Congress Still Grilling College Presidents About Antisemitism on Their Campuses

While President Claudine Gay of Harvard, President Elizabeth Magill of UPenn, and President Sally Kornbluth of MIT were the first to be grilled by the Congressional Committee on Education and the Workforce about how they have beee handling antisemitism on their campuses, they have not been the last. Right now the redoubtable Congresswomen Virginia Foxx and Elise Stefanik are again grilling university presidents about the toleration of antisemitism at their institutions. More on the latest Congressional grilling can be found here: “Rutgers, Northwestern, and UCLA school leaders grilled over campus antisemitism on Capitol Hill,” by Hannah Sarisohn, Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2024:

Leaders of Rutgers, Northwestern, and UCLA were in the hot seat Thursday morning on Capitol Hill before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for their handling of antisemitism on campus since October 7 and specifically for their response to the chaotic encampments that unfolded earlier this month.

Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway, Northwestern President Michael Schill, and UCLA Chancellor Gene Block faced more than three hours of intense scrutiny in the Committee’s sixth event held on the responses of schools to antisemitism….

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota, 5th District) accused Block and other UCLA officials of failing to prevent the violence that broke out and endangered students in the encampment. She accused the university and law enforcement of standing by as the “mob of agitators” gathered nearby with the clear intention of causing violence.

Ilhan Omar was exercised that the pro-Israel counter-demonstrators were there at all, giving as good as they got from the pro-Hamas protesters at the encampment. She wanted only those she called the “agitators” to be arrested, not those who began the violence with their screams calling for Israel’s disappearance and its replacement by a 23rd Arab state, and their accusations that the IDF was committing “genocide” in Gaza. Omar found nothing wrong with that, but only with those who took issue with such violent invective .

Across the country at Rutgers in New Jersey, President Holloway struck a deal with protesters who took down their encampment peacefully as the university promised not to retaliate against students and faculty who participated in the protests as long as they did not continue to violate school rules.

In other words, President Holloway capitulated to the protesters, agreeing not to retaliate in any way against them for violating campus rules, as long as they took town their tent encampment. All was forgiven.

And there is more:

Rutgers administrators agreed to enroll Palestinian students and to continue a relationship with a West Bank university.

This was blackmail. “We’ll take down our tent, and not only will you not punish us in any way, but you must agree to enroll Palestinian students — on full scholarships.” Of course, those Palestinian students will help make Rutgers even more unwelcome to Jewish students by enrolling precisely those foreign students who are likely to be carriers of the antisemitic virus.

The state university did, however, refuse to end relationships with Israeli universities, saying only that it acknowledged a divestment request and would allow students to discuss it with an investment committee.

The administration is ready to discuss ending Rutgers’ relationship with Israeli universities, but doesn’t want to be seen doing so right now, when it has already given in so much to the protesters, capitulating on every request. There will be time in the near future to cut Rutgers’ ties to Israeli institutions.

On Wednesday [March 22] ahead of the Capitol Hill hearing, hundreds of Jewish Rutgers University staff and students released letters describing their school as an intimidating campus environment for Jews.

At Northwestern University in Chicago, seven Jewish members of the school’s antisemitism committee resigned en masse after President Schill struck a deal with the groups behind the encampment there….

Seven Jewish students resigned en masse from a committee investigating antisemitism on the Northwestern campus after President Schill struck a deal with the pro-Hamas protesters. And then, the rest of the committee agreed to disband it, realizing that it had become a farce, to which President Schill paid no attention.

[NC Rep. Virginia] Foxx said she was “appalled by the condescension and contempt” Schill has shown for the committee and “for his own Jewish students today.”

She criticized Block for allowing pro-Palestinian students to set up checkpoints on campus and scolded Halloway for allowing protesters to share pro-Hamas content on social media….

Checkpoints at the UCLA campus to do what? Presumably, to keep Jewish and Israeli students from getting too close to the tent encampment, lest they try to pull it down. Or just possibly, to prevent Jewish students from attending class — a most effective form of harassment. As for those students who shared pro-Hamas content on social media, Chancellor Block of UCLA should have been reminded that the United States government has designated Hamas as a “terrorist organization” and banned it.

Be afraid, university presidents. Be very afraid. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx and her colleagues are just warming up; they are going for a deep dive into antisemitism on college campuses, and those who — possibly yourselves? – who tolerate it. You are now going to endure the most difficult hearings of your professional lives. A world of woe awaits you. And you deserve it.