How university leaders privately reacted to lawmaker scrutiny over campus unrest

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How university leaders privately reacted to lawmaker scrutiny over campus unrest

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The House’s Republican-led education committee released a scathing 325-page report Thursday accusing 11 high-profile colleges of failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and calling for a review of their federal funding. 

The report from the Committee on Education and the Workforce follows a monthslong investigation into the colleges — including Harvard University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania— that unearthed more than 400,000 pages of documents. 

The committee released the findings with only days to go before the U.S. selects the next president — an election in which the majority of registered voters rank the Israel-Hamas war as an important issue to them. The lengthy report signals that Republican scrutiny is continuing to escalate over how college leaders have handled campus unrest amid the conflict. 

In a Thursday announcement, the committee accused university leaders of making “astounding concessions” to pro-Palestinian students who set up encampments and of choosing to “withhold support from Jewish students.” 

The report suggests these actions likely amount to violations of Title VI, which requires federally funded colleges to prevent discrimination based on race, color or national origin. 

“The totality of circumstances on these campuses demonstrate an environment hostile to Jewish students likely in violation of Title VI,” the report states. “The Committee’s findings indicate the need for a fundamental reassessment of federal support for postsecondary institutions that have failed to meet their obligations to protect Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”

Based on disclosed exchanges between high-ranking college officials, the report also alleges that top leaders considered congressional oversight “a nuisance at best,” the announcement said.

“Our investigation has shown that these ‘leaders’ bear the responsibility for the chaos likely violating Title VI and threatening public safety,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, said in a statement Thursday. “It is time for the executive branch to enforce the laws and ensure colleges and universities restore order and guarantee that all students have a safe learning environment.”

Below we’re rounding up several conversations, drawn from the Oct. 31 report, between the universities’ presidents and their board leaders that provide insight into how they processed the heightened scrutiny from lawmakers. 

Harvard leader slams lawmaker as ‘purveyor of hate’

Former Harvard University President Claudine Gay faced backlash after a December congressional hearing, when she refused to give a yes-or-no answer when asked if calls for the genocide of the Jewish people would violate the Ivy League institution’s policies. 

Instead, Gay said Harvard would only punish such speech if it crossed the line into harassment. The two other campus leaders at that hearing — Liz Magill, then the president of University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — gave similar answers to lawmakers. 

Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, led the viral line of questioning and called for Gay’s resignation several times during the hearing. Gay ultimately resigned in early January amid mounting plagiarism allegations and criticism of her leadership in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. 

Speaking to Harvard’s Board of Overseers only a few days after the December hearing, Gay said she should have expressed that calls for violence against the Jewish community shouldn’t be allowed, according to meeting notes. 

Gay also made an “apparent reference” to Stefanik, according to the report, calling her a “purveyor of hate” and supporter of the neo-fascist Proud Boys. According to The New York Times, Stefanik has circulated political ads that allude to themes of the great replacement theory, a white supremacist belief that Proud Boys members have promoted

The House report called both of Gay’s accusations false.

In a Friday statement, a Harvard spokesperson said the university has taken steps to strengthen its rules for campus spaces and its disciplinary policies. 

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