July 18, 2024, New York – In response to reports that Columbia University may fire or otherwise seriously sanction our former board chair, Katherine Franke, the Center for Constitutional Rights Board and Executive Director Vince Warren issued the following statement:

We stand in support of Katherine Franke, Columbia University law professor and our former board chair, who is facing malicious retaliation for her principled Palestinian rights advocacy. To target this esteemed scholar, Columbia is using as pretext a single remark she made, yet these words – read in context and quoted accurately – are not merely protected speech; they are also reasonable and reflective of Franke’s characteristic concern for the rights and wellbeing of Palestinian students and students who stand for Palestinian rights. 

Columbia’s mistreatment of Franke emerges from a longstanding repressive climate on college campuses for advocates of Palestinian liberation. This has worsened since October 7th as students protest Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. In the spring, with Columbia at the forefront, college administrators across the country called in the police to crack down on protestors, while supporters of Israel waged violence against pro-Palestinian students with impunity. Franke says Columbia is targeting her largely because she helped provide legal defense to hundreds of student protesters. 

Here are the words that supporters of Israel have seized on and distorted: 

“Columbia has a program with older students from other countries, including Israel. 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.” 

She said this because, during her long tenure at Columbia, Franke has worked with scores of students who have sought her advice and support when they have been physically and verbally attacked on campus for their pro-Palestinian protest and advocacy.

At a McCarthyite Congressional hearing three months later, Rep. Elise Stefanik claimed Franke had said “all Israeli students who have served in the IDF are dangerous and shouldn’t be on campus.” That is how she put it in a question to Columbia President Minouche Shafik, who said the comment was “completely unacceptable and discriminatory” and revealed that Franke was under investigation – a process that is supposed to be protected as confidential. Now come reports that she may lose her job of 22 years. 

Franke’s main concern, she told the Intercept, is not her career but “what this says about peaceful protest on our campuses, around the lives and dignity of Palestinians.” Her firing would be yet  another indelible stain on Columbia’s reputation, as well as  a cheap coup for the politicians and donors who have pressured college administrators to muzzle  critics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Their goal is both to silence this liberatory student movement and to draw attention away from Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has killed nearly 40,000 people, including 14,000 children – though, according to scientists in The Lancet, the toll could reach 186,000. They were more successful in changing the subject than in quashing the protests, which abated only because the school year ended. We urge Columbia to drop its disciplinary investigation against this fine professor, and invite others to do the same. Professor Franke should be permitted to return to teaching next month – when the protests against Israel’s genocide will certainly resume.