US colleges failed to hold students accountable for antisemitic harassment, House committee says

By Karina Tsui and Jeff Winter, CNN

(CNN) — A Republican-led investigation into antisemitism on college campuses found that administrators “overwhelmingly failed” to clamp down on students and faculty who engaged in antisemitic behavior following Hamas’ attack on Israel last year.

The 325-page report released by the US House Education Committee Thursday states college officials made “astounding concessions” to organizers of pro-Palestinian encampments, while withholding support from Jewish students.

“For over a year, the American people have watched antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities, but what was happening behind the scenes is arguably worse,” Republican Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, who led the investigation, said in a statement.

Foxx, who praised Jewish students for their bravery, added that university leadership were “cowards” that “failed the students they were supposed to serve.”

In a review of over 400,000 documents from 11 colleges, lawmakers found that Northwestern University entertained an idea to hire an “anti-Zionist” rabbi, while “radical anti-Israel faculty” were put in charge of negotiations with the school’s encampment, the report said.

Northwestern called the report’s allegations “patently false” in a statement to CNN.

The report “ignores the hard work our community has put in … to improve our policies and procedures and create a safer learning environment for our students, faculty and staff,” the statement said. “The University objects to the unfair characterizations of our Provost and valued members of our faculty based on isolated and out-of-context communications.”

The report also criticized senior leadership at Harvard University for failing to condemn Hamas following the group’s attack on Israel on October 7 –– saying that the school’s public statement –– published on October 9 –– was edited down to cut the word “violent” when describing Hamas’ incursion.

The report noted that Columbia’s leadership offered greater concessions to encampment organizers than the school publicly divulged –– “touting aggressive actions on antisemitism to the media,” but not adequately disciplining students that were involved in the “criminal takeover” of Hamilton Hall on April 30 this year.

In a statement from Columbia, a spokesperson from the school said that the university “strongly condemns antisemitism 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 Equity” to handle all cases of discrimination and harassment.

Lawmakers contributing to the investigation also reported that university leaders were hostile toward congressional oversight on antisemitic behavior at colleges, treating the issue like 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 where she described receiving guidance from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to “keep heads down.” “Universities political problems are really only among Republicans,” Schumer allegedly said.

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

The report backed the claim with an instance where former Harvard president Claudine Gay “disparaged” a Republican congresswoman’s character after the lawmaker asked Gay if calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s rules.

It also claims that leaders at University of Pennsylvania attempted to “orchestrate negative media coverage of Members of Congress” by suggesting that politicians calling for then-President Liz Magill’s resignation were “easily purchased.”

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

“Antisemitism 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 has not responded to CNN’s request for comment.

Critics of the report have called its findings “unhelpful and hyper-partisan” and believe that it serves to attack academic freedom rather than protect students from hate.

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

The report comes exactly six months after the U.S. House passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act –– a bill aimed at combating antisemitism on college campuses in the wake the Israel-Hamas war. Supporters of the legislation say it will help crack down on antisemitic hate, while opponents say that the language in the bill is overly expansive and could lead to censorship.

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

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