The House Committee on Education and the Workforce is threatening to subpoena Columbia University should the school refuse to provide internal communications on campus anti-Semitism from Josef Sorett, the dean at the center of the texting scandal that has rocked the Ivy League institution, as well as other university leaders.
The committee's chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), leveled the threat in a Thursday letter sent to Columbia president Minouche Shafik and the co-chairs of the school's board of trustees, David Greenwald and Claire Shipman.
"The Committee on Education and the Workforce is continuing to investigate Columbia University's response to the severe and pervasive antisemitism on its campus," Foxx wrote. "Despite repeated requests, Columbia has failed to produce priority items requested by the Committee."
Those items, Foxx wrote, include "communications by priority custodians of documents, including multiple members of Columbia's Board of Trustees," records from board meetings, and "requested information on disciplinary cases." Foxx specifically requested "all documents and communications since October 7, 2023, referring and relating to antisemitism" from Sorett and other top Columbia officials, including Shafik, Greenwald, and Shipman.
"In many cases," Foxx continued, "these items were requested months ago. Columbia's continued failure to produce these priority items is unacceptable, and if this is not promptly rectified, the Committee is prepared to compel their production."
The announcement marks a significant escalation in the committee’s investigation into the university.
The committee launched that probe months ago, sending a letter to Shafik in February that requested documents "related to conduct involving the targeting of Jews, Israelis, Israel, Zionists, or Zionism." Columbia "has failed to produce" those documents "despite repeated requests," prompting the subpoena threat, Foxx said in a Thursday press release.
"We have received the Chairwoman's letter and we are reviewing it," a Columbia spokeswoman said. "We are committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of hate."
The messages from Sorett in particular could shed further light on the texting scandal that landed three other deans—Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick, and Cristen Kromm—on leave in June. Columbia opted to reassign those deans in July rather than fire them. Sorett was allowed to remain in his post.
Text messages obtained and first reported by the Washington Free Beacon showed the four deans mocking and dismissing anti-Semitism on Columbia's campus amid an alumni panel on the issue.
At one point, Chang-Kim texted Sorett—the dean of Columbia College—to say the panel "is difficult to listen to but I’m trying to keep an open mind to learn about this point of view." Sorett responded, "Yup."
Kromm, meanwhile, used vomit emojis—"🤢🤮"—to reference an op-ed from Columbia's campus rabbi, Yonah Hain, that raised concerns about the "normalization of Hamas" on campus.
Shortly thereafter, on June 21, the Free Beacon obtained a photo of another text sent during the panel that showed Sorett sneering at the head of Columbia Hillel, Brian Cohen. After Chang-Kim sent Sorett a sarcastic text calling Cohen "our hero," Sorett responded, "LMAO."
On the same day, Sorett broke his silence on his involvement in the scandal in an email to the Board of Visitors. "I deeply regret my role in these text exchanges and the impact they have had on our community," he wrote. "I am cooperating fully with the University's investigation of these matters. I am committed to learning from this situation and to the work of confronting antisemitism, discrimination, and hate at Columbia."
Sorett sent that message after calling the cops on a Free Beacon reporter who knocked on his apartment door to ask him about his involvement in the texts. While Sorett never came to the door or asked the Free Beacon to leave, when the Free Beacon left the building, several New York City police and campus security officers were outside. A Columbia security official said Sorett "raised a whole big issue."
In the wake of the Free Beacon’s reporting, Foxx demanded that the school turn over the full messages to the committee. Those messages showed three of the deans—Chang-Kim, Patashnick, and Kromm—engaging in a more extensive pattern of disparagement.
"I’m going to throw up," Chang-Kim, Columbia’s vice dean and chief administrative officer, wrote to her colleagues roughly an hour into the panel. The text’s timing aligned with remarks from an audience member and daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Orly Mishan, who described how her own daughter, a Columbia sophomore, "was hiding in plain sight" on campus after the Oct. 7 terror attacks.
"Amazing what $$$$ can do," replied Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life.
"They will have their own dorm soon," Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support, said of Jewish students. "Comes from such a place of privilege," Chang-Kim wrote two minutes later. "Trying to be open minded to understand but the doors are closing."
The deans also ridiculed Cohen’s efforts to provide support services, including psychological counseling, to Jewish and Israeli students following Oct. 7, implying that they were receiving special treatment denied to other groups.
"Not all heroes wear capes," Patashnick texted sarcastically. "If only every identity community had these resources and support," Kromm replied.