Christian Smith
Republicans on the House Education Committee went on the offensive during a hearing Thursday on campus anti-Semitism, which focused largely on deals Northwestern and Rutgers universities made with pro-Palestinian protesters to tear down their camps without force. police officer.
“I want to discuss what has been referred to as the Deering Meadows agreement, your unilateral capitulation to pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic activists,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (RN.Y.) told the Northwestern president.
The heads of Northwestern and Rutgers were called as witnesses after they reached agreements with protesters to get rid of encampments, while other colleges made headlines after police were used to forcibly disperse their demonstrations.
The agreements, which were also reached at Brown and Johns Hopkins universities, included concessions ranging from consideration of divestment from Israel to more lenient punishments for student protesters.
Northwestern received the most attention as it was one of the first schools to reach such an agreement, but President Michael Schill said the school did not give in to any major demands.
“Importantly, I rejected the main student demand for divestment,” Schill said.
“I will not recommend to our board that Northwestern use the donation for political purposes,” he added.
Republicans, who have denounced all of the recent pro-Palestinian movement as anti-Semitic, have criticized Rutgers for giving amnesty to student protesters who broke university rules with the camp in the agreement to end the demonstrations.
Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) called the Rutgers deal “egregious,” adding that she wanted to know what message the president thought “it sends to its Jewish students.”
Northwestern and the president of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) said no students were suspended due to the protests, but investigations were underway. Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway has recorded four suspensions so far on his campus, but has not clarified what the suspensions were for.
For Northwestern and Rutgers, Democrats widely praised the presidents for their ability to reach a resolution without police force, which was used by many other students and led to prisons of more than 3,000 individuals across U.S. campuses.
“I am also concerned about any suggestion that the first step in addressing protests is to call the police,” said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), adding that this could put students in danger.
The head of UCLA, Chancellor Gene Block, has received far fewer interrogations than other school leaders, despite hundreds of arrests on his campus and fights that broke out after attacks by pro-Israel counterprotesters.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose daughter was part of the Columbia University camp, argued with Block after he rejected the premise of a question that implied the school was unsafe for students.
“You should be ashamed of leaving a peaceful protest meeting [get] kidnapped by an angry mob. You should be ashamed of yourself for allowing such violence to occur on your campus, which will now be weaponized by the Republicans on this committee,” Omar said.
University leaders avoided the infamous question used at the December anti-Semitism hearing that led to the eventual dismissal of the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania: Would calls for the genocide of Jewish people be considered harassment on campus?
Some notable moments, however, occurred when witnesses were questioned about who was behind the camps. The presidents of UCLA and Northwestern said they didn’t know, and Rutgers’ leader said he was “unsure.”
All three said no when asked whether the Israeli government is genocidal, although the head of Rutgers was initially unwilling to answer the question.
“Sir, I don’t have an opinion about Israel – in terms of that phrase,” Holloway originally said when asked whether the Israeli government was genocidal.
Block, describing his upbringing as a Jewish boy with relatives who were Holocaust survivors and victims, said he is “fully aware that many of our Jewish students have rhetoric and images on campus that any reasonable person would find abhorrent. Trust me, I understand their pain.”
Foxx warned the three at the end of the hearing that the investigations would continue.
Meanwhile, ranking member Bobby Scott (D-Va.) accused Republicans of holding these hearings just to grab headlines rather than taking concrete steps to address problems on campuses.
“Here we are, for the fifth time in six months, holding another hearing to complain about the problem” of anti-Semitism, Scott said, adding that more needs to be done to find a “meaningful solution” to resolve the problem.
“Complaining about a problem is not a solution,” he added.
Foxx defended his handling of the situation.
“One of the constitutional powers of Congress is to conduct investigations. These are important mechanisms for transparency, bringing bad things to light, informing new legislation to solve problems. They reveal and create accountability. Today’s testimony certainly brought bad things to light,” she said.
