“No specific memory”: That’s how former Columbia University president Katrina Armstrong responded to federal investigators who asked her about student activists calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. According to a transcript of her deposition at the Department of Health and Human Services obtained by Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson, Armstrong gave similar answers regarding allegations that students spit on their Jewish counterparts and that a faculty member described Columbia’s Jewish donors as “wealthy white capitalists” who “laundered” “blood money.”
“The testimony raises questions both about where authority at the university lies and about how, exactly, the Columbia board of trustees settled on Armstrong to lead the school in a moment of crisis after former Columbia president Minouche Shafik resigned last August,” writes Johnson. “A physician who ran Columbia’s medical center before she assumed the presidency, Armstrong conceded that she could not recall much from a report published last August by the Columbia University Task Force on Antisemitism, which interviewed hundreds of Jewish and Israeli students about their experiences on campus in the wake of Oct. 7.”
Armstrong also struggled to recall the events of the past month. Asked what she told faculty members during a closed-door meeting about policy changes pursuant to the Trump administration’s demands, she said she “did not have precise recollections.”
“You’re aware there’s a transcript of that meeting?” HHS acting general counsel Sean Keveny responded. “I have understood that,” Armstrong said.
READ MORE: ‘No Specific Memory’: Columbia University’s Armstrong Tells Feds She Can’t Recall Specifics of Any Anti-Semitic Incident on Campus
Lipstick on a pig: The California Institute of Technology operates a central DEI office, the Center for Inclusion and Diversity, led by assistant vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion, and assessment Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux. Last week, the school announced that Malcom-Piqueux was receiving a “promotion” to associate vice president for campus climate, engagement, and success, a title that does not mention DEI. But have no fear, the announcement message made clear that Malcom-Piqueux will remain “responsible” for the DEI center.
The move is “the latest example of how institutions are attempting to save their diversity programs by making largely cosmetic changes,” our Aaron Sibarium writes. “The title change came two weeks after NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is administered by Caltech, performed a similar bait-and-switch with its own chief diversity officer, Neela Rajendra, who has described ‘extreme deadline[s]’ as an obstacle to ‘inclusion.'”
“Though the lab had laid off 900 workers due to budget cuts and begun taking down webpages related to DEI, it said that Rajendra would stay on as ‘Chief of the Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success.’ That announcement followed a string of similar title tweaks at other universities. In February, for example, the University of Michigan School of Nursing renamed its DEI office the office of ‘community culture.'”
READ MORE: Caltech Renames Top Diversity Official While Keeping DEI Office Intact
Shakedown central: Al Sharpton’s nonprofit, the National Action Network, has long landed both Sharpton and MSNBC in hot water. A 2015 lawsuit from black media mogul Byron Allen accused Sharpton of using the nonprofit to obtain corporate payouts in exchange for endorsing “sham diversity agreements.” Last year, MSNBC faced widespread criticism in response to a Free Beacon report that showed Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign paid the nonprofit $500,000 just weeks before Sharpton conducted a friendly interview with Harris. But MSNBC has never disciplined Sharpton or distanced itself from his nonprofit—and it isn’t starting now.
Instead, the liberal network allowed Sharpton to use MSNBC airtime to announce and promote his boycott, launched over the weekend at the National Action Network’s annual conference, of PepsiCo. The soft drink and snack giant scrapped quotas for minority executives and suppliers in late February. “We put on notice those companies like Pepsi Cola that we will withdraw patronage from those that do not live up to what they voluntarily committed in DEI,” Sharpton said Saturday on his MSNBC show, PoliticsNation.
“Sharpton’s use of his MSNBC broadcast to promote the boycott could present a slew of concerns for the liberal news outlet, which hopes to spin off later this year from its parent companies Comcast and NBCUniversal,” writes the Free Beacon‘s Chuck Ross. “An MSNBC-sanctioned boycott threat could give fuel to the Trump administration’s investigation of Comcast and NBCUniversal over their DEI programs. FCC chairman Brendan Carr launched the probe in February, accusing the media giant of violating federal discrimination laws and agency regulations. He has pledged to block media mergers and acquisitions involving firms that promote ‘discriminatory’ DEI practices.”
READ MORE: Al Sharpton Uses MSNBC Airtime To Promote DEI Boycott Against Pepsi
Away from the Beacon:
- Doug Emhoff reportedly condemned his law firm Wilkie Farr & Gallagher’s decision to reach a deal with the Trump administration to provide pro bono legal services and reinstate “merit-based” hiring. Speaking at a charity gala in Los Angeles, Emhoff said “he had told the firm he wanted to fight … but had been overruled.” It’s unclear whether his speech referenced the deal’s impact on his ability to hire an unqualified trophy secretary.
- Israel has carried out strikes in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia in recent days. On Sunday, some Gazans responded with protests… that targeted Hamas.
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