Amid campus unrest, Republicans vow to use House powers to protect Jewish students

WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson and other top House Republicans on Tuesday vowed to use their oversight powers and the power of the purse to put pressure on American universities to protect their Jewish students and crack down on anti-Gaza war protests that have disrupted college campuses nationwide.

At a news conference, Education Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said her committee has invited another round of university leaders — those from Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan — to testify about their efforts to stop antisemitism on campus.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said her panel oversees federal agencies that dole out taxpayer-funded research grants and will be investigating universities for violations of the Civil Rights Act.

And Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said his panel will be scrutinizing visas of students who are engaging in antisemitic, “radical activity” on college campuses and raising questions with the State Department about whether those visas should be revoked.

In addition to the committee action, the full House on Wednesday will vote on antisemitism legislation that would require the Education Department to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws. This bill and other GOP messaging bills like it have divided Democrats over the issue of support for Israel.

“Antisemitism is a virus,” Johnson, R-La., said during Tuesday’s news conference. “And because the administration and woke university presidents aren’t stepping in, we’re seeing it spread. We have to act and House Republicans will speak to this fateful moment with moral clarity. We really wish those in the White House would do the same.”

“We will not allow antisemitism to thrive on campus, and we will hold these universities accountable for their failure to protect Jewish students on campus,” he said.

The GOP’s push comes nearly a week after Johnson and other Republicans traveled to Columbia University in New York, met with Jewish students and President Minouche Shafik, and held a news conference calling on her to resign over her handling of the protests.

On Monday night, protesters at Columbia damaged property, clashed with maintenance workers and barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall, forcing a partial shutdown of the university. A banner reading “INTIFADA” and “STUDENT INTIFADA” — an Arabic word meaning uprising or rebellion — was visible flying from the building.

Shafik “has lost control of her campus and she needs to step down,” Johnson said. “The first and most obvious responsibility of a university administrator is to ensure the safety and security of their students. If an administrator cannot ensure that, they have missed their first assignment. We need to find people who can do that.”

Last December, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and other Republicans on the Education committee clashed with university leaders over rising antisemitism on college campuses. The viral exchanges resulted in the resignations of Harvard President Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill.

This month, Shafik testified about antisemitism before that same committee, sparking the protests, encampment and occupation of an administrative building that have made Columbia the epicenter of the campus anti-Israel protests.

Foxx, the Education chair, has invited Peter Salovey, Michael V. Drake, and Santa Ono — the presidents of Yale, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Michigan, respectively — to testify before the committee on May 23. The hearing is titled, “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.”

“As Republican leaders, we have a clear message for mealy-mouthed, spineless college leaders: Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of duty to your Jewish students. American universities are officially put on notice that we have come to take our universities back,” Foxx said.

“No stone must go unturned while buildings are being defaced, campus greens are being captured or graduations are being ruined,” she said. “College is not a park for play-acting juveniles or a battleground for radical activists.”

Johnson is a former constitutional lawyer who said he is a vigorous defender of the First Amendment. But he said that setting up encampments, taking over buildings by force and harassing and threatening the safety of Jewish students crosses the line and no longer is protected free speech.

The speaker called on President Joe Biden to put down these campus protests and said he can start by visiting Columbia just as Johnson did last week. The White House defended Biden, saying he has spoken out against antisemitism throughout his long career.

Biden “has stood against repugnant, Antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life. He condemns the use of the term ‘intifada,’ as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement Tuesday.

While the president “respects the right to free expression,” protests should be “peaceful and lawful,” he said. 

“Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful — it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America,” Bates added.