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      As Protests Continue at Columbia, Some Jewish Students Feel Targeted

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      After reports of harassment by demonstrators, some Jewish students said they felt unsafe. Others rejected that view, while condemning antisemitism.Days after Columbia University’s president testified before Congress, the atmosphere on campus remained fraught on Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests that have drawn the attention of the police and the concern of some Jewish students.Over the weekend, the student-led demonstrations on campus also attracted separate, more agitated protests by demonstrators who seemed to be unaffiliated with the university just outside Columbia’s gated campus in Upper Manhattan, which was closed to the public because of the protests.Some of those protests took a dark turn on Saturday evening, leading to the harassment of some Jewish students who were targeted with antisemitic vitriol. The verbal attacks left some of the 5,000 Jewish students at Columbia fearful for their safety on the campus and its vicinity, and even drew condemnation from the White House and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable and dangerous,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White House, said in a statement.But Jewish students who are supporting the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus said they felt solidarity, not a sense of danger, even as they denounced the acts of antisemitism.Grant Miner, a Jewish graduate student at Columbia University, says he doesn’t feel unsafe on campus.Bing Guan for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Columbia Students Who Were Arrested Face Uncertain Consequences

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      Students who camped in tents to protest the war in Gaza, including the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar, may be barred from finishing the semester.Many of the more than 100 Columbia University and Barnard College students who were arrested after refusing to leave a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus on Thursday woke up to a chilly new reality this week: Columbia said that their IDs would soon stop working, and some of them would not be able to finish the semester.The students who were arrested were released with summonses. The university said all of the 100 or so students involved in the protest had been informed that they were suspended.For some of those students, that means they must vacate their student housing, with just weeks before the semester ends.Yet whatever the consequences, several of the students said in interviews that they were determined to keep protesting Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.They said that after being loaded onto buses with their hands tied, they had sung all the way to police headquarters. Many expressed a renewed belief in their cause, and were glad that the eyes of the nation were on Columbia and Barnard, its sister college.The protests, the arrests and the subsequent disciplinary action came a day after the congressional testimony this week of Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, at a hearing about antisemitism on campus. Columbia has said there have been a number of antisemitic episodes, including one attack, and many Jewish students have seen the protests as antisemitic.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Columbia University President Faces Difficult Road Ahead as Students Protest on Campus

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      For Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, a hearing on antisemitism went relatively well. But on campus, intense protests suggest a difficult road ahead for the university.Representative Elise Stefanik leaned into the microphone and volleyed a series of questions at the university president sitting in front of her. It was about three hours into a congressional hearing examining antisemitism at Columbia University, and the president, Nemat Shafik, paused, sighed and gave a nervous laugh.Ms. Stefanik had asked whether the university would remove a professor who praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attack from a role as chair of the university’s academic review committee.After a few seconds, Dr. Shafik responded. “I think that would be — I think, I would, yes. Let me come back with yes,” she said.Republican lawmakers on the House Committee on Education and the Work Force had come ready to pounce. They tested for weaknesses and prodded vulnerabilities, while their witnesses, a group of Columbia leaders, seemed conciliatory.And yet, by the end, it seemed Dr. Shafik and other campus leaders had successfully diffused Republican lines of attack, repeatedly and vigorously agreeing that antisemitism was a serious problem on their campus and vowing that they would do more to fight it.But as Dr. Shafik spoke, the tempest that she had been brought in to account for appeared to intensify. Back on campus in Manhattan, pro-Palestinian students erected an encampment with dozens of tents on a central campus lawn, vowing not to move until Columbia divested from companies with ties to Israel and met other demands. Hundreds of other students joined them to rally throughout the day.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A.I. Has a Measurement Problem

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      There’s a problem with leading artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude: We don’t really know how smart they are.That’s because, unlike companies that make cars or drugs or baby formula, A.I. companies aren’t required to submit their products for testing before releasing them to the public. There’s no Good Housekeeping seal for A.I. chatbots, and few independent groups are putting these tools through their paces in a rigorous way.Instead, we’re left to rely on the claims of A.I. companies, which often use vague, fuzzy phrases like “improved capabilities” to describe how their models differ from one version to the next. And while there are some standard tests given to A.I. models to assess how good they are at, say, math or logical reasoning, many experts have doubts about how reliable those tests really are.This might sound like a petty gripe. But I’ve become convinced that a lack of good measurement and evaluation for A.I. systems is a major problem.For starters, without reliable information about A.I. products, how are people supposed to know what to do with them?I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked in the past year, by a friend or a colleague, which A.I. tool they should use for a certain task. Does ChatGPT or Gemini write better Python code? Is DALL-E 3 or Midjourney better at generating realistic images of people?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harvard Will Require Test Scores for Admissions

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      The university is the latest in a series of highly selective schools to end its test-optional policy.Harvard will reinstate standardized testing as a requirement of admission, the university announced Thursday, becoming the latest in a series of highly competitive universities to reverse their test-optional policies. Students applying to Harvard in fall 2025 will be required to submit SAT or ACT scores, though the university said a few other test scores will be accepted in “exceptional cases,” including Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests. In making the decision, the college said it had been persuaded by research that found that standardized testing was a valuable tool to identify promising students in disadvantaged environments and struggling schools, especially when paired with other credentials.“Standardized tests are a means for all students, regardless of their background and life experience, to provide information that is predictive of success in college and beyond,” Hopi Hoekstra, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, said in a statement announcing the move.“When students have the option of not submitting their test scores, they may choose to withhold information that, when interpreted by the admissions committee in the context of the local norms of their school, could have potentially helped their application,” Ms. Hoekstra added. “In short, more information, especially such strongly predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic range.”Harvard was one of about 2,000 colleges across the country that dropped test score requirements over the last few years, a trend that escalated during the pandemic when it was harder for students to get to test sites. Critics of standardized tests have long raised concerns that the tests helped fuel inequality because some wealthier students raised their scores through high-priced tutoring.But new research has challenged the conventional wisdom, finding that bright students from disadvantaged backgrounds had been overlooked by admissions offices because they had chosen not to submit test scores, even though they outperformed their peers.A growing number of schools have now reversed their policies, including Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, M.I.T., Georgetown and Purdue.This is a developing story. More

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      Ex-Cornell Student Admits Targeting Jewish Students With Online Threats

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      Patrick Dai pleaded guilty to posting a series of messages in which he threatened to stab, rape and behead Jewish people.A former Cornell University student pleaded guilty on Wednesday to posting a series of online messages shortly after the war in Gaza began last fall in which he threatened to stab, rape and behead Jewish people, federal prosecutors said.The former student, Patrick Dai, pleaded guilty to posting threats to kill or injure another person using interstate communications, according to federal prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office for New York’s Northern District.Mr. Dai, 21, who is originally from Pittsford, N.Y., is scheduled to be sentenced in August and faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, prosecutors said.“This defendant is being held accountable for vile, abhorrent, antisemitic threats of violence levied against members of the Cornell University Jewish community,” Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.Lisa Peebles, a federal public defender representing Mr. Dai, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an interview with WHEC, a local television station, outside the federal courthouse in Syracuse, N.Y., on Wednesday, she said the threats were a product of a “bad decision” over “a bad couple of days.”“He’s very remorseful,” she said. “He accepts responsibility.”A university spokesman declined to comment on the plea.Mr. Dai was a junior majoring in computer science when he made the threats. In pleading guilty, he admitted to posting them anonymously on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29 in the Cornell section of an online discussion forum about fraternity and sorority life, prosecutors said.The threats included saying he was “gonna shoot up” a kosher dining hall on the Cornell campus and was “gonna bomb” a Jewish residence there, prosecutors said.In one post, prosecutors said, he threatened to “stab” and “slit the throat” of any Jewish man he saw on campus; to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish women; to behead Jewish babies; and to “bring an assault rifle to campus” and shoot Jews.The F.B.I. traced the threats to Mr. Dai through an IP address, and he admitted they were his in an interview with federal agents, according to a criminal complaint.The threats came amid a surge in antisemitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric across the United States, including at colleges and universities, after the war in Gaza began in October. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and Doug Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, traveled to Cornell’s Ithaca campus to show support for rattled students. Cornell canceled classes for a day.Mr. Dai’s mother, Bing Liu, told The Associated Press in November that she believed the threats were partly the fault of medication her son had been taking for depression and anxiety.She told The A.P. that her son’s depression had prompted her to bring him home on weekends, that he was home the weekend the threats were made and that he had previously taken three semesters off. More

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      What to Know About Biden’s New Student Debt Relief Plan

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      The proposal would affect nearly 30 million people and would target groups that have had hardships in repaying their loans.President Biden announced a large-scale effort to help pay off federal student loans for more than 20 million borrowers.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesPresident Biden released details on Monday of his new student loan debt forgiveness plan for nearly 30 million borrowers.The proposal still needs to be finalized and will have to withstand expected legal challenges, like the ones that doomed Mr. Biden’s first attempt to wipe out student debt on a large scale last year.Biden administration officials said they could begin handing out some of the debt relief — including the canceling of up to $20,000 in interest — as soon as this fall if the new effort moves forward after the required, monthslong comment period.Here’s what is known so far about the program:Who would benefit from the new plan?The plan would reduce payments for 25 million borrowers and erase all debt for more than four million Americans. Altogether, 10 million borrowers would see debt relief of $5,000 or more, officials said.The groups affected include:— Borrowers whose loan balances have ballooned because of interest would have up to $20,000 of their interest balance canceled. The plan would waive the entire interest balance for borrowers considered “low- and middle-income” who are enrolled in the administration’s income-driven repayment plans.The interest forgiveness would be a one-time benefit, but would be the largest relief valve in the plan. The administration estimates that of the 25 million borrowers that could see relief under this waiver, 23 million would see their entire interest balance wiped out.— Borrowers who are eligible for, but have not yet applied for, loan forgiveness under existing programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness or the administration’s new repayment program, called SAVE, would have their debts automatically canceled.— Borrowers with undergraduate student debt who started repaying their loans more than 20 years ago, and graduate students who started paying their debt 25 or more years ago, would have their debts canceled.— Borrowers who enrolled in programs or colleges that lost federal funding because they cheated or defrauded students would have their debts waived. Students who attended institutions or programs that left them with mounds of debt but bleak earning or job prospects would also be eligible for relief.— Borrowers who are experiencing “hardship” paying back their loans because of medical or child care costs would also be eligible for some type of relief. The administration has not yet determined how these borrowers would be identified, but is considering automatic forgiveness for those at risk of defaulting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hillary Clinton’s Return to Wellesley Met With Protests and Ceasefire Calls

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      Pro-Palestinian demonstrations surrounded an appearance at a new research center named after the former secretary of state and presidential nominee at her alma mater. Hillary Clinton returned on Saturday to her alma mater, Wellesley College, to celebrate the opening of a new research and study center that bears her name, more than half a century after she graduated and set off on the path that would make her its most famous alumna.She was met, as ever, by Wellesley faculty, students and alumnae who see her as a rock star, a kind of campus demi-deity who forever elevated the status of this small liberal arts college west of Boston. But as Mrs. Clinton moderated a panel on “democracy at a crossroads” at the new center’s inaugural summit, a group of student protesters outside chanted and raised signs objecting to her presence, an angry display of the more critical way many in the latest generation of Wellesley women view her legacy.Near the end of the panel, a student attendee inside the event stood and started shouting, accusing Mrs. Clinton of indifference to violence against Palestinians. “We’re having a discussion,” Mrs. Clinton told the woman, who was escorted out of the hall by college staff members. “I’m perfectly happy to meet you after this event and talk with you.”Protesters who gathered on campus Friday and Saturday to show their disregard for Mrs. Clinton, a former first lady, U.S. senator, secretary of state and Democratic Party nominee for president, declined to speak to reporters or identify the group or groups behind the demonstrations. “Do not talk to the cops, do not talk to the press,” a protest leader with a bullhorn reminded them Saturday morning. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More