In January 2024, Claire Shipman, who served as the chair of Columbia University’s board of trustees before she became the acting president of Columbia University, minimized the open antisemitism at the university, tried to keep a pro-Israel member of the board unaware of the school’s negotiations with anti-Israel demonstrators, and tried to remove that member of the board and replace her with an Arab one.
“We need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board,” Shipman wrote on January 17, 2024, as The Washington Free Beacon reported. “Quickly I think. Somehow.”
The next week, she ripped board member Shoshana Shendelman — whose family fled Iran after the Islamic 1979 revolution and who had spoken out against the antisemitism on campus, wanting to restore law and order — saying she had been “extraordinarily unhelpful … I just don’t think she should be on the board.”
Later that year, in April, Shipman — a former senior national correspondent for ABC’s “Good Morning America,” who is married to Jay Carney, former President Obama’s White House press secretary — reportedly instructed vice-chair Wanda Greene to freeze Shendelman out about negotiations with the demonstrators, saying Shendelman was “fishing for information.” On April 22, Green responded, “Do you believe that she is a mole? A Fox in the henhouse?”
“I do,” Shipman answered.
Greene later added, “I’m tired of her.”
“So, so tired,” Shipman replied.
On Tuesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) — who led the charge in Congress questioning university presidents from Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania about antisemitism on campus — joined Education Workforce Committee chair Tim Walberg (R-MI) in a letter asking for “clarifications on the attached correspondence” and inquiring about Shipman wanting an Arab on the board, saying it “raises troubling questions regarding Columbia’s priorities just months after the October 7th attack, which was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”
JULY 4 SALE: Get Six Months Of DW+ Free
“Shipman downplayed and outright mocked those who sought to expose the disgusting culture of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus,” Stefanik wrote on X.
Speaking of the issues Shipman had with Shendelman, they wrote that it raises “the question of why you appeared to be in favor of removing one of the board’s most outspoken Jewish advocates at a time when Columbia students were facing a shocking level of fear and hostility.”
Columbia issued a response to the Free Beacon about the story, stating, “These communications were provided to the Committee in the fall of 2024 and reflect communications from more than a year ago. They are now being published out of context and reflect a particularly difficult moment in time for the University when leaders across Columbia were intensely focused on addressing significant challenges.”
“Columbia declined to provide additional context for the messages on the record,” the Free Beacon noted succinctly.
