Press Releases

 Today, Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) delivered the following statement, as prepared for delivery, at a hearing titled “Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding and Ideology”:

"Last Congress, the Committee on Education and Workforce conducted vital, rigorous oversight of the antisemitic violence that spiraled out of control on college campuses after October 7, 2023. 

"Specifically, the Committee focused on the weeks-long violent encampments that engulfed campuses across the country and whether universities were holding those involved accountable.Today’s hearing marks the next phase of the Committee’s work—an effort to understand why this wave of antisemitism was able to so easily consume the nation’s universities in the first place.
 
"The Committee will be examining several factors that incite antisemitism on college campuses. First, we will examine faculty and student groups. We’ve long expressed concern about the group Students for Justice in Palestine. But after October 7th, chapters of the faculty variant of this group, Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, proliferated at universities across the United States. Over 100 new chapters have been established in an effort to bring antisemitism into the classroom and lend institutional legitimacy to antisemitic sentiments.
 
"Second, we will examine faculty unions. Faculty unions have played a critical role fomenting antisemitism at universities under the guise of labor rights. As we’ll see today, unions across the country encourage antisemitic activism through protests, demands, and workshops.
 
"Third, we will look at Middle East Studies centers. Many such centers have become beachheads for faculty with extremist ties who seek to demonize Israel and the United States. We support the study of the Middle East and recognize that it important for our national security—but we do not support promoting antisemitism and Islamism, a radical political ideology.
 
"Fourth, we will examine foreign funding. Foreign funding can influence research priorities, faculty appointments, public statements, and events on campus. This is especially the case for U.S. universities with a separate campus abroad. We need greater transparency into foreign funding when it comes to higher education. The DETERRENT Act, passed on a bipartisan basis through the House earlier this Congress, would achieve that goal. 
 
"Finally, and more broadly, we will be examining the diversity, equity, and inclusion policies universities use, and the individuals they hire, to implement Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The DEI ideology embraced by so many university bureaucrats categorizes Jews as white oppressors—and therefore excuses, or even justifies, antisemitic harassment. The violence, fear, and alienation felt by Jewish students is, at its core, a result of administrators and their staff lacking the moral clarity to condemn and punish antisemitism that is creating a hostile environment for Jewish students on America’s campuses. Speech that is protected by the First Amendment can still contribute to a hostile environment, and universities are obligated to do something about it.
 
"Universities can choose to hire antisemitic faculty, welcome students with a history of antisemitism, accept certain foreign funding, and let the behavior of antisemitic unions go unchecked. But as we will see today, they do so at their own risk."
 

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