Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Former antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt says she turned down Columbia job

“I will not be used to provide cover for a completely unacceptable situation,” Lipstadt wrote in The Free Press

(JTA) — Deborah Lipstadt, who was the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism under President Joe Biden, revealed in an essay published Sunday that she had turned down a position at Columbia University because of the school’s role in recent pro-Palestinian protests.

In the essay, published in The Free Press, Lipstadt said she was not convinced that the Ivy League university was sincere in its efforts to improve the campus climate — and that she was worried that she would face harassment while teaching.

She also said she worried that spending a semester at Columbia while on leave from her appointment at Emory University could whitewash a crisis at Columbia and its affiliated women’s college, Barnard.

“I fear that my presence would be used as a sop to convince the outside world that ‘Yes, we in the Columbia/Barnard orbit are fighting antisemitism. We even brought in the former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism,’ Lipstadt wrote. “I will not be used to provide cover for a completely unacceptable situation.”

Columbia has been a hotspot of protest over the Israel-Hamas war since it began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The school was the birthplace of last year’s nationwide encampment movement.

Lipstadt said she had been heartened by Barnard’s decision to expel two students who interrupted an Israeli history course with a pro-Palestinian protest — and then dismayed when the school allowed student protesters who occupied a campus building last week to leave without consequences.

“Watching Barnard capitulate to mob violence and fail to enforce its own rules and regulations led me to conclude that I could not go to Columbia University, even for a single semester,” she wrote, adding that Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, had personally called her after she conveyed her decision on Friday.

The Free Press was founded by Bari Weiss, the crusading journalist who first rose to prominence calling out anti-Israel sentiment at Columbia, from which she graduated.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.