Columbia U President ‘Increasingly Concerned’ Over Rising Anti-Semitism
TPS
The Jewish Voice
Mon Mar 09 2020
The President of New York City’s Columbia University Lee Bollinger has spoken out against “rising anti-Semitism on campus,” stating that over the past year he had become “increasingly concerned” about the issue.
In his speech, Bollinger referred to an upcoming vote among undergraduate students at the university on whether Columbia should be recommended to divest from companies doing “business with Israel involving the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.”
“There is no question that this is a highly contentious issue, both the underlying issues of Israel and the Palestinians and the idea of divestment as a means of protest about Israel’s policies,” Bollinger stated, explaining that he rejected the idea both on a general level, as he believes there is no broad consensus at the university over the issue, as well as on a personal level.
The proposed motion “imposes a standard on this particular political issue that is not right when one considers similar issues in other countries and in other contexts around the world. To my mind that is unwise, analytically flawed, and violates my sense of fairness and proportionality,” he explained....
