Higher Ed. Faces Consequences Of Weak Response To Anti-Semitism On Campus

Press Release

"Since October 7, a nationwide reckoning with the ancient scourge of anti-Semitism has centered on America's most elite academic institutions. And the eye of this storm has been a cadre of the country's most radical leftist faculty.

Recently, the University of California's Ethnic Studies Faculty Council released a letter condemning Israel as a "globally acknowledged apartheid.'

The council called the UC System's official response -- which correctly identified the butchery committed by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- irresponsible.

And it claimed for itself the mantle of "moral authority.'

Of course, tenured Marxists do not have to worry much about real-world consequences.

But university administrators, recruiters, fundraisers, and students? They do.

So in response to this faculty group's terrorist propaganda, one member of the University of California Board of Regents published a strongly-worded letter of his own.

Here's what he said. "Let me be crystal clear with no ifs, ands, or buts -- I…will do everything in my power to protect our Jewish students, and for that matter, everyone…from your inflammatory and out of touch rhetoric.'

Unfortunately, too many other administrators have been unable or unwilling to speak with such moral clarity. And the consequences for their institutions are piling up.

The billionaire philanthropist who just a few years ago made the biggest donation in the history of Penn's Wharton School is now leading a revolt among influential donors that stretches across the Ivy League. He's pledged to close his checkbook, and by one account, he's talking to "half of Wall Street' urging them to do likewise.

One prominent national law firm has gone as far as setting up a legal assistance hotline for students experiencing anti-Semitism on campus.

Apparently, the most successful alumni of the most elite schools in America want nothing to do with institutions that aid or abet anti-Semitism. Good on them!

And it's not just private funding on the line. This week, the Secretary of Education called a play from his Republican predecessor's playbook and told major universities that he was willing to use Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to withhold federal funds if they permit anti-Semitic discrimination on their campuses.

Of course, the Secretary couldn't help but couch his warning in "both sides' rhetoric about Islamophobia, as has been the Biden Administration's practice this past month.

Well, tomorrow, our colleagues on the HELP committee will convene a roundtable discussion addressing the topic at hand: a glaring rise in anti-Semitic hate on campus. I'm very grateful to Ranking Member Cassidy for leading this effort to highlight the legal responsibilities universities have to protect Jewish students.

As our former colleague, the President of the University of Florida, put it without hesitation after October 7th, "Our Constitution protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves.'

Fortunately, the Constitution also protects our right to condemn these people in the strongest possible terms."

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