Columbia's president managed to avoid the missteps of other elite colleges in heated congressional grilling

• Columbia University's president took a much stronger stance against antisemitism than her peers did. 
• She told Congress Wednesday that calling for a Jewish genocide would violate Columbia policies.  
• The presidents of MIT, Harvard, and UPenn wavered when asked the same question.

In her testimony to Congress on Wednesday, Columbia University's president avoided making the same viral mistakes her fellow college presidents did during their hearings last year.

Nemat "Minouche" Shafik, Columbia's president, appeared before the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Wednesday. Republican members of the Committee, including New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, have harshly criticized elite US colleges, accusing their leaders of failing to protect students against antisemitic hate speech.

Shafik was called to Congress to discuss her school's response to antisemitism on campus following Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent war in Gaza. The presidents of UPenn, Harvard, and MIT had testified before Congress back in December for the same reason.

But there was a big difference between what those presidents said at their hearing and what Shafik said at hers. During her four-hour testimony, which was largely devoid of headline-grabbing moments, Shafik took a much stronger stance against antisemitism than her peers did.

When asked if students calling for the genocide of Jewish people would violate Columbia's rules, Shafik and three other Columbia leaders testifying with her all said yes, it would. Shafik added that any student who called for a Jewish genocide would be punished.

The presidents of MIT, Harvard, and UPenn, in contrast, waffled when asked the same question during a five-hour-long session in December — and two of them suffered the consequences.

Harvard President Claudine Gay answered with, "It can be, depending on the context," while MIT President Sally Kornbluth said, "I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus." In a similarly soft response, UPenn's president Elizabeth Magill responded, "If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment."

All three presidents faced harsh criticism for their answers, which many argued did not adequately condemn hate speech. The backlash led to the resignations of both Gay and Magill, while Kornbluth has so far managed to hold onto her position.

Shafik was invited to the December hearing, but was unable to attend because she was speaking in Dubai at the time, The Wall Street Journal reported.

And that granted her more than just extra time to prepare — she also had the advantage of witnessing the fallout her peers faced, and making sure she avoided their mistakes.

She made herself especially clear. On Tuesday, the eve of her hearing, Shafik wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in which she explained the complexity of protecting free speech and political expression while also ensuring students' safety and condemning discrimination.

"Calling for the genocide of a people — whether they are Israelis or Palestinians, Jews, Muslims or anyone else — has no place in a university community," Shafik wrote in the Journal. "Such words are outside the bounds of legitimate debate and unimaginably harmful."

In Wednesday's hearing, Shafik also commented on a few controversial professors. She said that Mohamed Abdou, a visiting professor at Columbia's Middle East Institute, would "never work at Columbia again" after he voiced support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.

Shafik was also questioned about a tenured professor in Columbia's Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department, Joseph Massad, who had previously called Hamas' attack on Israel "awesome." Shafik said Massah had been "spoken to" about his comments. But when Stefanik pressed her on the issue, Shafik said she would get back to the committee on whether Massad would be removed from his position as chair of the academic review committee.