House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chair Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said the committee will investigate “the learning environments at Harvard, UPenn, and MIT and their policies and disciplinary procedures.” File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI |
License PhotoDec. 8 (UPI) — The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced an investigation into policies and disciplinary procedures at higher learning institutions amid allegations of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia amid Israel’s war with Hamas.
Committee Chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said the probe was triggered by what she described as “absolutely unacceptable” responses from presidents of the universities during congressional testimony this week on anti-Semitism on American campuses.
“Committee members have deep concerns with their leadership and their failure to take steps to provide Jewish students the safe learning environment they are due under law,” she said. “The disgusting targeting and harassment of Jewish students is not limited to these institutions, and other universities should expect investigations as well, as their litany of similar failures has not gone unnoticed.”
Foxx said her committee’s investigation will include substantial document requests, and the Committee will “not hesitate to utilize compulsory measures including subpoenas if a full response is not immediately forthcoming.”
The committee made no mention of investigating Islamophobia on campuses but Foxx said the probe will be focused not simply on anti-Semitism on campuses, but on “the learning environments” as well as the policies and discipline procedures of campuses and won’t be limited to just Harvard, MIT and UPenn.
UPenn lost a $100 million donation due to donor Ross L. Stevens being “appalled by the university’s stance on anti-Semitism on campus.”
“Its permissive approach to hate speech calling for violence against Jews and laissez-faire attitude toward harassment and discrimination against Jewish students would violate any policies of rules that prohibit harassment and discrimination based on religion,” he wrote in a letter to the university.
In a video released after her testimony, UPenn’s president Liz Magill said she “was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate.”
She said her answer before Congress about statements calling for genocide of Jews was focused on university policy that speech alone is not punishable due to First Amendment protections, clarifying that calling for genocide would be harassment or intimidation.
In a statement released Thursday, Harvard President Claudine Gay also sought to assert that the university would not tolerate calls for genocide.
“There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”
