What do you get if you fork over $66K annually in tuition for your child to attend Columbia University in New York City? For starters, your kid will get a front-row seat to the antisemitic pro-Hamas protests currently embroiling the campus. But will your kid get to watch scintillating lectures from distinguished professors and learn new skills that will help them succeed in the workplace?

Well, they can watch on their computer via Zoom, because Columbia announced that classes at its main campus will offer "remote learning" for the final weeks of the semester. Instead of cracking down on the protesters and protecting their students, they'd rather the Jewish ones went home apparently. 

Provost Angela V. Olinto issued a statement Monday night:

It’s vital that teaching and learning continue during this time. We recognize conditions vary across our campuses and thus are issuing the following guidelines:

Morningside main campus: All courses hybrid - classroom technology permitting - until the end of each school’s Spring 2024 semester with the following carveouts and further details below.

She added that all classes on the main campus should provide such a “learning modality” if possible:

All faculty whose classrooms are located on the main Morningside campus and equipped with hybrid capabilities should enable them to provide virtual learning options to students who need such a learning modality. Faculty in other classrooms or teaching spaces that do not have capabilities for offering hybrid options should hold classes remotely if there are student requests for virtual participation. If the class does not permit adapting to the remote offering format, we encourage faculty to provide other accommodations liberally to students who have requested support for virtual learning this week.

See:

Pro-Hamas Protests Rage Into the Night at Columbia University

Billionaire Patriots Owner Yanks Support From Columbia U, 'No Longer an Institution I Recognize'

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush, wasn't impressed:

Great. “Protesters” have in essence shut down Columbia University.

It’s terrible how weak the school’s leaders - and especially its faculty - are.

The school should be fully open (no remote classes) and students who disrupt other students should be expelled.

This isn’t hard. pic.twitter.com/Q8mgzupEH4

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) April 23, 2024

It brings back many (bad) memories of the COVID era:

Junior Michael D’Agostino, 22, said the hybrid classes were frustrating given “the amount we pay to be at this school to learn from these amazing faculties and professors.”

“I’m studying applied physics and applied math and those are classes I really benefit from being in-person. I went through COVID  and all that when we were online for about a year and it really disrupted our education,” he added.

“I really think it’s disheartening to see how our education is being punished as a result of this,” he said of the school’s response to the protests. “I think it’s really sad.”

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee noted that a Jewish professor was denied access to campus and said that Columbia should refund tuitions:

Let's get this straight-Jewish prof at Columbia is denied access to campus so violent and vile Jew-hating anarchists are allowed to roam around spewing genocidal chants. If a parent has a child at Columbia, they should demand a refund and then sue for breach of contract. https://t.co/TG2grkyptU

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) April 22, 2024

See:

Shocking Twist at Columbia: Jewish Prof Denied Entry to Campus, Stopped From Holding Pro-Israel Rally

Israeli Professor at Columbia University: 'This Is 1938'

The protests that have erupted at universities nationwide since the barbaric Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel have exposed the rot at the core of many of our systems of higher education. Like many parents, I will certainly not be sending my kids to any of these schools that tolerated—even condoned—this type of hateful behavior.