Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) demanded Friday that the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania be immediately fired for their handling of anti-Semitism on campus.
The two lawmakers sent a bipartisan letter, signed by 72 of their colleagues, to board members of the three vaunted institutions, arguing that university leaders “allowed” the “dehumanization” of the Jewish people and calling for a “ action plan”. on each campus to ensure the protection of Jewish and Israeli students and faculty.
“Jewish students should have found solace on their campuses. Instead, many Jewish and Israeli students have faced an increasingly hostile educational environment, in the form of targeted harassment, protesters calling for the elimination of the Jewish state, and even acts of violence,” the letter states.
“This is a clear result of the failure of university leadership,” the legislators argue.
New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik blamed the “failure of university leadership” for the rise in anti-Semitic protests on college campuses. Getty Images The lawsuit, co-led by Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, comes after three university presidents compared anti-Semitic threats to free speech. fake images
Claudine Gay, Liz McGill and Sally Kornbluth, presidents of Harvard, UPenn and MIT, respectively, came under fire on Capitol Hill earlier this week after being questioned by House lawmakers about their response to protests in on campus calling for violent armed resistance against the State of Israel and Israeli civilians, as well as the genocide of Jews.
Gay and McGill dodged Stefanik’s questions about whether the violent anti-Jewish demonstrations that have swept their institutions following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7 violated codes of conduct at Ivy League schools.
Gay emphasized that while he finds anti-Semitic speech “personally abhorrent,” Harvard is committed to “free expression and giving[s] a broad distancing from free expression, even of opinions that are objectionable.”
McGill said his institution would only consider calls for the genocide of the Jewish people, intimidation or harassment “if it is targeted, severe and widespread.”
Harvard President Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill came under fire after testifying before Congress on Tuesday. Getty Images Dr. Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT, testified that “we have heard chants that can be anti-Semitic depending on the context when they call for the elimination of the Jewish people.”
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“It’s a decision that depends on the context,” added the UPenn president.
Kornbluth responded that such language violated codes of conduct only if “it was directed at individuals, not public statements.”
“We have heard chants that can be anti-Semitic depending on the context when they call for the elimination of the Jewish people,” the MIT leader said.
Stefanik and Moskowitz were not satisfied with what they heard from the university presidents during their testimony.
“University presidents’ responses to questions intended to address the growing trend of anti-Semitism on college campuses were abhorrent,” they wrote in Friday’s letter. “When asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates university policies on bullying or harassment, Presidents Gay (Harvard), Kornbluth (MIT), and Magill (Penn) were evasive and dismissive, without simply condemning such action. This should have been an easy and resounding ‘yes’.”
“Given this moment of crisis, we demand that your boards of trustees immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and provide a workable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, faculty, and professors are safe on their campuses.”
“Anything less than these measures will be considered an endorsement of what Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth told Congress and an act of complicity in their anti-Semitic stance. “The world is watching: you can support your Jewish students and teachers, or you can choose the side of dangerous anti-Semitism,” the letter concludes.
Stefanik announced Thursday that a formal congressional investigation will begin into the three universities.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn