2024-05-31 Textgate - Deans text during the Jewish Life panel


Metadata

  • When: 2024-05-31

  • Where: Columbia University

  • Who: Josef Sorrett, Susan Chang-Kim, Cristen Kromm, Matthew Patashnick

  • Organizations:

  • Tags: tagFaculty

Description

Additional evidence: folder

This incident is based primarily on the information reported in the media.

On May 31, 2024 Columbia University  hosted alumni weekend, which included a panel discussion on Jewish life on campus. 

The attendees included several administrators:

  • Josef Sorett: Dean of Columbia College

  • Susan Chang-Kim: Vice Dean and Chief Administrative Officer of Columbia College

  • Cristen Kromm: Dean of Undergraduate student Life

  • Matthew Patashnick: Associate Dean for Student and Family Support.

An attendee captured photos of text messages between Chang-Kim and Sorett and between Chang-Kim, Patashnick, and Kromm.

The immature, dismissive, and hostile tone of the messages suggests that the administrators fail to understand the gravity of the antisemitic climate on campus.

Kromm used vomit emojis to describe an op-ed about anti-Semitism by Columbia's campus rabbi written in October.

Chang-Kim asked Kromm and Patashnick if “we really have students being kicked out of clubs for being Jewish?"

In the most despicable exchange that plays into antisemitic trope of the “greedy Jew,” Patashnick accused a panelist–most likely Brian Cohen of Columbia Hillel–of taking advantage of Columbia's campus antisemitism for fundraising. Patashnick wrote, “he knows exactly what he’s doing and how to take full advantage of this moment. Huge fundraising potential.”

After the texts were made public Dean Josef Sorett issued a private apology for the text messages he and other administrators exchanged badmouthing panelists. In his letter wrote that the dismissive and vitriolic remarks do not "indicate the views of any individual or the team." Sorett then announced that three of his colleagues have been placed on leave pending an investigation into their text exchanges, which Congress has demanded they turn over. 

While the scandal landed Chang-Kim, Patashnick, and Kromm on leave as Columbia investigates the incident, Sorett was not included in the disciplinary move. Sorett had not acknowledged his own role in the scandal, something he did for the first time in an email sent Friday, June 21, 2024, afternoon to Columbia University’s Board of Visitors, an alumni body that advises the dean. A Columbia spokesman said Friday that Sorett "will be recused from all matters relating to the investigation while continuing to serve as dean of the College."

Columbia’s administration continues to minimize the antisemitic climate by failing to heed to the warning signs and gaslighting those calling out the issues. They even play into the antisemitic trope that Jews are attempting to capitalize on societal issues to better themselves. When the administrators–the proverbial “adults in the room”–reveal shocking callousness towards Jewish concerns when they don’t feel the need to censor themselves for public consumption, it is not surprising that the university took no disciplinary actions against faculty who continues to indoctrinate and incite the students and the students who have created the antisemitic and virulently anti-Israel climate on campus.

This incident illustrates why Columbia is unable to reform itself and an external intervention is needed.

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