Why are the Trustees failing Columbia?
Got a Question for the Trustees? Tell US HERE!
We Deserve a Board of Trustees that does better!
we urge you to raise These questions with Columbia’s leadership:
WHY does Dr. Shoshana Shendelman remain a trustee, despite facing a lawsuit for securities fraud, FDA criticism for regulatory violations, and her 2024 termination from Applied Therapeutics, the pharmaceutical company she founded?
SIGN THE Petition for the removal of Dr. Shoshana Shendelman from the Board of Trustees
WHY have Columbia’s leaders not fought back legally, publicly, and politically against Trump’s punitive funding cuts that are unpopular with a majority of Americans?
WHY is a Chair Emeritus of the Board of Trustees who referred to Columbia’s University Senate as “antisemites” in charge of selecting Columbia’s next president?
WHAT did the BoT know – and WHEN did they know it – about the years and years of sexual predation by Columbia physician Robert Hadden whose horrific assaults on hundreds of women have now cost the University more than one billion dollars?
WHY did multiple sources tell The Observer that “members of the board of trustees were in direct communication with Republicans in Congress and, later, the Trump administration, offering information and advice on what demands to make and how to present them”?
WHY have the BoT, former President Shafik, and Columbia’s Antisemitism Task Force worked so hard to maximize Columbia’s Title VI liability in the absence of evidence or facts, threatening billions in federal funding?
WHO advised the Trump administration to target the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies with outrageous demands for “academic receivership”? WHY did Columbia respond by putting all of its Middle East studies programs under review?
WHY did a source tell The Forward that “some members of Columbia’s board had also reported [Columbia student Mahmoud] Khalil to officials” for detention and attempted deportation?
WHY has Columbia never publicly retracted its false allegations about November 2023 student protests containing “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” – language Marco Rubio used to unlawfully detain and seek to deport Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi?
WHY does the BoT remain “engaged in what we continue to believe to be good faith discussions with the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism”?
This Federal Task Force contains no experts on antisemitism or higher education and is a tool of a Trump administration whose members have said “professors are the enemy” (JD Vance), whose friends perform Nazi salutes on television (Elon Musk), and whose gurus have boasted that “Columbia is folding and the other universities will follow suit” (Christopher Rufo).
WHAT exactly is giving the BoT the confidence that their interlocutors are negotiating in good faith??
WHY has the BoT engaged in a pattern of complicitous and calamitous acts with the MAGA anti-science, anti-medicine agenda that have terminated millions of dollars’ worth of research at Columbia, ended and threatened medical trials and studies involving everyday New Yorkers, and put hundreds out of work?
WHY did Interim President Katrina Armstrong choose to publish a report produced by Columbia University’s Antisemitism Task Force that failed to distinguish between protected political speech and hate speech, contained factual inaccuracies, and personally attacked Jewish faculty who dared to disagree with the Task Force?
WHY does the “Stand Columbia Society” – which peddles pro-capitulation right-wing talking points to the Columbia community – not disclose its funders or its ties to the BoT?
WHY should any of us have any confidence in this Board to protect Columbia or pick our next University President?
Whose side is Columbia’s Board of Trustees on and what do they want for OUR University?
Columbia faculty want to know:
Why did our Board of Trustees get us into this mess?
And who’s going to get us out of it?
1. Why has Columbia’s Board of Trustees failed to secure and retain effective and appropriate leadership?
Within the past two years, Columbia has had four different Presidents. Why with its most recent appointment is the Board of Trustees disregarding the University Statutes and Middle States accreditation requirements by appointing its co-chair as Acting President?
2. Why has there been no accountability in the Robert Hadden sexual abuse case?
Why have no individuals been held responsible for ignoring, covering up, or enabling Robert Hadden’s decades of sexual violence, which resulted in harm that affected over a thousand victims, cost the university more than $1 billion, and has severely damaged its reputation?
3. Why did Then-Board-Co-Chair Shipman make unfounded claims about antisemitism to Congress?
Why did Claire Shipman, now Acting President, tell Congressional Republicans in 2024 that “We have a specific problem right now on our campus… that is rampant antisemitism,” despite the absence of any thorough investigation or findings—thereby providing the pretext for the very assault from the Trump administration we now face? (Letter from GSA, DOE, and HHS to Katrina Armstrong, David Greenwald, and Claire Shipman. March 13, 2025)
4. Why is the Board targeting the University Senate?
Why has the Board launched a sudden, urgent, and opaque “review” of the University Senate—the only elected body representing faculty, students, and staff empowered to facilitate shared governance—while failing to invite an open and collective examination of its own shortcomings?
5. Why is the Board of Trustees resisting transparency?
Why does the Board of Trustees continue to hold closed meetings, when other universities allow students and faculty to attend and observe? Why are all Board of Trustee meeting minutes without exception subject to a 50-year embargo?
6. Why are serious misconduct allegations no reason for resigning as Trustee?
Why does Dr. Shoshana Shendelman remain a trustee, despite facing a lawsuit for securities fraud, FDA criticism for regulatory violations, and her 2024 termination from Applied Therapeutics, the pharmaceutical company she founded?
Columbia deserves a Board that fulfills its fiduciary duties and serves our university with integrity!
Columbia Community Members, we urge you to raise these questions with Columbia’s leadership.
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