2023 United States Congress hearing on antisemitism

On December 5, 2023, the United States House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing regarding antisemitism on college campuses with the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In the widely televised hearing, the presidents answered questions about their schools' policies, including those on antisemitism. After the hearing, the committee called for the resignation of the presidents and announced a Congressional investigation "with the full force of subpoena power" into the same issues.

Four days later, on December 9, 2023, University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill submitted her resignation, partly in response to backlash resulting from the hearing. Less than one month later, on January 2, 2024, Harvard University's president Claudine Gay resigned amid allegations of plagiarism. MIT president Sally Kornbluth received a statement of support from the Board of Trustees after the hearing and did not resign.

Background

On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians. In response, Israel began the bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip, killing thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children. Both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests ensued, and were sometimes accused of having antisemitic and Islamophobic undertones, respectively. Many universities were criticized for supposedly failing to adequately condemn the Hamas attacks and ensuing alleged antisemitic rhetoric, including Penn and Harvard. This became a conservative talking point, described by some commentators as adding to more general right-wing attacks on higher education.

Hearing

The Committee invited the presidents of four major universities to testify about antisemitism on their campuses. Those able to attend included Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, Claudine Gay of Harvard, and Sally Kornbluth of MIT. The three presidents were joined by Pamela Nadell, a professor of history at American University. It was later reported that Minouche Shafik of Columbia University was invited to testify before the committee, but declined due to a "scheduling conflict" with pre-planned speeches at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai.

Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) led the hearing on December 5, and noted that the rise of antisemitism on college campuses is disturbing and threatening to Jewish students, faculty, and staff. Phrases such as "from the river to the sea" and "globalize the intifada" were described as "calling for the genocide of Jews," and the presidents were each asked whether such language violated their rules of bullying and harassment. During the hearing, when Kornbluth, who is Jewish, said she had not heard any calls for genocide, Rep. Elise Stefanik claimed that chants of "Intifada" (Arabic) may be considered a "call for the genocide" of Jewish people. Each president replied that the answer at their institution depended on context.

In a specific exchange, Stefanik asked Harvard president Gay: "At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment, yes or no?" Gay answered, "It can be, depending on the context."

Reactions and further developments

Immediately after the hearing, Stefanik and other members of the committee called for the three presidents to resign, later publishing a written letter calling for their resignation signed by 70 members of Congress. The following day, the committee announced a Congressional investigation "with the full force of subpoena power" into the same issues.

The responses of all three presidents drew public criticism for being evasive. Gay released a statement noting that some "have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students." White House spokesman Andrew Bates said, "Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country." Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, said he found the responses by Magill "unacceptable." Will Creeley, legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, noted that though the university presidents' answers were "legally correct", it was frustrating "to see them discover free speech scruples while under fire at a congressional hearing," rather than in a more principled way.

Magill, who had already been under pressure in October over the university's initial response, resigned as president of Penn four days after the hearing. A few days later, a series of allegations of plagiarism were levied against Gay by conservative activist Christopher Rufo and journalist Aaron Sibarium, followed the next week by an announcement by the Committee that it would open an additional probe into the allegations. Gay resigned as president of Harvard on January 2, 2024. Both resignations were widely reported as political victories for the right. After Gay's resignation, Stefanik declared this was "just the beginning of the reckoning," and that "Republicans will carry out a 'long overdue' cleansing of higher education".

In popular culture

The hearing was portrayed in the cold open of the December 9 episode of Saturday Night Live Season 49, in which Chloe Troast played Stefanik. It was also satirized in an episode of the Israeli comedy show Eretz Nehederet, with a guest appearance from American comedian Michael Rapaport.

See also

• Universities and antisemitism