WASHINGTON – Based on a year-long investigation, the Committee on Education and the Workforce majority, under Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), has released findings on how antisemitism engulfed college campuses while administrators put the wants of terrorist sympathizers over the safety of Jewish students, faculty, and staff.
“For over a year, the American people have watched antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities, but what was happening behind the scenes is arguably worse. While Jewish students displayed incredible courage and a refusal to cave to the harassment, university administrators, faculty, and staff were cowards who fully capitulated to the mob and failed the students they were supposed to serve,”said Chairwoman Foxx. “Our investigation has shown that these ‘leaders’ bear the responsibility for the chaos likely violating Title VI and threatening public safety. It is time for the executive branch to enforce the laws and ensure colleges and universities restore order and guarantee that all students have a safe learning environment.”
The report’s findings clearly support four conclusions:
University administrators made astounding concessions to the organizers of illegal encampments. For example, in the case of Northwestern University (Northwestern), administrators entertained demands to hire an “anti-Zionist” rabbi and divest from and remove Sabra Hummus from campus cafeterias.
University administrators deliberately chose to withhold support from Jewish students. Harvard University’s (Harvard) decision making was particularly egregious, as demonstrated by choices to intentionally omit condemnation of Hamas and acknowledgment of hostages in its widely-criticized equivocal statement on the October 7 attacks, and then-President Claudine Gay asking Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow not to call the phrase “From the River to the Sea” antisemitic hate speech.
University administrators overwhelmingly failed to impose meaningful discipline for those who engaged in antisemitic conduct. Across the board, enforcement of campus rules was wildly uneven, from Harvard and Columbia faculty playing key roles in derailing discipline toward antisemitic conduct violations and Rutgers University (Rutgers) actually disciplining Jewish students who spoke out against the harassment, to the overall lack of consequences for those involved in encampments at schools including the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), Yale University (Yale), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
University administrators considered Congressional oversight a nuisance at best and with open hostility at worst. Administrators at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), for instance, attempted to orchestrate negative media coverage of Members of Congress who scrutinized the university while Harvard president Claudine Gay disparaged U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) character to the university’s Board of Overseers.
Throughout the investigation, more than 400,000 pages of documents have been obtained—some via the first subpoenas to universities in the Committee’s 157-year history—and transcribed interviews were conducted, all examining universities across the country.
December 5, 2023: The Committee on Education and the Workforce holds its first full committee hearing examining the outbreak of antisemitism on college campuses following the October 7 attacks. The hearing, titled "Holding Campus Leader Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism," featured abysmal testimony from Dr. Claudine Gay of Harvard, Ms. Liz Magill of Penn, Dr. Pamela Nadell of American University, and Dr. Sally Kornbluth of MIT.
December 7, 2023: Foxx announces the formal investigation into Harvard, Penn, and MIT, and puts other colleges on notice, saying that “disgusting targeting and harassment of Jewish students is not limited to these institutions, and other universities should expect investigations as well, as their litany of similar failures has not gone unnoticed.”
January 9, 2024: The Committee makes its first document request of Harvard, citing Dr. Gay’s testimony before Congress as a failure to address the longstanding and pervasive antisemitism on campus.
January 24, 2024: The Committee makes its first document request of Penn, and calls into question the university’s “clear double standard” that tolerates “antisemitic vandalism, harassment, and intimidation, but suppresses and [penalizes] other expression it deemed problematic.”
February 12, 2024: The Committee makes its first document request of Columbia, outlining the numerous public incidents of antisemitism, including vandalism and assault, taking place on campus.
February 16, 2024: Harvard’s failure to produce requested documents results in compulsory measures on the part of the Committee. For the first time in the 157-year history of the Committee, a subpoena is issued to an institution of higher education.
February 29, 2024: Foxx and other Members hear from Jewish students attending Harvard, Penn, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley, Rutgers, Stanford University, Tulane University, and Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art about their experiences with antisemitism on campus.
March 8, 2024: The Committee makes its first document request of MIT, highlighting the disparity between the university’s rosy assessment of the campus environment with student responses that said the majority of Jewish students did not feel comfortable being Jewish or Israeli on campus, and majority did not feel the university’s actions were adequate.
March 18, 2024: The Committee conducts a transcribed interview with former Harvard Antisemitism Advisory Group Member, Dr. Dara Horn.
March 19, 2024: The Committee makes its first document request of UC Berkeley, following the violent riot that began as an anti-Israel protest and months-long failure to keep Jewish students safe.
March 27, 2024: The Committee makes its first document request of Rutgers, which has drawn fire for what students called a “selective enforcement of [University] rules,” including the decision to open disciplinary proceedings against an Orthodox Jewish law student who pushed back on antisemitic, pro-Hamas messages.
April 17, 2024: Foxx holds a hearing titled “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism,” which focuses on the stunning failure of the university to address the situation on campus, from lax disciplinary action to the retention of faculty members who hold pro-terror views.
May 23, 2024: Foxx holds a hearing titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos,” with the presidents of Rutgers and Northwestern, as well as the chancellor of UCLA testifying. The hearing honed in on the illegal encampments that had broken out on campuses across the country.
June 20, 2024: The Committee conducts a transcribed interview with Yale President Peter Salovey.
August 9, 2024: The Committee conducts a transcribed interview with University of Michigan President Santa Ono.
August 21, 2024: Following repeated failures to turn over documents necessary to the Committee’s investigation, a subpoena is issued for Columbia, specifically seeking information on the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” and Board of Trustees communications.
August 29, 2024: The Committee conducts a transcribed interview with Penny Pritzker, Senior Fellow, Harvard Corporation.
