How was school today?” This is usually a question we ask our children. As a graduate school student at Columbia University, it was a reversal of roles when my children were the ones asking me that question.

Having chosen to stay home while my daughters were young, I had started planning for when they would leave our home in New York City for college. Three years ago, I decided to go back to campus myself.

With extensive volunteer leadership experience on nonprofit boards and committees worldwide—UJA-Federation of New York, the Gabriel Project Mumbai, Hazon/Adamah, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Heschel School, New York University and more—I chose to deepen my expertise by applying to Columbia University’s nonprofit management master’s program. Knowing there were many international students in the program, I also hoped to increase my exposure to cultures beyond my own.

I took my daughters, then ages 13 and 15, to tour the Morningside Heights campus, previewing what the experience would be like for them when they were ready to search for a college. We saw the lawns of Columbia, Butler library and my future classroom. My girls even helped me download the app for a coffee shop at the university.

As I began the two-year, part-time program in fall 2022, I received my syllabus for the Ethics in the Nonprofit Sector course, my first class with a community of students from all over the world. When I reviewed the dates and assignments, I saw that one of our class sessions fell during Yom Kippur. I alerted my professor right away and assured him I would ask for notes from friends and catch up by the following class.

What happened while I was at synagogue for the holiday that night,  gleaned from the notes I received from two classmates, has forever changed my trajectory and relationship with Columbia—and with my children, since they are getting tired of me retelling the story! And this was the year prior to the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent escalation of anti-Israel activism at Columbia and other campuses.

The in-class conversation, based on supplemental reading assigned by the professor, focused on the ethical dilemma of Jewish donor influence on Israel studies programs on university campuses, naming Jewish philanthropies and leaders. The professor’s lecture, according to the notes I obtained, consisted of antisemitic tropes and indoctrination about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Jewish students like me, who could have shared alternative perspectives, were absent because of Yom Kippur. At the suggestion of Israel on Campus Coalition board chair Dorothy Tananbaum, I alerted the Academic Engagement Network, an independent group that mobilizes networks of university faculty and administrators to counter antisemitism and advance education about Israel. The group’s executive director provided me with guidance and topical articles.

Only when I presented these resources to my professor, who is the chief diversity officer for the School of Professional Studies at Columbia, were readings with alternative perspectives shared with the class via email. When offered the opportunity to present my perspective in a future class, I bravely took my turn to share about my connection to Israel and offered to have a dialogue about Israel with anyone in the class. Only two Jewish students and a Ukrainian refugee spoke with me, sharing about their personal experiences and reactions.

During my first year at Columbia, my family hosted many of my classmates for Shabbat and holiday meals. At the start of my second year, I welcomed a multicultural gathering in my rooftop sukkah. Students from India, Kenya, South Africa, Poland, Slovakia and Canada brought food from their home countries as we celebrated each other’s heritage.

Two days later, Hamas attacked Israel.

As the climate on campus immediately shifted, I found myself studying alongside students who were attending the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests and encampment.

One day in October 2023, even before the encampment was established, I was unable to access Butler library due to protestors who, with their faces covered, encircled the campus lawns and blocked the entrance while shouting and chanting antisemitic slogans and holding signs.

Antisemitism inside and outside of the classroom was palpable. Student leaders of the Nonprofit Management Student Association, of which I was the director of professional development, blocked opportunities for site visits to Jewish nonprofits such as Hadassah, where an alum of our program works, and UJA-Federation of New York, which helps New Yorkers regardless of religion. They declared that such programming didn’t fit into the DEI framework of our club and the school’s mission. They demanded secret votes to determine whether to proceed with speaker events or site visits. Any organization or speaker connected to the Jewish community became the target of behind-the-scenes campaigns to be rejected.

Our final class was mandated to move to Zoom because the situation on campus, including the encampment that was established in April 2024 and the ongoing protests, had become too disruptive for all students. A student gleefully joined the Zoom class session from the encampment.

Now I am part of a lawsuit in federal court suing Columbia for violating my civil rights under Title VI. I was one of only five named students and two organizations—Students Against Antisemitism and StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice—in the original filing of February 2024, detailed by our lawyers Kasowitz Benson Torres in the Southern District of New York. We were joined by additional students in an amended complaint in June 2024. We are waiting on a ruling from the court on a Motion to Dismiss filed by Columbia.

Unfortunately, since our filing, buildings at Columbia and nearby Barnard College continue to be taken over by masked protestors, with their heads wrapped in keffiyehs, just as they were a year ago.

By advocating for myself, I am showing my daughters—and their friends—how to respond to indoctrination from professors and to conversations about Jews that are inappropriate in their future classrooms. In addition to talking with their parents, students can surround themselves with Jewish friends and allies. They can advocate for themselves directly with their professors as well as talk to deans, student affairs departments and national organizations that support Jewish students on campus.

In modeling for my children, I am looking to the future but I also want them to honor our past. Our family recently went to Milan to celebrate the 100th birthday of Maria, a Holocaust survivor who grew up in Poland with my grandma and was with her in several concentration camps. We had become very close since Maria lived near us until she recently moved to live with her daughter in Milan.

Actions speak louder than words—a lawsuit, a celebration of life and lifelong learning. My hope is that one day, my daughters will tell their grandchildren about what they witnessed when their mom went back to school to further her education—and how she earned not just a master’s degree but also the determination to fight antisemitism and anti-Israel bias at Columbia. 

---

Valerie Gerstein is a recent graduate of Columbia University’s nonprofit management master’s program. She is among the original plaintiffs in the Title VI lawsuit against Columbia brought by Kasowitz Benson Torres in February 2024. While a student, Gerstein, a Hadassah life member, met with congressional leaders and attended the House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on antisemitism at Columbia.