The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce majority released a damning 325-page report on campus antisemitism based on a year-long investigation that began last December. The report includes the now infamous hearing with university leaders that led to the resignation of former Harvard president Claudine Gay.
The committee announced formal investigations into Harvard, Penn, and MIT following this hearing, requesting an enormous amount of documents pertaining to student discipline.’
For over a year, committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx said the American people have watched antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities.
“But what was happening behind the scenes is arguably worse,” Foxx said in a statement. “While Jewish students displayed incredible courage and a refusal to cave to the harassment, university administrators, faculty, and staff were cowards who fully capitulated to the mob and failed the students they were supposed to serve.”
The report outlined key findings, with extensive evidence for each one.
The report said information obtained by the committee revealed a “stunning lack of accountability by university leaders for students engaging in antisemitic harassment, assault, trespass, and destruction of school property.”
At every school investigated by the committee, the overwhelming majority of students facing disciplinary action for antisemitic harassment or other violations of policy received only minimal discipline, according to the report.
Protesters were protected by staff
“At some schools, such as Columbia and Harvard, radical faculty members worked to prevent disciplinary action from being taken against students who violated official policies and even the law,” the report said.
The report detailed how students who established unlawful antisemitic encampments were “given shocking concessions,” stating that “universities’ dereliction of leadership and failure to enforce their rules put students and personnel at risk.”
The report accused Northwestern University of putting “radical anti-Israel faculty” in charge of negotiations with the encampment and expressed shock at the provost approving a proposal to boycott Sabra hummus. Northwestern also entertained demands to hire an “anti-Zionist” rabbi. The report said Northwestern president Michael Schill also may have misled Congress in testimony regarding the matter.
The committee found that Columbia’s leaders offered greater concessions to encampment organizers than they publicly acknowledged, writing that the university’s proposed concessions would “have rewarded radical students who disrupted the ability of students to learn and navigate campus and catalyzed an antisemitic hostile environment rife with harassment and intimidation.”
“Although the students did not accept the University’s offers and held out for even more extreme concessions, by proffering them Columbia signaled that misconduct would not only be tolerated but rewarded,” the report said, including a document with six demands from the encampment organizers and the university’s potential responses.
The investigation also revealed that UCLA officials stood by and failed to act as the illegal encampment “violated Jewish students’ civil rights and placed campus at risk.”
The committee said it obtained documents that revealed “stunning failure by UCLA administrators to enforce existing policies, creating the conditions for a violent end to the unlawful, antisemitic encampment that plagued campus for more than a week.”
UCLA could have ended the encampment within minutes but chose to hold off instead, according to the report. UCLA was also aware of the formation of antisemitic checkpoints but failed to remove them or protect Jewish students, in violation of the university’s Title VI obligations.
The committee stated that “universities utterly failed to impose meaningful discipline for antisemitic behavior that violated school rules and the law. In some cases, radical faculty successfully thwarted meaningful discipline.” For instance, the committee found that no MIT students were suspended for participating in the encampment.
At Yale, of the 45 students who were arrested after refusing to leave their encampment, none were suspended, only one received academic probation, 23 received formal reprimands, and 22 have open disciplinary cases, according to the report.
A student at George Washington University who was initially placed on interim suspension after entering the Hillel building and tearing down posters of Israeli hostages received disciplinary probation.
“The appalling records of these eleven universities make clear that there is a systemic failure to enforce rules, impose discipline, and protect Jewish communities among institutions of higher education throughout the country,” according to the report.
The report also said that university leaders intentionally declined to express support for campus Jewish communities, and that “instead of explicitly condemning antisemitic harassment, universities equivocated out of concern of offending.”
The committee accused that Harvard’s failure to condemn Hamas’s attack in its October 9 statement was an “intentional decision” by then president Claudine Gay, current president Alan Garber, and other administrators.
“Harvard’s failure to condemn Hamas’ terrorism was deliberate. Harvard’s most senior administrators discussed whether to denounce Hamas’ terrorism in the draft statement and decided not to do so,” the report said, pointing toward draft versions, emails, and comments between the administrators as they developed the language to use in their statement.
The documents revealed discussions about whether or not to condemn Hamas and whether to address the student groups blaming Israel.
The report also criticized university leaders’ hostility to congressional oversight and criticism of their record. “The antisemitism engulfing campuses was treated as a public-relations issue and not a serious problem demanding action,” the report said.
The report included a WhatsApp conversation between Claire Shipman, co-chair of Columbia’s board of trustees, and former Columbia president Minouche Shafik, in which Shafik relayed a conversation she had with a staff member for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
According to Shafik, the staff member said universities’ political problems when it came to antisemitism were only among Republicans and the best strategy was to “keep heads down.”
“Our investigation has shown that these ‘leaders’ bear the responsibility for the chaos likely violating Title VI and threatening public safety,” Foxx said. “It is time for the executive branch to enforce the laws and ensure colleges and universities restore order and guarantee that all students have a safe learning environment.”
Nathan Diament, executive director for public policy at the Orthodox Union, commented on the findings in a statement saying the committee’s report reveals the stark reality that Jewish students are often forced to choose between their identity and academic opportunities.
“This lack of accountability from universities creates an unsafe environment that can’t be ignored. We urge Congress to act now to hold these institutions accountable,” Diament said.