Rep. Nicole Malliotakis told Newsmax on Thursday that Columbia University President Minouche Shafik is right with her calls for a "reset" at the university in the wake of ongoing pro-Palestinian protests — as long as that reset starts with her resignation.
"We're calling for this president to resign because she's not addressing it," the New York Republican, who visited the Columbia campus Wednesday with House Speaker Mike Johnson and other lawmakers, said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
"She's not taking control of the campus or making her students feel safe or keeping them safe," she added. "They have to go to virtual learning because she cannot protect them, and that is a massive problem that we have not just at Columbia but at other universities as well."
Malliotakis said the lawmakers, before Johnson spoke, met with a "wonderful group of Jewish students who sadly were telling us that they are afraid to go to class," as they've faced "vile rhetoric" from protesters and in some cases have been "assaulted and spat on."
"They have to see swastikas around the campus, so these are real legitimate issues here," said Malliotakis, adding that it was shocking to Ivy League students "acting so juvenile as if they were at a junior high school," who were "cursing at the speaker of the house."
"If they're doing it to us, imagine what they're doing to these Jewish students each and every day," said Malliotakis.
Johnson has pointed out that Hamas has endorsed protesters in the United States, and Malliotakis said the protesters at Columbia "seem to be proud" to be aligning themselves to Hamas and that the "horrific terrorist organization" has referred to them as "future leaders."
"The fact that these students feel proud to be associated with Hamas is really frightening," she added. "It makes us really concerned about the future of this country."
The protesters are also disrupting the campus and forcing people who pay $90,000 a year to be "deprived of the experience" and having to use virtual learning, said Malliotakis.
"Who knows what's going to happen with their graduation," she added. "It is wrong. It is disruptive. They need to be removed. And the president just seems to have this 'oh, well, we'll wait to see if they leave' approach, which is just absolutely ridiculous."
Shafik had told the protesters that they had to "leave by midnight the other day and then extended the deadline to 8 a.m. yesterday morning," Malliotakis said. "Today, they're still there, 24 hours later. This is not somebody who seriously has any type of handle on the situation on her own campus."
Columbia said in a statement Wednesday that the protesters would be allowed to stay if no harassing language was being used, but Malliotakis said the students her group spoke with did.
"The fact that this university president feels like she needs to negotiate with students… what happened to you?" she said, noting that ordinarily, students who don't follow school policy get expelled.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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