Report #3: Task Force on Antisemitism

The Survey

Today, we are releasing the report from a survey the University commissioned, showing that Columbia’s Jewish and Muslim students were significantly less comfortable on our campus than their peers here during the 2023-2024 academic year. The survey provides methodologically rigorous evidence that is consistent with what the Task Force on Antisemitism heard from almost 500 students in more than two dozen listening sessions during the Spring 2024 term. We wanted to release the results publicly as we prepare to issue our final report.

The task force proposed this study early last year, and it was approved by the University and supported by University leadership. The task force contracted with NORC at the University of Chicago, a highly respected nonpartisan research firm specializing in surveys, and worked with NORC staff to develop the survey instrument.

The survey—called the Harmful Exclusion Alleviation Longitudinal Study (HEALS)—went out in June 2024 to more than 35,000 Columbia students and closed in September of 2024. More than 9,000 students completed the survey, for a completion rate of more than 25% overall and more than 30% among undergraduates. We believe this is the most comprehensive student survey any American university has carried out and made public that focuses on how its students experienced the turbulent 2023-2024 academic year. We are grateful to the leaders at this institution for their support in conducting this survey and disseminating the results. This report stands as a sign of Columbia’s commitment to rigorous academic research and transparency, and of its determination to identify difficulties on campus so they can be successfully addressed.

The survey results indicate that the events of last year significantly and negatively affected Jewish and Muslim students’ feelings of acceptance and belonging at Columbia. Overall, a plurality (50%) of students reported feeling a positive sense of belonging at the University, while only 34% of Jewish and 41% of Muslim students reported positive sentiments of belonging. Sixty-two percent of Jewish and 53% of Muslim students said they did not feel accepted for their religious identities at Columbia, compared to 13% of Christian students and 11% of students with other religious affiliations. For both Jewish and Muslim students, political expression around the conflict between Israel and Hamas was a site of serious tension and sometimes fear. Most Jewish (87%) and Muslim (82%) students felt concerned about expressing their beliefs. A majority of Jewish students—69%—said that expressing support for any side in the conflict had made them feel they were in personal danger, as did a majority of Muslim students—65%. In all cases, these percentages are far above what the survey showed for Columbia students overall (33%).

These findings are consistent with what the task force heard in listening sessions and discussed in its second report, issued as the current academic year was beginning. The survey confirms that discomfort among Jewish students was widespread by the end of the 2023-2024 academic year. The survey also provides evidence of the exclusion and pressures Muslim students experienced in the 2023-2024 academic year. The survey was designed to provide data on the experiences of all students. The problems in the University climate are real, multifaceted, and serious. They are also solvable. We release this report in the hope that the Columbia community will continue to move with urgency in addressing the issues the survey results from last year describe.

This report provides a snapshot of the campus climate at the end of the 2023-24 academic year, not necessarily as it is today. Indeed, our anecdotal sense is that the climate has improved for students in many ways. The survey is meant to be a tool, providing information that will help the University continue to improve our campus climate and make students, especially Jewish and Muslim students, feel they can study and learn without fear that they will be singled out, excluded, or sanctioned for who they are. NORC has provided the survey instrument and the de-identified data to Columbia’s Office of Planning and Institutional Research, so that the survey can be readministered periodically to measure changes—for the better, we hope—in the way our students experience campus life. We are gratified that the University will soon conduct a second administration of a version of the survey, as part of an ongoing effort to assess campus climate periodically.

Last year, we proposed an additional research effort, to deepen our understanding of the survey findings and track the University’s progress in healing the climate on campus. We are pleased to know that the University is taking on this work as well. This project will investigate how students are navigating the current climate. It will fill gaps in what the survey can tell us, and help in translating the survey’s findings into actionable recommendations for the University community. The results of this qualitative study can, in turn, be used to fine-tune future HEALS surveys. This kind of mixed-methods research is invaluable in identifying the dynamics that corrode a community’s health, especially in cases in which specific groups face discrimination or exclusion. It can also provide valuable insights about how positive experiences work and can be replicated. It is a rich diagnostic technique that can help lead to a meaningful cure. Columbia has done this kind of research in the past, when seemingly intractable conflicts have divided the campus community, and it can do so again now. We can be an exemplar for our peer institutions in how universities can productively meet this contentious moment, and we would urge other institutions to take the same bold steps Columbia has done by supporting similar research.

An integrated research effort of this kind is essential for learning what went wrong for so many of our students last year, and how Columbia can build a better future as a community. We thank the University and Acting President Claire Shipman for supporting it.

Ester Fuchs, Nicholas Lemann, and David Schizer
Co-Chairs, on behalf of the Task Force on Antisemitism