‘Antisemitism on College Campuses Exposed’

The following is excerpted from the 122 page (plus 203 pages of appendixes) Republican Staff Report of the US House of Representatives Committee on Education & the Workplace, published on Oct. 31.

The panel concludes that university administrators across the country failed to enforce rules and “delberately chose to withhold support from Jewish students.” Click here to view the full report.

Executive Summary

On October 7, 2023, a terrorist attack orchestrated by Hamas resulted in the murder of nearly 1,200 people in Israel, including more than 40 American citizens. In the aftermath of that horrific event, American institutions of higher education were upended by an epidemic of hate, violence, and harassment targeting Jewish students.

For nearly a year, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce (Committee), led by Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, has conducted a wide-reaching and intensive investigation into this explosion of campus antisemitism.

In December 2023, the Committee’s hearing on campus antisemitism revealed stunning failures of leadership and character at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and prompted a national reckoning when the three school presidents shockingly refused to unequivocally state that calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their institutions’ codes of conduct. In subsequent hearings, the Committee called leaders from Columbia University, Rutgers University, Northwestern University, and the University of California, Los Angeles to account for their dramatic failures in confronting antisemitism on their campuses.

The Committee’s investigation has been unprecedented in its depth and scope. For the first time in its 157-year history, the Committee issued subpoenas to postsecondary institutions for obstructionist, dilatory responses to document requests made in furtherance of the Committee’s consideration of potential legislative solutions to address campus antisemitism. The Committee has collected more than 400,000 pages of documents over the course of its investigation. Now, the Committee is releasing key findings in this report.

Information obtained by the Committee reveals a stunning lack of accountability by university leaders for students engaging in antisemitic harassment, assault, trespass, and destruction of school property.

At every school investigated by the Committee, the overwhelming majority of students facing disciplinary action for antisemitic harassment or other violations of policy received only minimal discipline. At some schools, such as Columbia and Harvard, radical faculty members worked to prevent disciplinary action from being taken against students who violated official policies and even the law.

Around the country, extremist antisemitic encampments were allowed to form in direct contravention of institutional policy and the law.

•At Columbia, students who engaged in the criminal takeover of a university building were allowed to evade accountability.

•At Northwestern, radical faculty members were put in charge of negotiating with their own ideological allies in that campus’ encampment, leading to a stunning capitulation to the encampment leaders’ demands.

•At Rutgers, protesters faced no consequences for an encampment that disrupted exams for more than 1,000 students. UCLA’s leadership was unwilling to directly confront a violent, antisemitic encampment, even when antisemitic checkpoints denied Jewish students access to areas of campus.

These individual incidents and others that this report highlights are evidence of a broader environment on these campuses that is hostile to Jewish students.

Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), universities that receive federal funds have an obligation to prevent and address hostile environments based on race, color, or national origin (including a hostile environment against religious groups based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics). Instead of fulfilling these legal obligations, in numerous cases, university leaders turned their backs on their campuses’ Jewish communities, intentionally withholding support in a time of need. And while university leaders publicly projected a commitment toward combating antisemitism and respect for congressional efforts on the subject, in their private communications they viewed antisemitism as a PR issue rather than a campus problem.

The findings in this report are based on documents produced to the Committee, as well as hearing testimony and transcribed interviews of university leaders and advisors.

KEY FINDING

Students who established unlawful antisemitic encampments — which violated university polices and created unsafe and hostile learning environments — were given shocking concessions. Universities’ dereliction of leadership and failure to enforce their rules put students and personnel at risk.

•Finding: Northwestern put radical anti-Israel faculty in charge of negotiations with the encampment.

•Finding: Northwestern’s provost shockingly approved of a proposal to boycott Sabra hummus.

•Finding: Northwestern entertained demands to hire an “anti-Zionist” rabbi and Northwestern President Michael Schill may have misled Congress in testimony regarding the matter.

•Finding: Columbia’s leaders offered greater concessions to encampment organizers than they publicly acknowledged.

•Finding: UCLA officials stood by and failed to act as the illegal encampment violated Jewish students’ civil rights and placed campus at risk.

The spring of 2024 was marked by the establishment of unlawful antisemitic encampments at universities throughout the country. These encampments were generally organized by students associated with or members of anti-Israel student organizations, often with lengthy histories of engaging in antisemitic harassment, intimidation, and disruption.

Two of the most notable cases were the ones at Columbia University, which started the national wave of encampments, and at Northwestern, where the university’s capitulation to the demands of the encampment triggered a series of such responses by other universities.

Both cases were prime examples of a disturbing pattern in which universities sought to appease the unlawful encampment occupiers with shocking concessions instead of enforcing their rules. Documents produced to the Committee show that Northwestern’s and Columbia’s handling of their negotiations was even more troubling than widely understood.

At Northwestern, President Michael Schill appointed radical anti-Israel faculty members to negotiate with the students, who used their roles to advance the students in the encampment’s agenda. Northwestern’s Provost, Kathleen Hagerty, encouraged Northwestern professor Nour Kteily, who served as one of the University’s negotiators with the encampment, as he advised students on how to pressure trustees to advance divestment. Provost Hagerty also supported Kteily’s proposal for the University to satisfy the encampment participants’ demands by agreeing to quietly boycott Sabra brand hummus because of its Israeli co-ownership.

As discussed further below, documents obtained by the Committee indicate that in contrast to President Schill’s categorical denial in testimony before the Committee, he and other senior Northwestern leaders appear to have considered the encampment leadership’s demand to hire an anti-Zionist rabbi. The documents also raise serious questions of whether Northwestern may have in fact acceded to this demand, and whether Schill knowingly misled Congress in his testimony.

Similar to Northwestern, Columbia’s leaders offered greater concessions to encampment organizers than the University has publicly acknowledged. These concessions included offering formal reviews of divesting from companies deemed by encampment leaders to violate international law or which manufacture specified categories of weapons; providing amnesty for many of the students in the encampment; funding scholarships for students connected to the West Bank and Gaza; and creating a “resilience fund” for Gaza.

As part of a “menu” of options for University negotiators to offer, University leaders also approved the potential creation of a joint program with a Palestinian university in the West Bank where Hamas is active on campus.

Northwestern’s and Columbia’s decisions to relentlessly pursue conciliating the students who turned their campuses into hotbeds of antisemitic harassment, intimidation, threats, disruption, and glorification of terrorism demonstrated a gross neglect for their obligations to protect Jewish students and to ensure a safe and uninterrupted learning environment.

KEY FINDING

So-called university leaders intentionally declined to express support for campus Jewish communities. Instead of explicitly condemning antisemitic harassment, universities equivocated out of concern of offending antisemitic students and faculty who rallied in support of foreign terrorist organizations.

•Finding: Harvard leaders’ failure to condemn Hamas’ attack in their widely criticized October 9 statement was an intentional decision.

•Finding: Harvard President Claudine Gay and then-Provost Alan Garber asked Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker not to label the slogan “from the river to the sea” antisemitic, with Gay fearing doing so would create expectations Harvard would have to impose discipline.

•Finding: The Columbia administration failed to correct false narratives of a “chemical attack” that were used to vilify Jewish students, but imposed disproportionate discipline on the Jewish students involved.

Jewish university students, faculty, and staff who faced the onslaught of antisemitic hate on campus after October 7 frequently felt abandoned by the muted and passive responses of their institutions’ leaders. The Committee’s investigation found that in multiple cases, these failures came not from mere ignorance or lack of forethought, but rather from intentional decisions by university leaders not to provide their campuses’ Jewish communities the necessary support needed to ensure they felt safe to live on campus or attend classes.

Leaders at Harvard and Columbia serve as prominent examples of this failure. At Harvard, after being criticized for their initial silence on the October 7 terrorist attack and a statement by student groups solely blaming Israel for the attack, the University’s top administrators and deans cut language that would have condemned Hamas, acknowledged the kidnapping of hostages, and called the attack “violent,” but insisted on including language drawing an equivalence between Hamas’ terrorism and Israel’s military response.

When Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker asked for the University’s response to the frequent use on campus of the antisemitic eliminationist slogan “From the River to the Sea,” both then-President Claudine Gay and then-Provost (now President) Alan Garber urged her not to label the phrase antisemitic. Gay expressed concern that if Harvard recognized the phrase as antisemitic speech, it would raise questions about why the University was not imposing discipline for its use.

Columbia University leaders failed to publicly correct a false narrative by anti-Israel students that two Israeli undergraduates had perpetrated a “chemical attack” with military “skunk spray” that was used to vilify Israeli students and call for their exclusion. The Columbia administration failed to correct the record after initially suggesting “serious crimes” had taken place, even after learning the incident merely involved the release of a non-toxic gag “fart spray.” Columbia only acknowledged the incident was not a chemical attack months later after reaching a settlement with one of the students responsible.

Shafik also refused to make a public statement of support for students in the University’s dual degree program with Tel Aviv University as anti-Israel activists campaigned for its abolition. This refusal came despite the urging of more than half of the program’s students, the dean of the School of General Studies in which the program was situated, the University’s Chief Operating Officer, and the Executive Director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel.

These facts show that even in extreme and compelling cases, University leaders shamefully and intentionally declined to provide the public support that their campuses’ Jewish communities called for. This serves as damning proof of the spinelessness, moral rot, and double standards these so- called University leaders exhibited in their failure to appropriately respond to pervasive antisemitism on their campuses.

KEY FINDING

Universities utterly failed to impose meaningful discipline for antisemitic behavior that violated school rules and the law. In some cases, radical faculty successfully thwarted meaningful discipline.

•Finding: Universities failed to enforce their rules and hold students accountable for antisemitic conduct violations.

•Finding: Columbia’s University Senate obstructed plans to discipline students involved in the takeover of Hamilton Hall.

•Finding: Harvard’s faculty intervened to prevent meaningful discipline toward antisemitic conduct violations on numerous occasions.

•Finding: Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker acknowledged that the university’s disciplinary boards’ enforcement of the rules is “uneven” and called this “unacceptable.”

With the epidemic of antisemitism taking place on college campuses throughout the United States since October 7, 2023, students have been the focus of harassment and violence, which prevented students from attending class, studying, or even socializing in quads and other central campus areas that became hotbeds of antisemitic conduct.

As a Jewish Columbia University student who spoke at a Committee roundtable on campus antisemitism said, “We are ostracized, mocked, harassed, assaulted, and scapegoated because of our identities” and “[w]e have been attacked with sticks outside of our library. We have been surrounded by angry mobs. And we have been threatened to ‘Keep fucking running.’”

A central issue in addressing campus antisemitism and ensuring student safety on campus is how universities have responded to conduct incidents on their campuses. The Committee’s investigation found that universities it has examined have utterly failed to impose meaningful discipline for the numerous antisemitic conduct violations that warrant it. This comes despite many university leaders’ stated commitments that antisemitism would not be tolerated and that their rules would be enforced.

The examples cited below reveal that a significant issue at numerous universities, of which Columbia and Harvard serve as prime examples, is the faculty’s role in obstructing disciplinary processes.

KEY FINDING

So-called university leaders expressed hostility to congressional oversight and criticism of their record. The antisemitism engulfing campuses was treated as a public-relations issue and not a serious problem demanding action.

•Finding: Harvard president Claudine Gay disparaged Rep. Elise Stefanik’s character to the university’s Board of Overseers.

•Finding: Columbia’s leaders expressed contempt for congressional oversight of campus antisemitism.

•Finding: Penn’s leaders suggested politicians calling for President Magill’s resignation were “easily purchased” and sought to orchestrate negative media coverage of Members of Congress who scrutinized the University.

In contrast to their public professions recognizing the importance of combating antisemitism and respect for congressional oversight of the matter, documents produced to the Committee show that behind closed doors university leaders including presidents and chairs of boards of trustees repeatedly showed contempt for congressional oversight of campus antisemitism and public criticism.

Harvard President Claudine Gay launched into a personal attack on Representative Elise Stefanik in a formal meeting of the University’s Board of Overseers.

Columbia trustees derided congressional oversight of campus antisemitism and corresponded about how they hoped Democrats would take Congress days after receiving assurances from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that universities would not face accountability from Democrats.

University of Pennsylvania leaders disparaged former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as “easily purchased” for calling for then-President Liz Magill to be fired and they worked to orchestrate media coverage portraying Members of Congress as bullying and grandstanding after Magill’s disastrous testimony on campus antisemitism.

CONCLUSION

On December 7, 2023, exactly two months after the Hamas terror attack that killed more than a thousand innocents in Israel, House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx announced a formal investigation into antisemitism at Harvard, Yale, and MIT. The Chairwoman noted that “disgusting targeting and harassment of Jewish students is not limited to these institutions.”

The past year’s investigation has sadly demonstrated this statement to be true beyond any doubt as the Committee expanded its investigation to include other postsecondary institutions facing acute environments of antisemitic harassment, disruptions of academic life, and even acts of violence targeting Jewish students.

This report contains just a selection of key findings using representative examples from the hundreds of thousands of pages collected during the Committee’s extensive investigation into antisemitism on postsecondary campuses. The Committee’s oversight will continue to shine the light on colleges and universities that are unable to ensure the safety of their student populations, including their Jewish students.

The Committee’s investigation not only revealed a systemic failure by university leaders to enforce and apply existing policies to antisemitic students, student organizations, and faculty members, but also an unwillingness to combat antisemitism in general. Instead, these institutions gave the public nothing more than lip service in claiming they cared about student safety on campuses.

In many cases, these institutions attempted to hide behind the First Amendment’s Free Speech protections, yet it appears that in numerous cases both hateful speech and conduct targeting Jews received shockingly favorable treatment. In the absence of congressional oversight and public pressure, schools would have done even less to meaningfully address antisemitism on campus. Our inquiry suggests that, left to their own devices, they would have treated the explosion of antisemitic harassment on campus even less seriously.

The totality of circumstances on these campuses demonstrate an environment hostile to Jewish students likely in violation of Title VI, yet the US Department of Education has not done enough to hold these institutions accountable. The Committee’s findings at this stage are limited to investigating foundations and providing evidence for disparate treatment and hostile environments under Title VI — not conclusive judgments on violations.

On April 30, 2024, Speaker Johnson announced an expansion of the Committee’s investigation into a House-wide effort, adding the investigative powers of five additional committees in the House of Representatives. The Committee’s assessment on Title VI violations and recommendations will contribute to future reporting within this House-wide investigation.

The Committee’s findings indicate the need for a fundamental reassessment of federal support for postsecondary institutions that have failed to meet their obligations to protect Jewish students, faculty, and staff, and to maintain a safe and uninterrupted learning environment for all students.