[[link removed]]

“WHERE IS MY ANTISEMITISM MONEY?”: A COLUMBIA PROFESSOR’S
LETTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT.  
[[link removed]]


 

James Schamus
July 28, 2025
Literary Hub
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed].]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Columbia University reached agreement with the Trump administration
to pay $200 million for "violations;." also agreed to establish a $21
million fund to “compensate employees who may have experienced
antisemitism." One professor asks for his share. _

Image credit: Literary Hub,

 

[_Last week, Columbia University reached an agreement with the Trump
administration to “resolve multiple federal agency investigations
into alleged violations of federal anti-discrimination laws.” As
part of the agreement, Columbia will pay a $200 million settlement to
the federal government and __establish a $21 million class claims
fund to “compensate employees who may have experienced antisemitism
on Columbia’s campus post-Oct. 7, 2023.” In response to this,
filmmaker and Columbia professor James Schamus has written the below
letter to Columbia Acting President Claire Shipman._]

Dear Acting President Shipman,

I was struck by some of the wording in your announcement last week
[[link removed]] heralding
Columbia’s Big Beautiful Agreement with the Trump administration,
with its $200 million payout to the feds, and, as you put it, an
additional “$21 million to settle investigations involving the U.S.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.” You didn’t provide
anything more specific in your announcement about that extra $21
million, but a subsequent press release from the EEOC
[[link removed].] gives
a bit more detail, bragging that its “historic” deal with Columbia
is “the largest EEOC public settlement in almost 20 years,”  one
that resolves, among other things, a charge against Columbia brought
by the EEOC “on behalf of a class of _all_ Jewish employees”
[emphasis added—and, yeah, I think you might be seeing where this is
going…]: “Under the multi-year agreement with the EEOC, the Ivy
League university will establish a $21 million class claims fund to
compensate employees who may have experienced antisemitism on
Columbia’s campus post-Oct. 7, 2023.”

So, a quick question for you: Where can I sign up for my share of
those Crazy Columbia Antisemitism Cash Dollars???

As you have repeatedly—and I mean repeatedly
[[link removed]], repeatedly
[[link removed]], repeatedly
[[link removed]]—professed,
Columbia’s antisemitism problem is one you take seriously. And so do
I. I even gave a whole speech about being Jewish at Columbia last
year
[[link removed]],
one I had to deliver on the sidewalk off campus, given how hostile the
campus environment has become for those professing Jewish values etc.

But I hope you’ll forgive me if I air some suspicions about the odds
of me getting my hands on any of this promised bounty. I just have a
sense I’m going to be like one of the folks too far to the back of
the room that time Trump went to Puerto Rico to deliver disaster
relief (or at least some paper towels) after Hurricane Maria. So
close, and yet so far away!

Still, it’s a serious question. If, as you repeatedly
[[link removed]], repeatedly
[[link removed]] claim,
antisemitism is such a generalized scourge on campus, it can’t
possibly be the case that only a chosen few, so to speak, should legit
be handed the cash haul to divvy up amongst themselves. Shouldn’t it
be distributed _pro rata_ amongst the _entire_ class
of _all_ Jewish employees, including _moi_? But I’d wager (in
fact, I’d put up as collateral for that bet my share of the pile)
that, indeed (and I admit, I don’t know this for a fact), you guys
are going to distribute the spoils according to other metrics and
criteria. I think everyone (especially students and their families
taking out loans to pay Columbia tuitions, not to mention potentially
jealous colleagues who might feel a bit left out of the discrimination
lottery takings) would _love_ to know what those criteria are.

Because I have a suspicion (and please do correct me if I’m wrong)
that payouts might be made along a spectrum not so much of
Jewish-ness, not so much even of specific, documented harm, but along
the lines of what the EEOC press release carefully articulates, when
it describes the fund as one which will compensate “employees _who
may have experienced antisemitism_” [emphasis again added, as, yeah,
I think you can see where this is going…].

Now, who might be “experiencing” antisemitism to the extent they
will get a slice of the settlement pie? Let me give you an example to
perhaps get to the answer. Let’s say two Jews are walking across
campus on College Walk, and they both overhear the chants and shouts
from a gathering on the lawn coming from students and fellow faculty
and staff outraged at the ongoing slaughter and starvation of
Palestinians by Israel. One of those Jews (me) is, like: “Look,
there’s a bunch of Jewish students holding a Passover seder at the
encampment
[[link removed]]—cool!”
The other Jew (say, one of the various _Atlantic_ magazine and _New
York_ _Times_ writers who were brave enough to venture on campus
this past couple of years) professes to experience this all as a
manifestation of antisemitism allowed, if not even aided and abetted,
by Columbia. So I’m surmising that _they’re_ gonna get a big fat
check while _I’m _not? That sucks for me, I guess.

And we can take this a step further. Because it’s quite possible
that those of my fellow Jews who “may experience antisemitism”
the _most_ when encountering campus protests against Israel’s
genocidal mania may end up getting the _biggest_ bucks. Like maybe
there will be different categories, ranging from the small-change
hand-wringing
“I’m-uncomfortable-with-what-Israel-is-doing-but-Hamas-tunnels-something-something-your-keffiyeh-makes-me-nervous”
category; through the Bret Stephens/_New York Times_ mid-tier
“Genocide? What genocide?” bunch; and ending with the Megabucks
Jackpot we’re-in-the-money Shai Davidai “We are not ok!” crowd
[[link removed]].
Maybe there can be a special bonus for the Columbia OU-JLIC director
who WhatsApp’d hundreds of Jewish students last year urging them to
flee campus for their lives
[[link removed]].

As you can see, under this possible scenario, the more you go all-out
weaponizing antisemitism in the context of Israel’s mass murder
spree, the more Columbia $$$ you earn. Nice work if you can get it
[[link removed]]!

In any case, I’m standing by for further instructions, with just one
last favor to ask: please don’t hire some outside consulting group,
such as, say, the Boston Consulting Group
[[link removed]], Orbis
Operations [[link removed]], or Safe
Reach Solutions
[[link removed]],
to administer distribution of the fund. We wouldn’t want the
giveaway to turn into some sort of Hunger Games
[[link removed]] now,
would we?

Yours sincerely,

James Schamus

* anti-Semitism
[[link removed]]
* Columbia University
[[link removed]]
* Gaza
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Israel-Gaza War
[[link removed]]
* Ceasefire
[[link removed]]
* Genocide
[[link removed]]
* starvation
[[link removed]]
* Palestine solidarity
[[link removed]]
* Palestine solidarity movement
[[link removed]]
* student movement
[[link removed]]
* pro-Palestine strikes
[[link removed]]
* zionism
[[link removed]]
* McCarthyism
[[link removed]]
* Jewish community
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* Education
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed].]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]