Republicans on the House Education Committee went on the offensive during a hearing on anti-Semitism on college campuses on Thursday. The main focus was on the agreements between Northwestern and Rutgers universities and pro-Palestinian protesters whose camps were to be cleared without police violence.
“I want to talk about the so-called Deering Meadows Agreement, your unilateral capitulation to the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic activists,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) told the president of Northwestern University.
The heads of Northwestern and Rutgers were called as witnesses after They have made agreements with protesters to disperse the camps, while other colleges made headlines after police were deployed to violently clear their demonstrations.
The agreements, which were also reached at Brown and Johns Hopkins universities, included concessions ranging from considering divestment from Israel to lighter sentences for protesting students.
Northwestern received the most attention because it was one of the first schools to make such an agreement, but President Michael Schill said the school has not given in to any major demands.
“It is important that I rejected the students’ main demand for divestment,” said Schill.
“I will not recommend to our board that Northwestern use the foundation for political purposes,” he added.
Republicans, who have condemned the entire recent pro-Palestinian movement as anti-Semitic, sharply criticized Rutgers for amnestying student protesters who had violated university rules by encamping as part of a deal to end the demonstrations.
Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) called the agreement with Rutgers “outrageous,” adding that she wanted to know what message the president was “sending to your Jewish students.”
Northwestern and the president of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) said no students have been suspended as a result of the protests, but investigations are ongoing. Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway counted four suspensions on his campus so far, but did not explain why the suspensions occurred.
At Northwestern and Rutgers, Democrats largely praised the presidents for their ability to find a solution without police violence, which was also the case at many other schools and led to the arrests of more than 3,000 people on US campuses.
“I am also concerned about any suggestion that the first step in protests should be to call the police,” said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), adding that this could put students in danger.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has been questioned far less than other faculty leaders, despite hundreds of arrests on his campus and fights that broke out after attacks by pro-Israel counterprotesters.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose daughter was Part of the Columbia University camp, got into an argument with Block after he rejected the premise of a question that implied the school was unsafe for students.
“They should be ashamed of allowing a peaceful protest gathering [get] hijacked by an enraged mob. You should be ashamed that you allowed such violence on your campus, which is now being weaponized by the Republicans on this committee,” Omar said.
The university administration avoided the infamous question posed at the December anti-Semitism hearing that ultimately led to the impeachment of the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania: Would calls for genocide against Jews be considered harassment on campus?
What was notable, however, were the moments when the witnesses were asked who was behind the camps. The presidents of UCLA and Northwestern University said they did not know, and the head of Rutgers University said he was “unsure.”
When asked whether the Israeli government was committing genocide, all three said no, although the head of Rutgers University initially did not want to answer the question.
“Sir, I have no opinion on Israel – in the sense of that expression,” Holloway originally said when asked whether the Israeli government was committing genocide.
Block, who describes his childhood as a Jewish child with relatives who were Holocaust survivors and victims, said he was “fully aware that many of our Jewish students on campus use rhetoric and imagery that any reasonable person would find repulsive. Believe me, I understand their pain.”
Foxx warned the three at the end of the hearing that the The investigations would continue.
Meanwhile, Virginia’s top Democrat, Bobby Scott, accused Republicans of holding these hearings just to make headlines rather than taking concrete steps to solve problems on campus.
“Here we are, for the fifth time in six months, holding another hearing to complain about the problem of anti-Semitism,” Scott said, adding that more needs to be done to find a “meaningful solution” to the problem.
“Complaining about a problem is not a solution,” he added.
Foxx defended her handling of the situation.
“One of the constitutional powers of Congress is to conduct investigations. These are important mechanisms for transparency that bring bad things to light and spur new legislation to fix problems. They expose things and provide accountability. Today’s testimony certainly brought bad things to light,” she said.
