Home Speaker Mike Johnson needs Columbia College’s president to resign, calling her “inept” and “weak.”
Johnson, who’s visiting Columbia on Wednesday, has railed towards Nemat “Minouche” Shafik’s dealing with of pro-Palestinian pupil protests and antisemitism on campus following Hamas’ October 7 assault on Israel and Israel’s subsequent struggle in Gaza.
Upon his arrival to campus Wednesday night, Johnson was greeted by a crowd that booed and heckled him, whereas just a few cheered, in accordance with an Axios reporter who posted a video to X.
Although Johnson doesn’t have the facility to immediately oust a university president, related calls from political figures have fueled latest resignations.
After lawmakers and highly effective figures urged the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and UPenn to resign following their congressional testimony about on-campus antisemitism in December, each Harvard’s Claudine Homosexual and UPenn’s Elizabeth Magill did resign, although MIT’s president Sally Kornbluth has maintained her position.
“What we’re seeing on these school campuses throughout the nation is disgusting and unacceptable,” Johnson stated on “The Hugh Hewitt Present” on Wednesday. “Each chief on this nation, each political official, each citizen of excellent conscience has to talk out and say that this isn’t who we’re in America, and now we have obtained to have accountability.”
“It is unconscionable,” Johnson added. “This president, Shafik, is proven to be a really weak, inept chief. They can not even assure the security of Jewish college students? They’re anticipated to run for his or her lives and keep house from class? It is simply, it is, it is maddening.”
Columbia college students started tenting out on campus final week to protest Israel’s struggle in Gaza, arguing that the nation is committing genocide towards the Palestinian individuals. They’re additionally demanding that the college divest from corporations that help Israel.
Because the protests had been ramping up, Shafik testified to Congress, the place she took a a lot stronger stance towards antisemitism than her school president friends had performed at their listening to months earlier than. When Congress requested Harvard’s Claudine Homosexual, for instance, whether or not college students calling for a Jewish genocide would violate college insurance policies, she answered with, “It may be, relying on the context.”
On the second day of protests, Shafik known as within the NYPD, which arrested greater than 100 pro-Palestinian pupil protesters on suspicion of trespassing. The protests have continued within the days since, with some pupil teams saying Jewish college students have been focused with offensive, antisemitic rhetoric on campus.
In response to the continuing campus unrest, Home Republicans have been threatening to withdraw federal funding from Columbia and different colleges experiencing related protests, arguing that they’ve failed to guard Jewish college students’ security.
“We will name on academic establishments like Columbia, when you can not management what is going on at your college, if the president at this college is failing to maintain college students protected, then she should not be eligible for any federal assist coming into this college,” NY Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito stated on Monday after visiting campus, in accordance with The Washington Publish.
Johnson echoed these calls on “The Hugh Hewitt Present” on Wednesday, including that the visas of protesting college students will be revoked.
Johnson is scheduled to satisfy with Columbia Jewish college students and the college’s Rabbi Yuda Drizin on Wednesday earlier than holding a press convention the place he and different Home Republicans are anticipated to formally name for Shafik’s resignation, The Washington Publish reported.
“The decibel of our disagreements has solely elevated in latest days,” Shafik wrote in a press release on Monday following her resolution to name NYPD to campus. “These tensions have been exploited and amplified by people who are usually not affiliated with Columbia who’ve come to campus to pursue their very own agendas. We want a reset.”
Representatives for Shafik didn’t instantly reply to BI’s request for remark.
