campus and the students get a chance to hear them and to form their own judgments and to ask their own hard questions of me and then of the other faculty members,” he said.
Pompeo acknowledged that Columbia has been "unsuccessful" at combatting antisemitism, but, "My mission set is to make sure that a set of voices that are different from large segments of the faculty here are actually on campus and the students get a chance to hear them and to form their own judgments and to ask their own hard questions of me and then of the other faculty members.”
He praised the recent move by the Trump Administration to hold Columbia accountable by withholding $400 million in federal grants from the Ivy League institution, saying that it was a proper way to leverage taxpayer dollars to compel Columbia to fulfill its responsibilities to Jewish students and faculty.
In her article in the Free Press, Deborah Lipstadt wrote, "Over the past two years, universities have been overwhelmingly weak in their response to those clearly breaking university rules and even the law."
The final straw came late last month, when anti-Israel activists at Barnard College, affiliated with Columbia University, stormed a campus building. A university employee was assaulted by these anti-Israel activists and had to be hospitalized.
The university's response was to attempt to appease the violent and hateful activists. "The same administration that had expelled two students a few days earlier engaged in multi-hour, drawn-out negotiations," Lipstadt said. "Consequences? None."
"Watching Barnard capitulate to mob violence and fail to enforce its own rules and regulations led me to conclude that I could not go to Columbia University, even for a single semester," she declared, adding that she would not "be used to provide cover for a completely unacceptable situation."
Moreover, Lipstadt is not "sure that I would be safe or even able to teach without being harassed" at Columbia in the current climate.
The Trump Administration announced on Friday it is revoking $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University, citing civil rights complaints from Jewish students over antisemitism on campus.
A federal task force made up of multiple agencies stated that this decision marks the first step in holding universities accountable for their alleged failure to protect Jewish students. Officials warned that more actions could follow. Columbia currently holds over $5 billion in federal grant commitments, according to the agencies.
“Since October 7, Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment on their campuses – only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, as quoted by Bloomberg.
On Sunday, it was reported that federal immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian Arab graduate student who played a key role in last year’s anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. The arrest, which took place at Khalil’s university-owned residence near Columbia’s Manhattan campus, comes as part of a broader effort by the US administration to revoke legal status from foreign nationals who engaged in campus demonstrations against Israel.