Columbia President Shipman Privately Said School Needed To Add an 'Arab' Board Member—and Remove a Jewish One

'We need to get somebody from the middle east or who is Arab on our board,' wrote Shipman. 'Quickly I think.'

Our Aaron Sibarium is out with an exclusive story on private text messages Columbia University president Claire Shipman sent last year while serving as co-chair of the Ivy League school’s board of trustees. In those messages, Shipman suggested that a Jewish trustee known for her pro-Israel advocacy should be removed. She also said Columbia needed to add an "Arab" to the board "quickly." Here's a preview:

Before she became the acting president of Columbia University, Claire Shipman argued that the school needed to get an "Arab on our board" and suggested that a Jewish trustee should be removed over her pro-Israel advocacy, according to text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

"We need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board," Shipman, then the co-chair of Columbia’s board of trustees, wrote in a message on January 17, 2024. "Quickly I think. Somehow."

A week later, Shipman told a colleague that Shoshana Shendelman, one of the board’s most outspoken critics of campus anti-Semitism, had been "extraordinarily unhelpful," adding, "I just don’t think she should be on the board."

The messages were included in a letter sent to Columbia on Tuesday by committee chair Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., NY). Addressing Shipman by name, the committee requested "clarifications on the attached correspondence," arguing that it appeared to downplay anti-Semitism on Columbia's campus and could even violate civil rights law.

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