Columbia University is launching a “Doxxing Resource Group” for students whose names and photographs are being displayed on the side of a truck driven near campus with a message describing them as the school’s “leading antisemites.”
It’s the latest headache for the elite university, which, like many others, has struggled to respond to tensions between Jewish and pro-Palestinian students over the Israel-Hamas war.
“The deliberate harassment and targeting of members of our community by doxxing, a dangerous form of intimidation, is unacceptable,” Columbia President Minouche Shafik wrote, detailing resources available to students. She also announced the formation of a task force to respond to “a series of antisemitic incidents on campus.”
Students shared videos of the truck with Gothamist. The footage showed the box truck is equipped with large video screens displaying the students’ names and photos alongside the message “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.” The images also feature a separate URL of each student’s name, forever linking them on the internet to accusations of antisemitism. Doxxing is a form of harassment involving the intentional online publication of someone’s personal information.
The websites state more than 20 students are being targeted for signing a letter that said “there can be no future of safety and freedom for all Israelis and Palestinians without holding the Israeli occupation accountable for its actions.”
The sites state that Columbia has not disciplined students who signed the letter and urged people to “take action against antisemitism” at the university.
The trucks bear the name Accuracy In Media, which was founded in 1969 to combat perceived liberal bias in the press, particularly in coverage of the Vietnam War. The trucks have also appeared on the campuses of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Accuracy In Media’s President Adam Guillette previously…
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