House Education Committee subpoenas Columbia officials in antisemitism investigation

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said Wednesday she is issuing six subpoenas for Columbia University officials amid her panel’s antisemitism investigation. 

The only name listed in the release announcing the subpoenas is Columbia’s interim President Katrina Armstrong. The committee said subpoenas would also be sent to the co-chairs and vice chairs of the school’s board of trustees.  

“Columbia should be a partner in our efforts to ensure Jewish students have a safe learning environment on its campus, but instead, university administrators have slow rolled the investigation, repeatedly failing to turn over necessary documents,” Foxx said. 

“The information we have obtained points to a continued pattern of negligence towards antisemitism and a refusal to stand up to the radical students and faculty responsible for it. The goal of this investigation has always been to protect Jewish students and faculty, and if compulsory measures are necessary to obtain the documents the Committee requires, so be it,” she added. 

The committee is demanding all documents relating to antisemitism since Oct. 7 and all information from the board of trustees’ meetings and communications regarding Israel or antisemitism.  

“Columbia is committed to combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination. We have provided thousands of documents over the past seven months in response to the committee’s dozens of ongoing requests, and we remain committed to cooperating with the committee,” a spokesperson for the school said in response to the subpoenas.

This is the second time the House panel has subpoenaed a university, with the first happening earlier this year against Harvard as part of an antisemitism investigation into the Ivy League.  

Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned after a tumultuous academic year between the pro-Palestinian encampments and multiple accusations of antisemitism on the school’s campus.

The university has until Sept. 4 to turn over the requested documents.  

—Updated at 3 p.m.