For the fourth time in six months, the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce is summoning school leaders to Washington to be questioned about allegations of anti-Semitism at their institutions.
This time, on Thursday, the committee's focus will be on how three different universities responded when pro-Palestinian encampments sprang up on their lawns as part of an international wave of student activism against the war in Gaza.
Two of the schools whose leaders will testify — Northwestern and Rutgers — made deals with protesters to peacefully end their encampments. The third, the University of California, Los Angeles, called in police to dismantle its camp, but only after a violent attack by counter-protesters the night before escalated the situation. get out of hand.
Representative Virginia Foxx, the committee chair, has accused Rutgers and Northwestern of negotiating with the protesters, whose views she has described as anti-Semitic and supportive of terrorism. But she has also mocked the chancellor of UCLA for calling the police too late, saying he had allowed his campus to become a “severe and pervasive hostile environment for Jewish students.”
“The committee has a clear message for corny, spineless college leaders: Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of duty to your Jewish students,” Ms. Foxx said in a speech. Statement of May 16 announcement of the hearing. “No stone should be left unturned while buildings are damaged, campus greens are captured, or graduation ceremonies are ruined.”
The three university leaders do not dispute that Jewish students have faced anti-Semitism both on and off their campuses. But all have largely defended their responses and said they have taken steps to stop it.
However, how aggressive they will be in pushing back on the commission's claims remains to be seen.
School leaders have taken different approaches during previous hearings. The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania were moderate and legalistic; the president of Columbia was conciliatory. Three public school superintendents, testifying earlier this month, gave little ground and sparred with lawmakers in a manner rarely seen on Capitol Hill.
Those who distrust the committee's motivations for questioning university leaders hope Thursday will be another moment of setback. Many faculty and students have seen the hearings as government interference, motivated more by partisan politics than by genuine concern for Jewish students.
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, defended the school's decision to end the camp, using negotiation as a model for constructive conflict resolution.
“We can be proud of our administration and we can be proud of our students,” she said. She added that it pained her to see Northwestern's president “being dragged there and subjected to this inquisitorial process that is so reminiscent of McCarthyism.”
Thursday's hearing marks the first time leaders of public universities — UCLA and Rutgers — have been called to testify about anti-Semitism on campus since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. This changes the context of the hearing somewhat, as public universities must follow First Amendment principles of free speech on their campuses, while private universities have more freedom to limit what can be said.
It is also the first time university leaders have been questioned since Colombian President Nemat Shafik's decision to call in police to break up a pro-Palestinian encampment on April 18, shortly after her own testimony in Congress .
Since then, at least 65 other university leaders across the country have cracked down on pro-Palestinian student protesters, detaining or arresting them. nearly 3,000 arrests to date, according to a New York Times tracker. But more than a dozen colleges have been reached agreements with protesters, often by agreeing to talk about their main demand: cutting their school's financial ties with companies that benefit from Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
The university leaders speaking before the committee Thursday face a variety of circumstances on their campuses, and their testimony will likely vary in style and focus.
Just months after a preplanned retirement, Gene D. Block, the chancellor of UCLA and an expert in neuroscience, may feel freer than the other two university leaders to parry with committee members.
His campus fell into turmoil three weeks ago, amid a wave of conflict over the pro-Palestinian student camp there. The conflict culminated in an attack on the camp on April 30 by a group of pro-Israel counter-protesters. The next night, police arrested more than two hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
Since then, Dr. Block and the university police have been criticized on multiple fronts. Many have wondered why counter-protesters were allowed to attack students in the encampment for hours before police intervened, and why only members of the camp – and not those who attacked it – have been arrested so far.
“It wasn't that we were arrested that bothered us – at least for me it was: what is this unreal double standard?” said Aidan Doyle, a third-year student who was arrested at the pro-Palestinian camp after being injured by counter-protesters.
The education committee has charged that UCLA did not act quickly enough to clear the camp, allowing intimidation against some Jewish students.
In his written testimony before the committee, provided to The Times, Dr. Block's childhood as a Jewish boy growing up in the Catskills region of New York, with relatives who were Holocaust survivors. He described how as chancellor of a public university he must both allow freedom of speech and protect students from discrimination, a difficult balance.
He also took some blame, acknowledging that UCLA was inadequately prepared with security resources when violence broke out around the encampment. He promised reforms.
“In retrospect, we should have been prepared to immediately remove the encampment if and when the safety of our community was threatened,” he said.
Wednesday has the school removed the police chief from campusJohn Thomas, from his post and reassigned him, according to UCLA officials.
Michael Schilthe president of Northwestern University since September 2022, is a legal scholar who made protecting freedom of expression one of its core priorities.
On April 29, Mr. Schill became the first university president making a deal with students calling on their school to cut financial ties with companies profiting from Israel's military campaign.
Under the agreement, students dismantled their tent camp and Northwestern promised to be more transparent about their financial assets. It was also agreed to award scholarships to five Palestinian students affected by the conflict and to create roles for two Palestinian professors.
The deal restored a sense of normalcy on campus but drew vociferous criticism from pro-Israel groups, who accused Mr. Schill of condoning anti-Semitism. Mr. Schill, who is Jewish, is expected to face tough questions about the deal on Thursday.
“I always said it was very difficult to make everyone happy,” Mr. Schill said in an interview days after the deal was announced. “Nowadays it is virtually impossible to make someone happy.”
Eman Hamed, a junior at Northwestern who helped organize the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, said lawmakers and university administrators had focused too much on allegations of anti-Semitism while covering up cases of harassment and abuse targeting Arab students.
“There is currently a single narrative being told by presidents like Schill, who only honor and condemn anti-Semitism without taking into account the rampant anti-Arab sentiment,” Ms. Hamed said.
Jonathan Holloway, president of Rutgers since 2020, is a historian specializing in African-American history. He has one of his goals at Rutgers saidis to foster 'a beloved community', a university culture defined by tolerance, diversity and the vibrant exchange of opinions and ideas.
He has also faced widespread criticism since negotiating an end to a large pro-Palestinian encampment on the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on May 2. Under the agreement, the university will welcome 10 displaced Palestinian students to complete their education at Rutgers. plan a new cultural center for Arab and Muslim students and allow protesters to formally submit their divestment requests.
Two Democratic congressmen from New Jersey, Donald Norcross and Josh Gottheimer, denounced Dr. Holloway in a letter.
“We are concerned that Rutgers appears to have incentivized people to act in a lawless and threatening manner by acceding to the demands of violent and hateful agitators,” they said. wrote of the agreement.
But Dr. Holloway has defended his approach and taken note of it 6 May that “the result of our actions was a peaceful return to normal.” (He has also allowed a second, smaller tent camp to remain on the university's campus in Newark for three weeks. On Tuesday, administrators told protesters:leave now.”)
While some Jewish faculty and students are upset by what they see as a capitulation to the protesters, others support Dr. Holloway.
“The negotiated agreement avoided the brutal confrontation with police that we have seen unfold on other campuses across the country,” several Jewish Rutgers professors wrote in a open letter which has now been signed by more than 600 Jewish professors nationwide.