Actions have consequences, as Rep. Ilhan Omar’s daughter is finding out after being suspended from Barnard College for participating in the ongoing violent, antisemitic protests at Columbia University.
Lack of action can have consequences, too, and Columbia’s refusal to crack down on the protesters and ensure the safety of its Jewish students is now going to cause them to lose out on some serious cash as billionaire Patriots owner Robert Kraft has announced he will no longer support his alma mater. He says the school is “unrecognizable” to him.
Kraft, founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, made his thoughts clear in a statement Monday:
Patriots owner Robert Kraft says he will no longer donate to Columbia University until the school protects Jewish students. pic.twitter.com/B0lriqsUzb
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 22, 2024
He credits the full academic scholarship he received from Columbia for helping him get his start in life:
“It was through the full academic scholarship Columbia gave me that I was able to attend college and get my start in life and for that I have been tremendously grateful,” Kraft said in a statement. “However, the school I love so much – the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity – is no longer an institution I recognize.”
Despite his gratitude, he will no longer support the Ivy League school unless they clean up their act:
“I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country,” Kraft added. “I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken.
“It is my hope that Columbia and its leadership will stand up to this hate by ending these protests immediately and will work to earn back the respect and trust of many of us who have lost faith in the institution,” he continued.
“It is my hope that in this difficult time, the Kraft Center at Columbia will serve as a source of security and safety for all Jewish students and faculty on campus who want to gather peacefully to practice their religions, to be together and to be welcomed.”
Kraft, worth an estimated $11.1 billion, has been a generous donor to Columbia and funded the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life near the campus. He got started in business by selling newspapers as a kid and later became rich in the paper and packaging industry. He donated over $13 million to the Kraft Center, and his Foundation to Combat Antisemitism ran a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl as part of his “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” campaign.
The Columbia protests have been ugly:
See:
Columbia Campus Chaos: Pro-Hamas Protests Turn Violent Resulting in Multiple Arrests
Pro-Hamas Protests Rage Into the Night at Columbia University
Columbia University Rabbi Asks Jewish Students to Go Home and Not Return Amid Pro-Hamas Protests
Kraft isn’t the first billionaire to pull his support from a U.S. major school; shipping and chemical magnate Idan Ofer and his wife Batia announced they would no longer donate to Harvard University as antisemitism roiled the Cambridge, MA campus in 2023 after the horrific Hamas Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. Meanwhile, investor Ross Stevens withdrew his pledged $100 million donation to the University of Pennsylvania.
The antisemitism scourge that has taken over so many American colleges is disgusting, and while some of the institutions have massive endowments and receive plentiful funds from the government, hitting them in the pocketbook is one way decent people are fighting back.
We need more people like Kraft to step up and expose their hateful conduct in appeasing these Hamas-loving, America-hating protesters.
