After anti-Israel mobs rioted at Columbia University, broke into an academic building, and menaced Jewish students, it’s not surprising that the Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation of the university. Clearly, the rights of many Jewish and pro-Israel students were trampled, and so it’s reassuring to see the education bureaucrats acting to restore some sanity and decency at Columbia.
The only problem is that they’re not doing that. Instead, the Biden regime’s Department of Education is only making things worse. Its civil rights investigation is not about the mistreatment of Jewish students, but of Palestinian students.
Yes, we have really entered bizarro world, and everything is upside down. USA Today reported Friday that “the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Thursday opened an investigation into Columbia University for how it’s treated Palestinian students and allies, lawyers said.” The Biden apparatchiks have filed a complaint that “alleges unequal treatment by Columbia administrators, including President Minouche Shafik.”
Remember, this is the same Minouche Shafik about whom the Washington Post reported Friday that “several Republican lawmakers have accused her of not taking rapid action against protesters and not doing enough to make Jewish students feel safe on campus.” Yet as far as the Biden regime’s Department of Education is concerned, it isn’t the Jewish students who feel unsafe. USA Today continues: “Four students and the student organization, Students for Justice in Palestine, told federal officials they experienced harassment, death threats and doxing on campus since the start of the war, according to the complaint filed by Palestine Legal, a legal aid organization.”
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, this is what has really been happening at Columbia University. At the end of April, pro-Hamas thugs assaulted a Jewish student. This took place as pro-Hamas protestors, many from outside the university, shattered the glass of the university’s main building and occupied it.
All that happened months after Columbia administrators met with a student, Khymani James, and heard him speak openly about murdering Jews. Not only did they opt not to expel him and allowed him to remain on campus, but they watched as he became the leader of the encampment protests. Then he issued a video in which he said: “Be glad — be grateful — that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists. I’ve never murdered anyone in my life, and I hope to keep it that way.”
Back in the Education Department’s bizarro world, however, Radhika Sainath of Palestine Legal claimed that “for months, Columbia has not only failed to take action to protect Palestinian students and their allies speaking out for Palestinian freedom from racist harassment and discrimination, but actively engaged in differential treatment. This investigation could not have come at a better time, as we just saw Columbia escalate its crackdown against Palestinian students and their allies by bringing in the NYPD to brutally arrest student protesters for the second time in less than two weeks.”
This civil rights complaint couldn’t possibly be more absurd. In pursuing it, the Biden regime once again demonstrates its true colors and deep hatred of Israel. Are Jewish students breaking into and trashing university buildings? Are Jewish students assaulting Palestinian Arab students?
There is abundant justification for a civil rights investigation of how Jewish students are being treated at Columbia, but the Students for Justice in Palestine and Palestine Legal know how to play the game: they know that victimhood is a coveted status in our sick society, and that consequently, being the first or loudest to claim that status is a quick pathway to preferential treatment and even pecuniary reward.
Related: Why Is the Pro-Palestinian Encampment Craze Sweeping Our Colleges?
It's also useful to recall that Students for Justice in Palestine is the brainchild of a professor of “Islamophobia” named Hatem Bazian, who has openly called for an intifada, a violent uprising, not in Israel only, but in the United States as well. And regarding supporters of Israel, he has declared, “We need to harass them.”
Yet it is his group, not the people that members of his group frequently harass on campuses, that is the object of the Department of Education’s efforts. This entire ridiculous charade is a prime example of how our academic institutions have lost their way, deserve no public funding, and are in severe, crying need of reform.
What has happened of late at Columbia illustrates that anew. But also in radical need of reform is the Washington bureaucracy. Instead of acting against the pro-Hamas thuggery at Columbia and other campuses, the Biden regime is aiding and abetting it.
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