Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) told the presidents of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Northwestern University, and Rutgers University on Thursday that they should be ashamed of themselves for allowing antisemitic encampments.
Foxx was chairing the latest hearing of the Education and Workforce Committee into antisemitism on college campuses. The witnesses Thursday included were President Michael Schill of Northwestern University; President Jonathan Holloway of Rutgers University; and Chancellor Gene Block of UCLA; and Frederick M. Lawrence.
Foxx began by addressing the university presidents.
“Each of you should be ashamed of your decisions that allowed antisemitic encampments to endanger Jewish students,” she said. “Mr. Schill and Dr. Holloway, you should be doubly ashamed for capitulating to the antisemitic rulebreakers.”
She noted that Holloway gave amnesty to students who had broken campus rules, and asked “what sort of message you think that sends to Jewish students.” She said that Northwestern had seen several members of its antisemitism committee resign in protest against Northwestern’s surrender to the anti-Israel activists’ demands, including apparently discriminatory policies such as special scholarships for Palestinians and real estate for Muslim students.
Foxx added that Block also brought in law enforcement to remove the UCLA encampment “only after a violent riot erupted,” and after activists had blocked access to campus for Jewish students. “You actions were too little, too late.”
She concluded: “Each of you refused to enforce your own rules, observe campus safety, and protect Jewish students.”
Asked why Northwestern had given in to a demand to allow students to meet with officials involved with managing the university’s investments, when doing so had led to similar arrangements at other universities, Schill claimed that the advisory committee with which the students would be meeting had already existed before the encampments.
When Foxx asked Block what he had done in response to reports that Jewish students were being blocked by the “encampment,” he said that he had circulated a memo to the campus on April 30 (the sixth day of the encampment). Block claimed that the obstruction had stopped after the memo; it continued until the encampment was removed.
Under questioning from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Schill admitted that Jewish and Israeli students were not consulted about the agreement that Northwestern reached with the “encampment.”
C-SPANHe could not explain why Northwestern had promised funding for Palestinian scholars but not, at least publicly, for Israeli scholars.
Later, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) asked Holloway whether he would agree with a statement, made by a Rutgers “think tank” that the government of Israel was “genocidal.”
C-SPANThe Rutgers president declined to say what his view was.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: file
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