Members of a Republican-led congressional committee clashed with the president of another university on Thursday over their response to pro-Palestinian protests in the latest hearing held on Capitol Hill following reports of growing anti-Semitism on campuses.
Republicans on the House Education and Labor Committee have clashed repeatedly over Northwestern University in Illinois President Michael Schill’s decision to negotiate an end to the tent protest community rather than calling in police, as has happened on other campuses.
During the three-hour, sometimes heated, hearing, Mr. Schill opened his testimony by declaring himself the descendant of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, drawing flak from a hearing that also included the presidents of Rutgers University and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Camps similar to those set up on the grounds of Columbia University in New York in April by students protesting Israel’s military offensive against Gaza and its associated financial ties to the universities have appeared at these three universities.
Mr. Schill and Jonathan Holloway, president of Rutgers University in New Jersey, drew Republican ire for their rather moderate approach to persuading protesters to remove the facilities through what some lawmakers described as appeasement.
The UCLA camp was cleared by police after it was attacked by pro-Israel counter-protesters on April 30. University President Gene Block has been criticized for deploying police too late and for not taking action when pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the movement of students who they accused of being Zionists. Los Angeles Times – received less harsh treatment from Republicans.
As Bok testified on Thursday, a new pro-Palestinian encampment appeared on the UCLA campus. More than 20 police officers swarmed the campus, but it was unclear whether any arrests were made.
But Bullock was strongly criticized by left-leaning Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who called him “shameful” for failing to protect protesters from violent attacks.
“They should be ashamed that a peaceful protest was hijacked by an angry mob,” she said.
Thursday’s meeting was the full committee’s third hearing on the dynamics of campus protests that have been the subject of accusations of anti-Semitism and intimidation that have emerged following Hamas’ October attacks on Israel, which prompted devastating retaliation by the Israeli military.
The first hearing, held in December, led to the resignations of two presidents, Elizabeth McGill of the University of Pennsylvania and Claudine Gay of Harvard University, for giving answers that were deemed too legalistic.
At a second hearing on the developments at Columbia last month, President Minouche Shafik pledged to take action, calling police shortly thereafter to remove the encampment on the campus’s main lawn. But her actions sparked a surge in similar tented protests on campuses across the U.S., which became the focus of part of Thursday’s hearing.
The committee’s Republican chairwoman, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, created a confrontational tone by quoting a line from Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises,” describing a character’s gradual and sudden descent into bankruptcy.
“Those three little words paved the way to today’s hearing,” she said. “Over years, even decades, universities have gradually cultivated an extremist campus culture in which anti-Semitism has grown and been tolerated by university authorities.”
“You should be ashamed of your decision to allow an anti-Semitic encampment to put Jewish students at risk.”
Mr. Schill said anti-Semitism and support for Israel were not “abstract” or “theoretical” to him, and acknowledged that university rules and policies were inadequate and the university did not prepare for student reactions to the Oct. 7 attacks and their aftermath.
But Republican lawmakers questioned his compromise with the protesters and attacked him for suggesting he condoned anti-Semitism.
He appeared visibly annoyed after New York representative Elise Stefanik said, “I’m here asking the questions,” and held up a sign with an “F” on it, referring to the Anti-Defamation League’s declaration that Northwestern University’s anti-Semitic policies have failed.
Republican Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah used another sign depicting a check for $600 million to describe the money the university receives from Qatar, the Gulf state that also funds Hamas, to which Shill responded, “I’m really upset that you’re dictating my opinion to me.”
“Your performance here is an embarrassment to your school,” Republican Representative Jim Banks of Indiana told Sill, adding that Northwestern had become a “laughing stock.”
Responding to New York’s Brandon Williams, all three chiefs said they were surprised by the encampment’s appearance and did not know who was behind it, which Williams called a “startling admission.”
Several Democrats questioned the purpose of the hearings and the Republicans’ sincerity in addressing anti-Semitism, accusing them of being silent when anti-Semitism is raised on their side.
“The First Amendment protects both general, positive speech and speech to which people can reasonably object, including sometimes hateful language but also in broad strokes,” said Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the committee’s ranking Democrat. [Republican] The majority seeks to erase the distinction between hate speech and genuine political protest.”
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon highlighted the Republican Party’s alleged hypocrisy, saying, “Just a few days ago, Donald Trump’s real social accounts included an outrageous video in which he used Nazi-like language about a united empire. Did any of your colleagues on this committee point that out?”
