The campus protests that garnered a lot of attention last fall died down once students left campus in the spring, but the problems they caused haven't gone away. Last week U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns issued rulings on two different anti-Semitism lawsuits. First, he dismissed one directed at MIT.

The MIT lawsuit accused the university of approving antisemitic activities on campus and tolerating discrimination and harassment against Jewish students and faculty. In dismissing the lawsuit July 30, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns noted that MIT took steps to address on-campus protests that posed a potential threat to Jewish students.

“Plaintiffs frame MIT’s response to the conflict largely as one of inaction. But the facts alleged tell a different story,” Stearns wrote. “Far from sitting on its hands, MIT took steps to contain the escalating on-campus protests that, in some instances, posed a genuine threat to the welfare and safety of Jewish and Israeli students, who were at times personally victimized by the hostile demonstrators.”

But when it came to a similar lawsuit against Harvard, the same judge reached a very different conclusion.

“Harvard’s reaction was, at best, indecisive, vacillating, and at times intentionally contradictory,” Stearns wrote...

Stearns observed that Harvard administrators, including former university president Claudine Gay and current interim president Alan Garber, “repeatedly publicly recognized” an “eruption of antisemitism” on campus, yet in many instances “did not respond at all” to Jewish students’ concerns.

“To conclude that [Plaintiff] has not plausibly alleged deliberate indifference would reward Harvard for virtuous public declarations that for the most part, according to the allegations of the [Plaintiff], proved hollow when it came to taking disciplinary measures against offending students and faculty,” Stearns wrote. “In other words, the facts as pled show that Harvard has failed its Jewish students.”

That has to sting a bit. Also last week three administrators from Columbia resigned over text messages deemed to contain anti-Semitic tropes.

The three deans were texting sarcastic and mocking messages about students’ complaints of antisemitism during a panel discussion on Jewish life on campus last May. The texts were photographed by someone sitting behind one of the deans, and first reported by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, before they were publicly released by a congressional committee investigating allegations of antisemitism at Columbia.

Susan Chang-Kim, formerly the vice dean and chief administrative officer of the undergraduate school Columbia College, disparaged the students’ complaints, texting that it “comes from such a place of privilege… hard to hear the woe is me.”

Matthew Patashnick, formerly the associate dean for student and family support, suggested Jews on campus were just trying “to take full advantage of this moment. Huge fundraising potential.” And Cristen Kromm, formerly the dean of undergraduate student life, texted vomiting emojis and wrote, “Amazing what $$$$ can do.”

All three had been removed from their jobs about a month ago so it's not a surprise they decided to resign. Meanwhile, Columbia is gearing up for the return of students and possibly the return of campus protesters.

Bracing for possible protests as students return this fall, Columbia University will begin restricting access to its Morningside campus on Monday to those with school IDs and their pre-authorized guests, officials said.

Will the protesters really return and try to start up the tent encampment again? Last week, someone vandalized the home Columbia's Chief Operating Officer, so it seems some of them are still eager for a fight. 

Red paint is splattered across @Columbia COO Cas Holloway’s apartment. They’ve spray painted a red triangle, smashed his front door, and released crickets. Their letter notes, “Since you became the Chief Operating Officer of Columbia University on January 30, 2024, you have done… pic.twitter.com/cfXPokUC59

— Myles Miller (@MylesMill) August 8, 2024

Will Columbia let them do it or will they call the police again and have them arrested for breaking the campus rules? Last time we went through this, DA Alvin Bragg dropped charges against nearly everyone who was arrested for taking over a school building. So the lesson learned was that nothing will happen to people who break the law. So why wouldn't they come back and try again? 

Columbia said back in April that it would expel anyone caught violating the campus rules, but so far as I know they never followed though on that threat.

Update: This is related. One Cornell student who made threats to attack Jewish students is facing some real consequences.

A former Cornell University student arrested for posting statements threatening violence against Jewish people on campus last fall after the start of the war in Gaza was sentenced Monday to 21 months in prison.

Patrick Dai, of suburban Rochester, New York, was accused by federal officials in October of posting anonymous threats to shoot and stab Jewish people on a Greek life forum. The threats came during a spike in antisemitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric related to the war and rattled Jewish students on the upstate New York campus.