Columbia Law Review Website Is Taken Offline Over Article Criticizing Israel

The website of the Columbia Law Review, one of the United States’ most prestigious student-edited law journals, was taken offline Monday by its board of directors after its editors published an article that argues Palestinians are living under a “brutally sophisticated structure of oppression” by Israel that amounts to a crime against humanity.

As of Tuesday evening, visitors to the website of the 123-year-old journal saw only a blank page with the message “Website is under maintenance.”

The decision to suspend access to the website is the latest example of how American universities have sought to regulate expression that is highly critical of Israel amid concerns that it veers into antisemitism. That, in turn, has spurred complaints about censorship and academic freedom when it comes to Palestinian scholarship.

In a statement, the board of directors, which consists of faculty members and alumni, said it had decided to suspend the website on Monday after learning two days earlier that not all of the students on the Law Review had read the essay before publication.

The board said that it had asked the editors to hold the article until June 7, to give others time to read it but that they had published it on Monday instead. The board then decided to take the website down temporarily “to provide time for the Law Review to determine how to proceed.”

In a letter Tuesday to the editorial staff that was provided to The New York Times, the board charged that the article had been handled with unusual secrecy, calling that “unacceptable.”