US colleges have failed to hold students accountable for anti-Semitic harassment, says House committee

A Republican-led investigation into anti-Semitism on college campuses found that administrators “overwhelmingly failed” to suppress students and faculty who engaged in anti-Semitic behavior after Hamas’s attack on Israel last year.

The 325-page report released Thursday by the U.S. House Education Committee said university officials made “astonishing concessions” to organizers of pro-Palestinian camps while withholding aid from Jewish students.

“For more than a year, the American people have watched anti-Semitic mobs rule so-called elite universities, but what happened behind the scenes is demonstrably worse,” Republican Chairman Virginia Foxx, who led the investigation, said in a statement.

Foxx, who praised Jewish students for their courage, added that the university’s leadership were “cowards” who “abandoned the students they were supposed to serve.”

In a review of more than 400,000 documents from eleven colleges, lawmakers found that Northwestern University entertained the idea of ​​hiring an “anti-Zionist” rabbi while putting “radical anti-Israel faculty” in charge of negotiations with the encampment of the school.

It criticized Harvard University’s senior leadership for failing to condemn Hamas after the group’s attack on Israel on October 7 – and said the school’s public statement – published on October 9 – had been amended to reflect to delete the word ‘violent’ when describing Hamas. ‘raid.

The report also noted that Columbia leadership made greater concessions to encampment organizers than the school publicly disclosed — “touting aggressive actions against anti-Semitism in the media,” but students involved in the “criminal takeover” of failed to adequately discipline Hamilton Hall in April. 30 this year.

CNN has contacted Northwestern University for comment on the report.

In a statement from Columbia, a school spokesperson said the university “strongly condemns anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination,” adding that “calls for violence or harm have no place at our university.” The spokesperson also said that under interim President Katrina Armstrong, the school has established a “centralized Office of Institutional Justice” to handle all cases of discrimination and harassment.

Lawmakers who contributed to the study also reported that college leaders were hostile to congressional oversight of anti-Semitic behavior at colleges, treating the issue as a “public relations” problem rather than a “serious” one.

The report cited text messages between former Columbia President Minouche Shafik and members of the university’s Board of Trustees in which she described receiving guidance from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to “keep her head down.” keep’. “Political problems on universities really only occur among Republicans,” Schumer is reported to have said.

CNN has reached out to Schumer’s office for comment on the report.

The report supported the claim with an instance in which former Harvard President Claudine Gay “disparaged” the character of a Republican congresswoman after lawmakers asked Gay whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s rules.

It also alleges that University of Pennsylvania leaders tried to “orchestrate negative media coverage of members of Congress” by suggesting that politicians calling for the resignation of then-President Liz Magill were “easily bought.”

“Harvard is steadfast in our efforts to create a safe, inclusive environment in which students can pursue their academic and personal interests, free from harassment and discrimination,” said school spokesman Jason Newton.

“Anti-Semitism has no place on our campus, and across the University we have intensified our efforts to listen to, learn from, support and uplift our Jewish community, affirming their vital place at Harvard.”

UPenn did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Critics of the report call its findings “unhelpful and deeply partisan” and believe it undermines academic freedom rather than protecting students from hate.

“Republican leaders are exploiting the very real danger of anti-Semitism to advance their own hyperpartisan agenda and suppress free speech, instead of doing the difficult but important work of building responsible bipartisan coalitions to help students and stop hate.” anti-Semitism,” Jonathan Jacoby, the National Director of The Nexus Project, a research group dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, told CNN.

The report comes exactly six months after the US House of Representatives passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act – a bill aimed at combating antisemitism on college campuses in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas. Supporters of the legislation say it will help tackle anti-Semitic hatred, while opponents say the language in the bill is too broad and could lead to censorship.

CNN’s Dave Goldman, Jeff Winter and Matthew Egan contributed to this report.

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