‘I’m so over these idiots,’ one member wrote. ‘A giant pot of money to pay zionists with,’ said another.
After Columbia University’s anti-Semitism task force recommended hiring Middle East professors who are “not explicitly anti-Zionist”—the task force’s final report noted that there are no such professors who are full-time and on tenure track—an official group chat for the Ivy League school’s student union erupted, screenshots exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. Members compared Zionists to racists and fascists. The chair of the union’s board said, “I f—ing hate this university.”
“I think the way they’ve framed it carefully states that the existing faculty are anti and they want ‘not anti,’” wrote Jon Ben-Menachem, a Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) member and doctoral student studying “the politics of American criminalization.”
“Which is still quite zany if you thought [sic] about ‘not anti racist.’”
Hayes Buchanan, an architecture Ph.D. student, said the recommendation amounted to “affirmative action for zionist views,” “trigger warnings for zionists,” and a “giant pot of money to pay zionists with.”
“You’d never know that this started with a genocide of palestinians [sic],” wrote Buchanan, ignoring the Oct. 7 terror attack that prompted Israel’s war on Hamas. It isn’t clear what “giant pot of money” he was referring to.
Other union members were more despondent. “Jesús f—ing cristo,” an SWC member identified as “Lex” wrote. “I’m so over these idiots.” Adithya Gungi, a graduate student studying physics who identifies as they/them and chairs the union’s board of trustees, sarcastically responded to the report’s recommendation, “I enjoy colonizing and genocide.”
“I f—ing hate this university,” added Gungi.
The messages provide an inside look at the union’s hostility not just toward Israel and its supporters but also toward the university the union has spent the last year negotiating with in search of a new contract. In addition to pushing for massive pay increases for student workers, SWC is demanding Columbia dismantle ties to the Jewish state and adopt an “academic freedom” article that gives teaching assistants free rein to insert progressive politics into unrelated lectures without facing disciplinary action, the Free Beacon reported.
Two of the union members who condemned the Columbia anti-Semitism task force’s recommendation—Ben-Menachem and Buchanan—epitomize the union’s emphasis on anti-Israel activism. Ben-Menachem served as an encampment spokesman with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the banned student organization that wished “death to America” after President Donald Trump launched military operations against the Iranian regime. Buchanan was arrested for his role in a CUAD-led library storming in May 2025.
Neither SWC nor any of the quoted members, including Ben-Menachem and Buchanan, responded to requests for comment.
The December report from Columbia’s anti-Semitism task force—its fourth and final—noted that Columbia “lacks full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy, and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist.” It also detailed numerous instances of instructors casting Jews and Israelis as occupiers and “murderers” in classes unrelated to the conflict in Gaza.
In the SWC group chat, several union members cast doubt on the veracity of those incidents. At the same time, they vowed to talk about “Israel Palestine” in class even if Columbia barred them from doing so.
“Most of the anecdotes have a real ‘let me run to mom and dad and give them the least generous version of what happened’ sound to them…” Caitlin Liss, a history graduate student, wrote in the group chat. Liss also condemned the “stupidness of requiring ‘intellectual diversity’ about Zionism” and contemplated asking the report’s authors if she was required to “present some pro-colonialism viewpoint” in her Primitive Texts of Latin American Civilization class. The course, which fulfills Columbia’s “global core” requirement, serves as a “counterpoint” to a mandated contemporary civilization class, according to its course description.
“Just wait til we get the ‘intellectual diversity on fascism’ requirement. ‘Intellectual diversity on race,’” Liss added. “These people are clowns.”
Another SWC member, identified as “Ethan,” wrote that “the thing about we can’t talking [sic] about Israel Palestine except in directly relevant classes is really bad. And I will never follow it.”
He also complained that time, place, and manner rules aimed at ensuring protests do not disrupt classes are so restrictive that “any actually disruptive protest is impossible.”
A Columbia spokesman told the Free Beacon university policies make clear that instructors “may not use their classrooms to advocate any political or social cause and must allow the free expression of opinions with civility, tolerance, and respect for ideas that differ from their own.”
“The University requires all instructors to foster classroom environments that do not permit or encourage discrimination,” he said. “When these standards are not met, we have clear ways for students to report concerns so we can ensure they are investigated and addressed.”
Months after the anti-Semitism report was published, Johannah King-Slutzky, an SWC board member and doctoral student studying “theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens,” warned the union’s group chat that its members should be cautious in what they text as “you wouldn’t want a bad faith reporter to see,” the Free Beacon reported.
“Happily everyone already knows where I stand so I can say ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’ whenever I want but not everyone is so lucky,” King-Slutzky wrote on March 2. She added that the “world would be a better place if Columbia did hate America, god willing.”
She also wrote, “Personally I think Zionism is Jewish supremacy and well as white supremacy and I’m comfortable calling it such.”
King-Slutzky was arrested for her participation in the April 2024 encampments and for storming Butler Library alongside her fellow union member Buchanan. She was widely mocked in the wake of the May 2024 takeover of Hamilton Hall for demanding “humanitarian aid” for those inside, which included SWC president Grant Miner, who was arrested and eventually expelled, preventing him from participating in bargaining negotiations with Columbia.
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