Top Columbia Administrators—Including Dean of the College—Mocked, Laughed At Concerns about Antisemitism on Campus, Using Vomit Emojis to Refer to Columbia Rabbi

Photos of text messages sent during panel on Jewish Life captured by an attendee provides a glimpse into administration’s attitude toward the plight of Jewish students on campus.

In the wake of his explosive texts being exposed, Dean of Columbia College Josef Sorett whines about “invasion of privacy.”

Are Jewish donors still giving to Columbia? Are Jewish parents still sending their children into this pit of evil?

Text messages of @Columbia administrators caught during a hearing on what it's like to be Jewish at Columbia show them sneering & dismissing claims of antisemitism. Some suggested Jews were using the moment for "fundraising potential." https://t.co/inO8DChSsQ pic.twitter.com/NWjSfwcQGa

— Canary Mission (@canarymission) June 14, 2024

The @columbia administration continues to be a circus…

FOUR different deans texted grossly antisemitic texts.

From the looks of it, between the grotesque antisemitism from the student body and these people, it seems to be codified. pic.twitter.com/9tZjjUJjHG

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) June 15, 2024

NEW: In leaked text messages obtained by the Free Beacon, top Columbia administrators—including the dean of the college—mocked and dismissed concerns about anti-Semitism on campus and even used vomit emojis to refer to a Columbia rabbi’s op-ed.

Scoop w/@elianayjohnson.🧵 pic.twitter.com/BXC4fBQPHO

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) June 13, 2024

Imagine, for a moment, that administrators responded to a Black life on campus event with "vomiting" emojis.

This is why oversight is so important.https://t.co/rr0GWMQhL2

— Rep. Burgess Owens (@RepBurgessOwens) June 13, 2024

These texts will be killer evidence in Jewish students’ Title VI lawsuit against Columbia University. https://t.co/CEIO95XnDy

— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) June 14, 2024

Dean of Columbia College Josef Sorett writes to the school's board of visitors re: text debacle: "These texts are not emblematic of the totality of their work, nor do they indicate the views of any individual or the team. Though this was an invasion of privacy, the content of the… pic.twitter.com/AOcZLktgSV

— Eliana Johnson (@elianayjohnson) June 14, 2024

Columbia Administrators Fire Off Hostile and Dismissive Text Messages, Vomit Emojis During Alumni Reunion Panel on Jewish Life

Photos of text messages sent during panel captured by attendee provide a glimpse into administration’s attitude toward the plight of Jewish students on campus

By: Eliana Johnson and Aaron Sibarium, Washington Free Beacon, June 12, 2024

On Friday, May 31, alumni descended on Columbia University’s Manhattan campus to celebrate their class reunions. In addition to eating and drinking, the festivities included several panel discussions featuring professors and administrators.

One, focused on Jewish life on campus, was particularly newsworthy. Student protesters who had broken into and occupied a university building during the academic year had reconstituted themselves to disrupt reunion festivities, and, as the protesters were preparing to erect a new encampment, the university held a panel discussion about the past, present, and future of Jewish life at Columbia.

The event featured the former dean of Columbia Law School, David Schizer, who co-chaired the university’s task force on anti-Semitism; the executive director of Columbia’s Kraft Center for Jewish Life, Brian Cohen; the school’s dean of religious life, Ian Rottenberg; and a rising Columbia junior, Rebecca Massel, who covered the campus protests for the student newspaper.

In the audience, according to two attendees, were several top members of the Columbia administration. Given the sensitivity of the subject—the eruption of anti-Semitism on campus in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel put a national spotlight on the school, and Columbia recently settled a lawsuit with a Jewish student who accused the school of fostering an unsafe learning environment—the administrators’ presence made sense.

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The administrators included Josef Sorett, the dean of Columbia College; Susan Chang-Kim, the vice dean and chief administrative officer of Columbia College; Cristen Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life; and Matthew Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support.

Throughout the panel, which unfolded over nearly two hours, Chang-Kim was on her phone texting her colleagues about the proceedings—and they were replying to her in turn. As the panelists offered frank appraisals of the climate Jewish students have faced, Columbia’s top officials responded with mockery and vitriol, dismissing claims of anti-Semitism and suggesting, in Patashnick’s words, that Jewish figures on campus were exploiting the moment for “fundraising potential.”

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