Three college presidents apologized for the not more aggressive to curb anti -Semitism on their campuses during a hearing of the house committee on Wednesday, in some republicans invoiced as an attempt to investigate colleges outside the Ivy League.
“I am sorry that my actions and my leadership have abandoned you,” said Wendy Raymond, the President of Haverford College, a Quaker College outside of Philadelphia, that she would like her Jewish students to know. “I am dedicated to get this right.”
The Huiscommissie for Education and the Workshop has held a number of hearings with schools since October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza that followed. In many ways, the hearing echoed the first and most dramatic of them, in December 2023, which led to the resignation of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.
During the hearing on Wednesday, the Republican majority threatened to withhold the federal financing of non -cooperative schools. The Democratic minority accused Republicans of tolerating anti -Semitism in their own party, while it used as a political weapon against others. And university leaders tried to walk a delicate line between showing repentance and the not encountering the committee, without undermining academic freedom.
But it was also a very different time for higher education and the relationship with the federal government.
The hearing mainly looked back at events from a year ago, when campuses faltered protest camps and massive arrests throughout the country. The war continues, but protests are largely faded, with some remarkable exceptions.
One protest at the University of Washington attracted widespread attention this week, but the university soon knew demonstrators, to praise the government. And in Columbia on Wednesday, dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, with masks and kaffiyehs, occupied the main room from Butler Library.
In the meantime, the Republican attack against universities are only intensified.
The Trump government has opened research into dozens of universities for accusations of anti-Semitism and has stripped hundreds of millions of dollars from others, which it is said that it has not done enough to respond to issues that have been discussed by the protests, most of the States leaning in the democratic states. President Trump and his officials have mainly focused on the schools in the Ivy League.
The hearing of the congress on Wednesday was entitled ‘Beyond the Ivies’. “In short, we try to emphasize that this is a problem that affects schools throughout America, not just the Ivy League,” said Audra Mcgeorge, spokeswoman for the committee.
The hearing was aimed at schools that F-figures received from the Anti-Defamation League. This time the three Presidents of Haverford, Depaul University in Chicago and California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo knew what questions to expect and they could largely finished. (Cal Poly recently raised his figure to A D.)
But after he refused to provide statistics about disciplinary affairs against demonstrators, the President of Haverford, Dr. Raymond, inside for particularly stubborn interrogation of congressman Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York. Her harsh interrogations were largely responsible for the damage that helped to encourage other university presidents to resign.
Mrs. Stefanik asked Dr. Raymond about a student group that called for the state of Israel to dismantle ‘with all the resources needed’, asking: ‘What does’ all means needed’ mean? “
“Calling that kind of terminology is disgusting because of what it can mean,” Dr. replied. Raymond and emphasized the word “can”.
“Does that depend on the context?” Mrs. Stefanik interrupted.
Dr. Raymond was warned by the experiences of the presidents of Harvard and Penn. Both did not give commentale answers to questions about whether they would discipline students who called for the genocide of Jews. Both said this would depend on the context.
Dr. Raymond avoided the ‘context’ question and said she would not talk about individual matters.
To which Mrs. Stefanik threatened: “Many people were in this position who are no longer in positions as presidents of universities because of not answering simple questions.”
In the year and a half since that hearing of December 2023, many university leaders seem to have been attentive to the complaints of students, faculties and legislators, and to the fate of their colleagues.
Many schools have tightened the rules with regard to protests, locked campus ports to outsiders and have issued heavier penalties for participants. The movements can help explain why protests were less frequent and widespread this spring. Many universities have also banned or suspended the most militant Pro-Palestinian activist groups.
“Both as a university president and a human, this is a matter that I take particularly seriously,” Jeffrey D. Armstrong, President of Cal Poly, told the committee. “We have to do better.”
He tapped plans, such as purchasing a chair in Jewish studies and setting up an anti -Semitism task force to increase the consciousness of anti -Semitism.
Republicans followed on Wednesday, which has become a favorite playbook, where schools push to respond to their complaints by holding up federal financing.
Ryan Mackenzie, a Republican from Pennsylvania, demanded that Dr. Raymond gathered information about the punishment of students and professors in Haverford and this gives the committee or otherwise the risk of losing federal financing.
“You will receive federal money, right?” he said.
“We do that, in a wonderful partnership with the federal government,” Dr. replied. Raymond.
“Well, that partnership can be in danger,” said Mr Mackenzie.
When her turn to question the presidents, representative Suzanne Bonamici, an Oregon -Democrat, came off the hearing as a performance.
Mrs Bonamici said that if a synagogue going-Jew: “I can no longer pretend that this is a good necessity to eradicate anti-Semitism, especially when the Trump government and the majority party regularly undermine the Jewish values.”
David Cole, a former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, testified together with the presidents. He compared the activities of the committee with the communist hunting of the 1950s. “They are not an attempt to find out what happened, but an attempt to cool protected speech,” he said.
Mr Cole also said that the Trump government had exhausted the government’s assets to investigate complaints of discrimination by reducing the staff of the office of the Ministry of Education for Civil Rights.
The Trump government has nevertheless promised more than 60 studies into schools for complaints that they have allowed anti -Semitism to have their campuses festried.
On Tuesday evening, a Task Force for Anti -Semitism said by President Trump that it opened an assessment of the University of Washington, where demonstrators briefly occupied an engineering building on Monday when Chaos unfolded outside on the street.
According to the university: “People who have usually treated their faces, blocked access to two streets outside the building, blocked inputs and outputs to the building and inflamed fires in two waste containers on a street outside.”
About 30 people were arrested, said the University of Washington.
The Task Force praised the university’s reaction as “good first steps”, but warned that the university “should do more to scare up future violence”, with more enforcement actions and policy changes.
And the Task Force indicated that the stream of federal money can be danger to the university.
A spokesperson from the university did not respond to a request for comments about the announcement of the Task Force. In the most recent fiscal year of the university, about 18 percent of the income and contracts came, with most of those dollars coming from the federal government.
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