On May 7, the US House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workplace held a hearing on campus anti-Semitism. Three university presidents testified as well as a Georgetown University law professor (and former national legal director of the ACLU). The three university presidents were Wendy Raymond, Haverford College, Robert Manuel, DePaul University, and Jeffrey Armstrong, California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo. The law professor was David Cole.
The video is over 2 hours.
After watching the video, it was clear that the Democrats on the committee had no interest in asking critical questions of the witnesses. Altogether, they generally made speeches attacking the committee itself, the Trump administration, January 6, and Trump's comment about "very fine people on both sides" after the Charlottesville incident (University of Virginia). They all made the requisite statements about condemning anti-Semitism, but lobbed up softball questions to the witnesses while relying on Cole to make points basically attacking the idea of holding hearings and attacking free speech. I should note in passing that among the Democrats on the committee was the odious Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who spent her time attacking the administration's crackdown on foreign students who are causing havoc on our campuses (my words, not hers).
In fairness, Representative Mark Takano (D-CA), did raise a point which I think merits discussion: We all know that President Trump is trying to dissolve the Department of Education (DOE). It was brought out that it is DOE's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) that has the responsibility of investigating complaints of discrimination and racial or religious harassment on campuses. It was stated by Mr Cole that 7 of the 12 regional offices of OCR have been closed. If that is the case, I am concerned, and I want to know how this responsibility is being transferred to other agencies without a disruption in investigations being conducted.
The Republicans spent their allotted time asking hard questions. Their main target was Raymond of Haverford, a college in Pennsylvania, which is now being sued by a group of Jewish students for allegedly allowing a climate of anti-Semitism on campus. She was also asked about a professor who reportedly expressed praise for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks in Israel on social media. Raymond performed poorly, repeatedly stating that she condemned anti-Semitism while evading the questions. She also drew fire for refusing to answer what kind of disciplinary action, if any, has been handed down by Haverford in response to incidents and hateful, anti-Semitic expressions. The other two presidents did provide general numbers of disciplinary actions while not specifically naming names (which they were not asked to do).
Manuel, for his part, was harshly criticized by Republicans for allowing the pro-Palestinian campus encampment at DePaul to go on for almost three weeks before being taken down. He conceded that it was allowed to remain for too long. In addition, two Jewish students were allegedly attacked recently at DePaul.
As for Armstrong, he did not receive much attention from the committee and got off pretty lightly. It is my understanding that in spite of recent incidents at Cal Poly, the campus chapters of Chabad and Hillel have praised his actions and are downplaying any serious problems on campus. Far be it from me to contest that since I have no personal information on that school. I will note, however, that during my years at UC Irvine (1998-2016), Hillel, the Orange County Jewish Federation, and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) were denying that there was a problem on our campus. There clearly was and still is.
In April this year, the ADL gave a D grade to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in its survey of the campus climate for Jewish students at US universities. (Both DePaul and Haverford received Fs.) In addition, the AMCHA Initiative, a California-based group established to expose and combat campus anti-Semitism has a data base of anti-Semitic incidents reported at US universities. Their profile of Cal Poly SLO can be viewed here. Those for DePaul and Haverford can be viewed here and here, respectively.
Going back to Raymond's refusal to answer questions about any discipline handed out at Haverford for recent incidents, I don't know what Pennsylvania state privacy laws say about disclosures o In addition, the AMCHA Initiative, a California-based group established to expose and combat campus anti-Semitism has a data base of anti-Semitic incidents reported at US universities. Their profile of Cal Poly SLO can be viewed here. Those for DePaul and Haverford can be viewed here and here respectively.f this type, but I recall that it came up during incidents at UC Irvine and other University of California campuses, most notably the February 2010 disruption of a speech by then- Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren at UC Irvine, a disgraceful event I personally witnessed. The names of the 11 students who were arrested and prosecuted successfully became public due to their arrests, but UCI never disclosed publicly any disciplinary action taken or not taken against them. In California, there is a state prohibition on publicly disclosing disciplinary measures handed out to students. While I don't think that is unreasonable, it would be reasonable, in my view, to state whether anyone has been suspended or expelled without relating the names. No such problem exists for organizations, like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is under suspension on several campuses, including DePaul.
In summary, my impression is that the Republicans on the committee are the only ones interested in confronting campus anti-Semitism and holding the universities' feet to the fire. The Democrats would rather accuse the Republicans of weaponizing the issue to make political points, an argument I do not agree with. To me, the Democrats don't really care, largely because they are more sympathetic to the Palestinians. I would hope that Jewish Americans are paying attention to these hearings.
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