Today, we bring you Exhibit #47,863 that the Left has no sense of humor — or, more to the point, that it cannot tolerate being laughed at and will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who dares make it look foolish.
In today's episode, we take you to the Marxist hellscape that is Columbia University. (Full disclosure: I am a graduate of the university. And yes, it was a left-wing s**t-show when I was there, too.)
As we all know, the vile Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israeli civilians inexplicably brought out waves of antisemitic/anti-Israel protests across the United States and around the world. These savages found a home on our most prestigious campuses, where they set about creating a beyond-hostile atmosphere and menacing Jewish students and faculty.
The situation became so caustic that Republicans on the House Committee on Education & the Workforce undertook a study of the problem. Their report was released Thursday, and it contained details on a fiercely underreported story: Columbia's persecution of two Jewish students who vented their frustration with a harmless and humorous prank.
The report, "Antisemitism on College Campuses Exposed," looked into the Jan. 19, 2024, incident. It found that anti-Israel protestors were hosting yet another unauthorized rally on the steps of Columbia's Low Library "in violation of the University’s rules." The Ivy League leaders of the future were busy chanting their support for Yemeni Houthi terrorist-pirate attacks on commercial ships: "Yemen, Yemen make us proud, turn another ship around.”
In what any sane person would recognize as a particularly apropos prank, two Jewish students let loose on the hostiles with a can of fart spray that they had purchased for just such an occasion. (Full disclosure: I have also pranked people with fart spray. It's hilarious.)
Hysteria promptly ensued:
Anti-Israel activists who attended the rally accused two students whom they identified as “former IOF officers” of committing a purported “chemical attack” using a “chemical weapon.” The students claimed that the substance used was “Skunk spray,” which they identified as a military-grade chemical used by the Israeli military.
"IOF" stands for "Israel Offensive Forces," a distortion of The Israeli military's actual name, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).
And "Skunk," as the military substance is called for short, takes a liquid form, like water, which is good for spraying over large areas with a water cannon. It was developed by the Israeli firm Odortec as a form of crowd control.
"After Skunk makes contact with a person or object, the putrid stench can last for days and can cause nausea and vomiting. The smell is overpowering, similar to a skunk’s spray but worse, smelling as if it has been mixed with raw sewage, sulfur, and rotting animal corpses," says Al Jazeera America. It's also reportedly impossible to wash off and even smells worse after one tries.
It was obvious early on that the fed-up students did not spray any such thing on the obnoxious protestors.
According to the report, "at least four senior Columbia administrators who were on the scene where the incident took place reported that they observed no sign of the supposed incident." More proof that this was not a serious event was soon forthcoming:
On January 21, Columbia Public Safety’s Assistant Vice President of Operations and Investigations Brian McPherson sent the FBI an e-mail with the University’s findings to date on the incident that cast doubt upon the anti-Israel activists’ claims. While the anti-Israel activists claimed multiple students required medical attention after the incident, a medical inquiry conducted by Columbia Public Safety found that no students had sought medical care at Mt. Sinai Hospital with corresponding symptoms, that no complaints were made by Columbia University EMS, and that no reports were made to NYPD of students claiming to have been sprayed at the protest. Columbia Public Safety noted that one student complainant reported the incident and originally claimed to have been sprayed directly by the perpetrators when she reported the incident but changed her account to state that the spray had been in the air around her. An examination by the NYPD of the complainant’s coat calls her report into question because it “did not reveal any odors which would be indicative of a ‘skunk spray.’”
Nonetheless, the very next day, Columbia’s Interim Provost Dennis Mitchell sent a community-wide message that characterized the matter as a “deeply troubling incident” in which “students reported being sprayed with a foul-smelling substance that required students to seek medical treatment.” He also said the “New York City Police Department is taking the lead role in investigating what appear to have been serious crimes, possibly hate crimes."
The report goes on:
By late February, the University had learned that the incident was not a “chemical attack” but rather a non-toxic spray. … in a February 23 disciplinary hearing the two students responsible for the incident had merely sprayed what the University described as a “prank fart spray” in what one of the students said was an attempt at a “harmless gag and prank,” as documented by Amazon.com receipts showing the students had ordered commercially available non-toxic sprays. While this conduct was inappropriate and a violation of University rules meriting discipline, it was also clearly a far less serious incident than characterized by anti-Israel activists or to the public.
Whatever. On March 13, the university suspended the pranksters for a year and a half — "substantially longer than any suspension for antisemitic conduct violations." Meanwhile, its facilitation of the false narrative led to increased hostility and antisemitism on the campus:
Using the “skunk spray” narrative as a pretext, on January 24, CUAD held a “No Safety Without Divestment” protest, where many of the chants focused on calling for “IOF off campus now,” including shouting, “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no IOF here.” These chants effectively targeted all Israelis at Columbia, given that all Israeli citizens are obligated to perform mandatory military service. Faculty participated in the calls for exclusion. In a media interview on the purported “skunk spray” incident, Columbia Law Professor Katherine Franke alleged that Israeli students who had served in the IDF had “been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus. And it’s something the university has not taken seriously in the past.”
The favored protestors posted flyers around campus that equated Jews with skunks, a dehumanizing tactic "reminiscent of Nazi propaganda."
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Multiple Jewish leaders and students in the Columbia community asked officials to issue a statement and clarify the facts about the episode. The university refused. Even during her infamous testimony to Congress in April 2024, then-president Minouche Shafik, when asked to clear up the facts, said only that it was "an odorous substance that was sprayed on demonstrators."
In her closing statement, Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx called out Shafik for her “misleading" testimony. She noted that "for months Jewish students have been vilified with false accusations of a ‘chemical attack’ and Columbia failed to correct the record.” She also pointed out that the Jewish pranksters were, at that time, the only two students who were still suspended.
Also in April, one of the persecuted students filed a lawsuit against Columbia. In the resulting settlement, the university agreed to pay the student $395,000 and reduce the year-and-a-half suspension to probation.
Columbia was also required to issue a statement that at long last clarified that "the substance sprayed was 'not any bio-chemical weapon, illicit substance, or personal protective spray' but rather 'a non-toxic, legal, novelty item that can be purchased online and in stores throughout the country.'" Columbia sleazily and cravenly posted this statement on the Friday evening before the Labor Day weekend.
If not for the diligent work of House Republicans investigating campus antisemitism, this important story might never have received the coverage it deserves. And in spite of the university's shameful persecution of the Jewish students and its facilitation of antisemitism on its campus, it was still a funny prank. The fact that at least one of the students has been compensated for his trouble is even funnier. Good for them.
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