October 15, 2024
By Emily Forgash
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) sent a letter on Monday to James Dennehy, assistant director in charge of the FBI, claiming that Columbia University Apartheid Divest’s Oct. 8 Instagram post contained “violent threats” that “demand immediate attention and a thorough investigation to prevent any acts of terrorism.”
In its Oct. 8 statement, CUAD apologized for the “irrevocable harm” done to Khymani James, CC ’25, by the organization’s April 26 Instagram post that included an apology for comments James made in a January Instagram live video, during which James said “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists” during a meeting with Columbia’s Center for Student Success and Intervention.
CUAD wrote in its Oct. 8 post that the organization does “support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance” and that “in the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”
“It’s rare for potential perpetrators of violence, particularly school-based violence, to widely and publicly broadcast their intent in such a way as it becomes national news,” Stefanik and Ernst wrote in their letter. “But that’s exactly what the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a coalition of student groups, did on October 8, 2024.”
University spokesperson Samantha Slater wrote in a statement to Spectator that “Statements advocating for violence or harm are antithetical to the core principles upon which this institution was founded.”
“Calls for violence have no place at Columbia or any university,” Slater wrote.
CUAD did not respond to a request for comment.
Stefanik and Ernst wrote that “CUAD’s threats—coupled with its past actions—make CUAD’s statements ‘a medium-level threat’” based on “The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective”—a tool published by the FBI. The tool described a medium-level threat as one that “could be carried out, although it may not appear entirely realistic.”
A medium-level threat can be identified by markers such as “a specific statement seeking to convey that the threat is not empty,” and “veiled reference[s]” to possible preparatory steps, Stefanik and Ernst wrote based on the threat assessment.
In a post on X addressing the letter, Ernst wrote that “The leaders of Columbia University Apartheid Divest are openly calling for the murder of Jews and celebrating Hamas’ terrorist attacks.”
“When someone tells you who they are, believe them,” Ernst wrote.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which Stefanik sits on, launched a probe into antisemitism at Columbia in February, and has since subpoenaed documents, including those related to James, and published previously undisclosed details about student disciplinary proceedings.
Now, the representatives wrote that a federal intervention is “necessary” given “the considerable violence occurring for which this group is already responsible” and Columbia’s “inability and unwillingness to police its own campus necessitating it to request the NYPD intervene.”
Stefanik and Ernst wrote that “Rarely has the FBI had such public and obvious evidence of potentially imminent violence” and that “the time to act is now.”
“This cannot become another instance in which a terrible case of violence takes place at a school and the FBI issues a statement after the fact that the perpetrators were on its radar,’ but did nothing,” Ernst and Stefanik wrote in their letter. “Put simply, the writing is on the wall and you have no excuse. Do your job.”
