College and University Monitor

A new initiative of dual degree between Tel Aviv and Columbia Universities is under attack. The Program inaugurates in the fall of 2020, to provide the opportunity for students wishing to pursue a rigorous undergraduate liberal arts education spanning two continents. As part of the program, students will begin their college education in one of six academic programs at Tel Aviv University. Upon completion of the four-year program, graduates earn two bachelor’s degrees, one from each institution.



Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) accuses Columbia University of "importing racism from Israel." SJP denounces the elite US university for choosing to connect with an institution “complicit in Israel's oppression of Palestinians." SJP joins Jewish Voice for Peace in asking Columbia University to reconsider, or "face becoming part of the oppressive architecture of the Israeli state."


SJP argues that “Israel has targeted Palestinian students, graduate workers and faculty members based at American universities with years-long travel bans from their homeland and research sites, often with little to no clear justification." According to SJP, Columbia University risks "abetting systemic anti-Palestinian racism and reproducing the racial inequalities of Israeli policies", unless it attempts to address these issues.

One staff member, Katherine Franke, the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia university, who collaborates with SJP, said she was surprised to hear about the program. "Had we been consulted, we would have raised issues relating to Columbia creating a new program that is not accessible to many of our students explicitly because of their nationality, ethnicity, and/or political speech. "It is akin to Columbia creating a dual degree program with University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa in the 1980s," she said....