WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have called on the leaders of Northwestern University and Rutgers University to testify about concessions they made to pro-Palestinian protesters to end demonstrations on their campuses.
The chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, was also scheduled to appear Thursday at the latest in a series of House Education and Workforce Committee hearings on colleges’ responses to the protests and allegations of anti-Semitism. Tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas have been high on campuses since the fall and have worsened in recent weeks with a wave of pro-Palestinian camps that have led to more than 3,000 arrests across the country.
After the first of these hearings in December, an outcry of criticism from donors, students and politicians led to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, who gave cautious, hesitant answers when asked whether calling for genocide against the Jews would violate their school’s code of conduct.
In April, the committee turned its attention to Columbia President Minouche Shafik, who took a more conciliatory approach to Republican-led questioning. Shafik’s disclosure of disciplinary details and concessions regarding faculty academic freedom angered students and professors at Columbia. Her statement and subsequent decision to involve the police escalated protests on campus, inspiring students at other colleges to stage similar demonstrations.
Thursday’s hearing expands the scope of the committee’s investigation for the first time to include enormous public universities, which are subject to stricter First Amendment and free speech restrictions. Previous hearings have largely focused on elite private universities.
The presidents of Yale University and the University of Michigan were originally called as witnesses. But the committee turned its attention to Northwestern and Rutgers after those universities reached agreements with pro-Palestinian protesters to limit the number of camps or dismantle them.
Michael Schill, Northwestern’s president, is expected to testify Thursday; Gene Block, chancellor of UCLA; and Jonathan Holloway, the president of Rutgers.
The concessions Northwestern and Rutgers made were restricted in scope. Like some other colleges that reached agreements with the protesters, they focused on expanding institutional support for Muslim and Arab students and scholars on campus.
At Northwestern University, the administration agreed to re-establish an investment advisory board that would include input from students, faculty and staff. The university also agreed to answer questions about financial holdings, including those with ties to Israel.
Rutgers agreed to meet with five student representatives to discuss the request for divestment in exchange for dismantling the camp. The university also stated that it would not terminate its relationship with Tel Aviv University.
The committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., criticized the schools for their decision to negotiate with the protesters.
“The committee has a clear message for the mean-spirited, spineless college administrators: Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of duty to your Jewish students,” she said in a statement. “No stone can be left unturned while buildings are defaced, campus green spaces are taken over, or graduations are ruined.”
UCLA’s oversight of its campus protests has been under scrutiny since counter-protesters carrying Israeli flags attacked a pro-Palestinian camp on campus. Counter-protesters threw traffic cones and used pepper spray in fights that lasted hours before police intervened, drawing criticism from Muslim students as well as political leaders and advocacy groups.
On Wednesday, UCLA’s police chief was reassigned “pending a review of our security processes,” the school said in a statement.
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