Deborah Lipstadt, a special envoy for monitoring and fighting President Biden’s anti-Semitism, said in a new interview that he was pleased to see the Trump administration deal with anti-Semitism, and that he supports some of the measures taken to hold universities and students accountable.
“I’m happy they’re working on it because that’s what I’ve done for the past three years. It was about pushing the Biden administration to take it seriously, so I’m very pleased that it’s on their agenda.”
Lipstadt praised the Trump administration for “calling for an explanation of universities,” pointing to President Trump’s first demands from Columbia, pointing to the camps and masks at the ending.
“These have been sought by Colombian students for a very long time,” she said. “So they asked the university to meet its own standards, so I was happy with it.”
“I felt that many of them felt that they were just right demands that they should have been seen before from the presidents and administrators of the university.
Lipstadt showed in an interview that she supports some of Trump’s efforts to cancel her student visa, but did not elaborate on the individual cases she supports.
She was asked to elaborate on her previous comments that she said were not “heroes or martyrs” of those targeted by the Trump administration for deportation.
“I mean some of the people and I’m not going to go into any particular case, but some of the people detained or cited are those who blocked the entrance to the university, took over the building, and broke university regulations. I’m not talking about speeches. I’m talking about actions,” she said.
She emphasized the importance of distinguishing between targeting behavior, as opposed to speech.
“Free speech is free speech,” she said. “And I am a stubborn advocate of freedom of speech. In other countries where they banned denial of the Holocaust, I opposed it. Free speech is free of speech. Incitement is another thing. I am not a lawyer.
Lipstadt said the Trump administration must follow the law, but he said there are rules that should be enforced at universities too.
“Other things are: Universities have regulations, and universities have regulations. You cannot cheat, you cannot plagiarize, you cannot build camps in a particular place, you must be able to identify yourself. People on campus must be willing to identify themselves with appropriate authority and cannot be turned on masks unless they are for medical purposes,” she said.
