Columbia Law Professor Smeared by Israel Supporters Could Lose Her Job

While the Columbia University campus has mostly emptied out for summer vacation, the school is charging forward with an investigation into a prominent law school professor over comments that were misconstrued by supporters of Israel.

The university recently deposed tenured law professor Katherine Franke as part of an investigation stemming from an interview she gave to “Democracy Now!” in January. During that interview, Franke was asked about allegations that two students who had previously served in the Israeli army had sprayed a chemical at their classmates at an on-campus rally for Gaza.

Franke, who has worked at the school for decades, responded by linking the incident to a documented pattern of on-campus harassment that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students have alleged for years.

“Columbia has a program with older students from other countries, including Israel,” Franke said, referring to the school’s General Studies program. “It’s something that many of us were concerned about because so many of those Israeli students who then come to the campus are coming right out of their military service. And they’ve been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus, and it’s something the university has not taken seriously in the past.”

The remarks set off a firestorm, with commentators suggesting that Franke was calling to ban all Israeli students from campus. Within a few days of the interview, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article titled “Columbia University Pushes Back Against Professor Who Vilified Israeli Students,” citing a statement from the university affirming its support for Israeli students. 

By February 13, Franke was notified of a complaint against her based on the interview, filed by two law school professors who alleged violations of university discrimination policy. Online, supporters of Israel continued to misconstrue Franke’s statements, while a Republican lawmaker asked University President Minouche Shafik about Franke during an April hearing about campus antisemitism. 

Columbia refused to answer The Intercept’s questions on the pending investigation, but referred to its equal opportunity and affirmative action policies and procedures. The document lists a range of possible disciplinary action, including probation, administrative leave or suspension, and dismissal or restriction from employment. 

Franke is one of several Columbia staff to face investigation — many of whom have defended Palestinian rights — while the House Committee on Education and the Workforce continues to apply pressure on the school. Recently, three deans were placed on indefinite leave for exchanging text messages the university says “touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.” Professors elsewhere across the country have had their livelihoods imperiled upon speaking out in defense of Palestinians.

“What’s of greatest concern is not really my 20-year-plus career at Columbia, but what this says about peaceful protest on our campuses, around the lives and dignity of Palestinians,” Franke said in an interview with The Intercept.

“What’s happening to me is happening to our students, it’s happened to people on many other campuses. And it’s, to me, shocking at a place like Columbia — which prides itself on being a home for, if not only tolerating, maybe welcoming student engagement with public events or public affairs like the crisis in the Middle East,” she continued. “And yet they’re punishing me and others for standing up for our students who I think are engaging in appropriate protest.”

Franke’s career as a lawyer and legal scholar has focused on gender and sexuality law, and she has also done human rights work focused on Israel’s occupation of Palestine. In 2018, Israel deported Franke upon her arrival in the country to take part in a human rights delegation. As Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza has roiled the Columbia campus, Franke has defended students speaking out on behalf of Palestinians or criticizing the Israeli government. She has also been unabashed in her criticism of the university administration’s response to student protests.

In its statement to Haaretz on the heels of Franke’s “Democracy Now!” interview, a university spokesperson said, “We are disheartened to see some members of our community and beyond use this moment to spread antisemitism, Islamophobia, bigotry against Palestinians and Israelis. Especially at a time of pain and anger, we must avoid language that vilifies, threatens, or stereotypes entire groups of people. It is antithetical to Columbia’s values and can lead to acts of harassment or violence.”

As the controversy persisted ahead of the April congressional hearing, Franke reached out to Shafik through another senior administrator to relay her concerns. (Franke said she did so because she had been unable to get Shafik to meet with her or respond to her efforts to connect). In an email that she asked the administrator to forward to Shafik, she rebutted the misinformation that had circulated about her interview and reiterated that she wasn’t calling to ban Israeli students from campus. 

Rather, she wrote, she was voicing concern “about students coming onto our campus who have just completed their military service in Israel – the transition to civilian life – after having been taught that Palestinians are evil and want to kill Israelis/Jews – can be a rough one for some people.”

Franke said she never heard from Shafik about the email.

She was right to be on guard. At the April 17 hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., asked Shafik what she was doing about Franke, who, Stefanik falsely claimed, said “all Israeli students who have served in the IDF are dangerous and shouldn’t be on campus.”

“I agree with you that those comments are completely unacceptable and discriminatory,” Shafik said, accepting Stefanik’s framing. “I think she will be finding a way to clarify her position.” The president added that “a very senior person in the administration” spoke to Franke, who said the comments were not what she intended to say.

While Shafik’s comments indicated knowledge of Franke’s interaction with the senior administrator, the president misconstrued the core point of Franke’s outreach: She didn’t mean those “unacceptable” comments because she did not say them.

Shafik’s office did not respond to The Intercept’s questions.

As part of the school’s investigatory process, the university deposed Franke for a couple of hours on June 13. The deposition was handled by outside investigators at the insistence of Franke and her lawyer, who argued that she had been prejudged by the school’s president. 

“It seemed clear to me that they had made their mind up already, coming into the deposition, that I was generalizing in a way that would make people who served in the IDF or Israelis feel bad, and so there’s a very good chance that they will fire me,” Franke said. She said that the person who deposed her seemed to be trying to goad her into agreeing with the premise of the violations alleged, asking questions like, “You can understand that somebody might hear what you said and take it as discriminatory?”

Franke is expecting a decision any day now. She was told the university would make a decision in a matter of weeks. 

“Today, it’s Palestine. Tomorrow could be abortion. It could be, you know, criticizing the Trump administration. It could be climate change,” Franke said. “I feel like it’s Palestine today, but what’s at stake here is something much larger, of the imposition of a kind of orthodoxy around a very contested political concept or context.”