Three leading university presidents are set to testify before Congress Thursday morning to discuss antisemitic conduct from students and faculty in campus communities.
The presidents of Rutgers University and Northwestern University, as well as the chancellor of University of California, Los Angeles, will be grilled by the Committee on Education and the Workforce at the hearing titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.”
“Northwestern, Rutgers, and UCLA have done nothing but appease the antisemitic agitators on their campuses,” a committee spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “Northwestern and Rutgers leadership caved to antisemitic rulebreakers while UCLA administrators stood by as protesters in the antisemitic encampment assaulted Jewish students and blocked their access to campus.”
At Rutgers University, the school negotiated a deal with anti-Israel protesters to end their encampment. The 10-part agreement involves protecting members of the encampment from facing “retaliation” for their actions and working to implement support for 10 Palestinian students displaced by the war in Gaza to finish their education at Rutgers, among other points.
Rutgers also agreed to name Palestine, Palestinians, and Gaza in future communications, develop training sessions on anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim racism for all administrators and staff, and create a new cultural center.
Northwestern University also came to an agreement with its encampment protesters, making a number of concessions of their own, including the reestablishment of an Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility. Like Rutgers, Northwestern did not agree to divest from Israel.
The private school also agreed to pay for two visiting Palestinian faculty members, provide five scholarships to Palestinian students for the entirety of their undergraduate careers, and renovate a community building to use as a space for Middle Eastern, North African, and Muslim students.
A spokesperson for Northwestern told the Washington Examiner that the school’s “foremost responsibility is ensuring the safety of our students. We are confident in the actions we have taken to address antisemitism on our campus and President Schill looks forward to discussing them with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.”
The anti-Israel encampment and building occupations at UCLA did not end peacefully with a negotiated agreement. Following the breakout of violence between protesters and counterprotesters, law enforcement broke up the encampment. Several arrests were made at the scene.
UCLA canceled classes on May 1 after an overnight clash where pro-Israel demonstrators attempted to pull down the barricades that surrounded the anti-Israel encampment. The pro-Israel counterprotesters were allegedly retaliating after a Jewish student was knocked unconscious nearby.
Other schools, such as Brown University, came to agreements with even more concessions to the protesters. Brown agreed to hold a vote on divesting from Israel, while the president of Sonoma State University, a California State University school, announced the first-ever academic boycott of Israel from an American university before being placed on leave.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Rutgers and UCLA for comment.
Previewing how the presidents of Rutgers, Northwestern, and UCLA will be grilled, the committee spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that “the Committee expects the presidents of these universities to answer for their abject failure to preserve order and protect Jewish students.”
The last two congressional hearings on campus antisemitism catalyzed the intensification of anti-Israel campus protests, but also resulted in some accountability for university administrators that tolerate antisemitic conduct.
In January, two Ivy League presidents refused to say that calls for genocide against Jewish students violate school policy. Several elite university presidents stepped down after that hearing. In April, Columbia University President Nemat Shafik’s congressional testimony prompted a greater rise in anti-Israel campus protests, encampments, and antisemitic conduct.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
First Amendment scholars previously told the Washington Exmainer schools will have to find a way to balance students’ freedom of speech with other laws. Former University of California President Mark Yudof proposed that schools enforce “reasonable time, place, and manner limitations” to ensure all students get an equal opportunity to study unimpeded, and avoid civil rights lawsuits.
Yudof, who founded the Academic Engagement Network, said that the federal government can cut federal funding for schools that tolerate antisemitic conduct, but explained that this would be devastating to important research. AEN and Hillel released their “Free Speech, Academic Freedom, Responsibilities of Students and Faculty” guidelines earlier this month, which include time, place, and manner limitations in their recommendations.