| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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| Up next, witnesses describe their experiences with anti-Semitism on college campuses and its impact on free speech. | ||
| They also touch on the conflict in Gaza and how staffing cuts at the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights are affecting Jewish students. | ||
| This is hosted by the Senate Education Committee. | ||
| The elections | ||
| will. | ||
| Please come to order. | ||
| Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here to discuss a really important topic. | ||
| On October the 7th, 2023, the world watched in horror as Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, slaughtered 1,200 innocent men, women, and children. | ||
| Hundreds of victims, including babies as young as nine months old, were taken hostage and subjected to abuse and torture. | ||
|
unidentified
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It should have been a time for unity standing with the Jewish people against hate. | |
| Instead, for over a year, violence and anti-Semitic demonstrations rocked our country. | ||
| At colleges and universities, Jewish students were harassed and attacked for who they are. | ||
| According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were 1,200 reported anti-Semitic incidences on college campuses between 2023 and 2024, a 500% increase from the previous year. | ||
| Instead of standing up for Jewish students, too many university officials failed to respond or refuse to even condemn these horrific occurrences. | ||
| Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Department of Education must hold universities accountable for failing to address discrimination against students on campuses. | ||
| After October the 7th, the Biden administration refused to penalize universities violating Title VI. | ||
| I led a roundtable to examine anti-Semitism on college campuses attended by both Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| It's disappointing that previous Health Democrat leadership refused to consider any legislation or hold even one hearing on this bipartisan issue. | ||
| With President Trump in office and a Republican majority in Congress, the time of failed leadership is over. | ||
| Universities have been put on notice. | ||
| Failing to protect a student's civil rights will no longer be tolerated. | ||
| If universities refuse to follow the law to address discrimination on campuses and to support Jewish students, then they should not expect the support of the federal taxpayer. | ||
| Just last week, after pressure from the Trump administration, Columbia University agreed to change its policies and crack down on demonstrators targeting Jewish students. | ||
| The Trump administration has launched investigations into 60 universities concerning allegations of anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment on campuses. | ||
| These efforts would not have been possible without the strong leadership of President Trump and Secretary McMahon. | ||
| Today, as chair of the HELP Committee, I launched an investigation into the American Muslims for Palestine, demanding answers about their activities on college campuses. | ||
| This group's leaders have ties to Hamas and helped create the group Students for Justice in Palestine. | ||
| I also requested information from the Justice Department and several universities on these groups. | ||
|
unidentified
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We must continue to build upon these efforts. | |
| As we saw in Columbia last month, pro-Hamas activists continue to wreak havoc on campuses. | ||
| Jewish students still feel unsafe to go to school. | ||
| I led the Protecting Students on Campus Act bipartisan legislation ensuring students know how to file civil rights complaints if they experience discrimination on college campuses. | ||
|
unidentified
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I look forward to considering this and other legislation in committee and on the Senate floor. | |
| Jewish students and their families are depending upon us to defend their civil rights. | ||
| President Trump and congressional Republicans are committed to this. | ||
| Thank you again to all our witnesses. | ||
|
unidentified
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I look forward to discussing how we can better discuss protecting Jewish students and ensuring a safe learning environment for all. | |
| With that, I recognize Senator Sanders for his opening statement. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this important hearing. | ||
| And I hope I speak for every member of this committee in saying that hate and discrimination of any kind is beyond acceptable and has no place in our society. | ||
| In the United States of America in the year 2025, it should not be a controversial statement to say that anti-Semitism is horrific and must not be tolerated anyplace in our country. | ||
| Let us never forget that anti-Semitism has plagued Jewish people for many, many, many centuries, culminating in the slaughter of some 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, a number of years ago, my wife and I visited Auschwitz. | ||
| I don't know if you have ever done that, but I would recommend that anybody here who goes to Europe drop by, and it's certainly something that you will never forget. | ||
| A number of years ago, I happened to be in Pittsburgh, and I spoke with the rabbi at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. | ||
| As you recall, it was the worst slaughter of Jews in American history. | ||
| Seven Jews were killed by somebody at a synagogue. | ||
| So let me be very clear: anti-Semitism on college campuses or any place else must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. | ||
| But today, we should also be clear that we, and again, I hope I speak for every member of this committee, condemn all forms of bigotry. | ||
| Vile hatred is not something that should exist in the United States, whether it is racism against the African American community, whether it's sexism, whether it's homophobia, whether it is xenophobia, or whether it is Islamophobia. | ||
| Today in America, we have Asian Americans who are walking the streets and getting harassed. | ||
| We have Muslims who are walking the streets and getting harassed. | ||
| We continue to see people who are African American and Latino face prejudice of all kinds. | ||
| And in fact, we have seen a rise in hate crimes against the transgender community as well. | ||
| And I want to remind people, because this is kind of a little bit personal, in my city of Burlington, Vermont, just a couple of years ago, three miles from where I live, 10 minutes away, three young Palestinian students, wonderful kids, because I ended up talking to them, they were shot in cold blood, shot, because they were Palestinians. | ||
| So, Mr. Chairman, I applaud you for holding this hearing, but I hope when we look about prejudice and bigotry in America, we may want to expand it. | ||
| Anti-Semitism is unacceptable, so is Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry. | ||
| Now, the other thing, and you touched on it a moment ago, Mr. Chairman, there is a great dispute and debate in this country about what's going on in Gaza right now. | ||
| No great secret about that. | ||
| As you indicated, Mr. Chairman, in October of a year and a half ago, Hamas, a terrorist organization, launched a horrific attack against Israel, killed 1,200 innocent men, women, and children, took several hundred people hostage. | ||
| I don't think there's anybody on this committee who does not believe that Israel had the right to defend itself and go after Hamas, terrorist organization. | ||
| But, Mr. Chairman, there are very serious disagreements about what the Netanyahu government has done in Gaza. | ||
| And some of us think that Netanyahu has not just gone after Hamas, they've gone after the Palestinian people. | ||
| And in a nation, a group of 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza, over 50,000 of them have been killed, over half of whom, two-thirds of them, are women and children. | ||
| Over 100,000 people have been wounded because of the incessant bombing on civilian areas. | ||
| The entire infrastructure of Gaza, their entire health care system, their educational system, their water system, has been completely destroyed. | ||
| And according to international law, and in my view, what Netanyahu has done is criminal. | ||
| So we can agree that anti-Semitism is unacceptable in all forms, but some of us happen to believe that the response of the Netanyahu government to the Hamas attack is also unacceptable. | ||
| And if anyone wants to suggest that I or anybody else who speaks out on that issue, whether you're on a college campus or in the United States Senate, is anti-Semitic because we think that what Netanyahu is doing is outrageous, we can have that debate. | ||
| If I attack the Italian government for doing what they may or may not be doing, I'm not anti-Italian or the Irish government, to attack the Netanyahu government for their outrageous activities in Gaza does not make one anti-Semite, an anti-Semite. | ||
| So with that, Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, I would yield the floor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for that. | |
| And of course, our jurisdiction is on college campuses, and so that's where we will focus. | ||
| Each speaker, thank you again for being here, will be introduced in the order for you first, ma'am, and then we'll introduce the next after you testify. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I'd like to introduce our first witness, Ms. Carly Gamil. | ||
| Gamil? | ||
| Gamel. | ||
| Ms. Gammel is the director of the Stand With Us Center for Combating Anti-Semitism, part of an international nonprofit organization that educates about Israel and fights anti-Semitism around the world. | ||
|
unidentified
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An experienced attorney and civil rights advocate, Ms. Gamel has focused her career on addressing anti-Semitism through legal, educational, and policy-driven approaches. | |
| Her work includes supporting students, faculties, and communities facing discrimination. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are grateful for your expertise today. | |
| Please proceed. | ||
| Microphone, please. | ||
| Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, members of the committee, good morning and thank you for the invitation to participate in today's hearing. | ||
| My name is Carla Gammell. | ||
| I am the Director of Legal Policy for Stand With Us, which, as you've heard, is an international nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that educates about Israel and combats anti-Semitism through our work on campuses, in K-12 schools, on social media, in the legal field, and in communities around the world. | ||
| I am a civil rights and constitutional litigator, specializing in freedom of speech and religious liberties. | ||
| I am also a former high school educator. | ||
| We are here today because Jewish students continue to find virtually every aspect of U.S. campus life increasingly hostile, not merely to their views, but to the very core of who they are as Jews. | ||
| This includes rallies that not only distort and demonize Jewish identity, but also often include harassment, intimidation, violence, and threats of violence, which are no part of freedom of speech. | ||
| Intentional exclusion of Zionist students from campus programs and activities, also no part of freedom of speech, and biased, inaccurate classroom content that indoctrinates students through misinformation and creates a hostile learning environment. | ||
| Exacerbating the problem is the failure of many administrations to acknowledge the anti-Semitic nature of the activity and to enforce relevant campus policies. | ||
| Impacted Jewish students are thus denied equal protection of their rights, making many of them legitimately afraid to be on their campuses. | ||
| The perpetrators are then emboldened to continue and even escalate their behavior. | ||
| Some of these administrative failures are intentional refusals to protect Jewish students and should be addressed accordingly. | ||
| But there is also a critical lack of understanding at play because of a well-organized, well-funded campaign that has co-opted and imposed its own erroneous definition of a term that is integral to the religious and ethnic identity of most Jews around the world, including here in the U.S., with the clear intention of demonizing the term and those who identify with it. | ||
| That term is Zionism, derived from the term Zion, an actual physical location in Israel with deep historical significance to the Jewish people. | ||
| Simply put, Zionism is the term that describes the desire of the Jewish people for safety and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland of Israel. | ||
| This nefarious campaign, however, seeks to redefine Zionism as nothing more than a term of political support for the Israeli government, which the narrative falsely accuses of a host of evils. | ||
| The dangerous anti-Zionist narrative of this campaign has been allowed to take firm root in academia, manipulating droves of students, faculty, and administrators into believing the lie that Jews who identify as Zionists, which is to say, most of them, are merely expressing a position of political support for the alleged wrongdoings of Israel. | ||
| A proper understanding of this term Zionism, however, reveals this campaign for what it is: an attempt to erase over 3,000 years of Jewish history and a direct attack against a core component of mainstream Jewish identity. | ||
| In short, a textbook definition of anti-Semitism just adapted and repackaged for a contemporary audience. | ||
| The problem of anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses has reached a level that necessitates congressional action, and I would like to suggest three such actions. | ||
| First, Congress should pass two important pieces of pending legislation. | ||
| One, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which would codify the requirement that in investigating the allegations of anti-Semitism under Title VI, the Department of Education must consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance' working definition of anti-Semitism, which, contrary to some assertions, is fully consistent with freedom of speech principles. | ||
| And two, the Protecting Students on Campus Act. | ||
| Second, as Title IX already does, Title VI should require institutions receiving federal funds to employ a coordinator who is qualified to address the types of discrimination covered by Title VI. | ||
| The first opportunity and responsibility to rectify hostile environments that implicate Title VI falls to the educational institutions themselves. | ||
| They should be required to employ professional staff qualified for the task. | ||
| Finally, the receipt of federal funding should be conditioned in a manner consistent with federal constitutional principles upon institutions' clear communication of the times, places, and manners in which expressive activity is and is not permitted on their campuses, and upon their proper enforcement of such policies when violations occur. | ||
| Administrations must not be permitted to hide behind the facade of fidelity to freedom of speech as a justification for their failures to comply with their obligations under Title VI, as though the two are mutually exclusive. | ||
| They are not. | ||
| Educational institutions are not public streets or sidewalks, and students need not be permitted to engage in expressive activity wherever, whenever, and however they wish, for example, including by wearing masks to conceal their identities, especially when such allowances ultimately contribute to the creation of hostile educational environments. | ||
| In closing, we must put an end to the political weaponization of Jewish identity and unify around the reality that anti-Semitism is causing real harm to real human beings. | ||
| Without confusing matters by insisting on addressing this acute issue only in tandem with other forms of bias and bigotry, or only when it comes from the opposite side of the political aisle. | ||
| Attacks against Jewish identity are not a matter of left or right, but of wrong and right. | ||
| Thank you for the opportunity to testify. | ||
| I look forward to answering questions. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'll introduce now our second witness, Rabbi Levy Shimtov. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Rabbi Shimtov is the executive vice president of the American Friends of the Lubavitch Chabad. | |
| One more time. | ||
| Lubavovich. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Lubavovich, I'm sorry. | |
| Which serves as the representative office of the worldwide Chabad-Labovich movement in Washington, D.C. and plays a vital role in Jewish community engagement and public affairs. | ||
| In addition to his organizational leadership, Rabbi Shimtov is widely regarded as a prominent voice for Jewish advocacy and has worked extensively with government officials, faith leaders, and community organizations to combat anti-Semitism and promote religious understanding. | ||
| We're thankful to have you today, Rabbi. | ||
| Please proceed. | ||
| Good morning, Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and honorable members of this committee. | ||
| I'm Rabbi Levy Shemtov, and I serve as the Executive Vice President of American Friends of Lubavitch Chabad, directing the efforts of the Chabad Labavitch movement in our nation's capital structure and international community. | ||
| Chabad Labavich is currently the world's most dynamic and fastest-growing Jewish educational and social services network with over 4,000 centers in all 50 states and more than 110 countries. | ||
| Our work spans all aspects of life for people of all ages, from preschool to seniors, touching millions of people from diverse backgrounds, including business and communal leaders, academics, military personnel, young professionals, incarcerated individuals and their families, and those in need. | ||
| A significant part of our efforts is dedicated to Jewish students on campus, with active centers serving over 525 universities nationwide, including, more immediately under my own purview, over 10,000 Jewish students in Washington, D.C. at institutions including the George Washington, Georgetown, American, and Gallaudet Universities, as well as Johns Hopkins and various graduate programs across Washington, D.C. | ||
| For three decades now, I have worked closely with students, witnessing firsthand the challenges they face, particularly with the rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses. | ||
| My colleagues and I are guided every day by the teachings of the Labavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Benachem Schneerson of Sacred Memory. | ||
| The Rebbe, widely recognized as the most influential rabbi in modern times, championed the values of education, moral responsibility, and a deep appreciation for America as a land of unprecedented religious freedom. | ||
| In recognition of his exemplary benevolence, ethics, leadership, and scholarship, and selfless commitment to education, Congress unanimously awarded the Rebbe the Congressional Gold Medal in 1994, and every U.S. president since 1978 has declared his birthday each year as Education and Sharing Day USA. | ||
| His guiding principle was that every individual, regardless of status, has the ability and responsibility to make the world a better place through acts of kindness and moral leadership. | ||
| The concept is one of the most famous in the Jewish faith: to perfect the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty God. | ||
| Many refer to it merely as Tikkun Olam, but this is the original mandate. | ||
| This brings me to the pressing issue of today's hearing. | ||
| Anti-Semitism is not just an age-old prejudice, it is a contemporary crisis manifesting on campuses across the nation. | ||
| It is not enough for individuals or institutions to merely claim they are not anti-Semitic. | ||
| As my father once taught me, it is not enough for people, especially public figures, to be neutral or not be anti-Semitic. | ||
| One must be anti-anti-Semitic. | ||
| We must demand the same of our universities and government institutions. | ||
| This hearing, in my opinion, is an attempt to be just that: anti-anti-Semitic. | ||
| We recently celebrated Purim, we're soon to celebrate Passover, two great indicators of our history of overcoming oppression and discrimination. | ||
| Jewish students are increasingly targeted, harassed, and ostracized simply for being Jewish or expressing support for Israel. | ||
| This crisis escalated dramatically after October 7th when Hamas carried out its brutal terrorist attack on Israel. | ||
| Many Jewish students who once felt safe and included on campus suddenly found themselves abandoned by peers at institutions they once supported. | ||
| Students have been physically threatened, spat upon, had their mezuzahs ripped from their dorm doors, even faced academic retaliation for their Jewish identity. | ||
| Jewish students who wore kippahs or other identifying symbols reported being verbally assaulted and in some cases physically attacked. | ||
| Last year at the George Washington University, for example, an encampment of protesters disrupted campus life under the guise of political activism. | ||
| These gatherings went far beyond peaceful protest, which we must all respect. | ||
| They became breeding grounds for anti-Semitic rhetoric, intimidation, and outright violence. | ||
| I personally visited the encampment multiple times and saw firsthand the fear it instilled in Jewish students. | ||
| Even some professors joined in the hostility, and university administrators failed to take sufficient decisive action to ensure Jewish students' safety. | ||
| This was not an isolated incident, but found to be part of a coordinated effort across campuses nationwide. | ||
| Freedom of speech is a core American value, but it does not include the right to intimidate, harass, or introduce violence. | ||
| Universities have the authority and obligation to enforce policies that protect all students. | ||
| However, time and again, Jewish students are subtly told and made to feel that their actual safety is secondary to the political climate of the moment or other considerations. | ||
| And the torture of having to wait for the quote process to play out is painful to watch. | ||
| When there is right and wrong, not doing enough quickly enough sides with those who are wrong. | ||
| We've seen that too often in history. | ||
| The federal government must take urgent steps to address this crisis. | ||
| The anticipated passage of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is a crucial measure that will help define and combat anti-Semitism in educational institutions. | ||
| The adoption of the IRA definition of anti-Semitism is another necessary step as it provides a clear framework for recognizing and addressing anti-Semitic incidents. | ||
| Without these defining developments, universities and administrators will continue to exploit loopholes to avoid taking real action. | ||
| Moreover, federal authorities must demand a safe learning environment for all students, including Jewish students. | ||
| Universities that tolerate anti-Semitic harassment should face real consequences. | ||
| The previous administration took some steps in recognizing anti-Semitism as a national concern, hosting high-level meetings and engaging Jewish leaders in discussions across the spectrum. | ||
| However, these efforts must not be diluted by lumping anti-Semitism together with other forms of discrimination at this point. | ||
| While all forms of hate should be addressed, anti-Semitism has unique characteristics that require a dedicated response. | ||
| As Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel once said, Jews are always the first, but never the last. | ||
| The normalization of anti-Semitism on campus is a warning sign for society at large. | ||
| I have one more paragraph. | ||
| Can I finish? | ||
| One more paragraph. | ||
| Jewish students need more than protection from hate. | ||
| They need to be empowered with a robust Jewish identity. | ||
| As the Rebbe taught, the best way to combat darkness is with light. | ||
| It is not enough to fight anti-Semitism. | ||
| We must also promote a strong and proud Jewish presence on campus. | ||
| In other words, the best antidote to anti-Semitism is perhaps robust Semitism. | ||
| Institutions should be more protective and supportive of Jewish student life and ensure that Jewish students clearly feel welcomed and valued as members of their academic communities. | ||
| I apologize for going over my time, but thank you very much for the opportunity to testify and be here today. | ||
| And thank you, Ranking Member Senator Sanders, for making sure the name Lubavitch is pronounced correctly. | ||
| And thank you for the opportunity to testify. | ||
| I'm prepared to answer any questions you might have. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Our third witness, Dr. Charles Asher Small. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Dr. Small is the founding director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy, an interdisciplinary research center committed to understanding and combating contemporary anti-Semitism through scholarly research and policy analysis. | |
| He's an internationally recognized expert on anti-Semitism and extremism with a background in sociology and public policy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Dr. Small has testified before various governmental bodies and has authored extensive research on the impact of anti-Semitism on democratic societies. | |
| Thank you for joining us, sir. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's an honor and a privilege to be here. | ||
| And thank you very much for convening this critical hearing on the alarming rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses. | ||
| So thank you, Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Sanders, for convening this important meeting. | ||
| I serve as the Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy. | ||
| It was established in 2004 with Nobel Prize laureate Professor Elie Wiesel. | ||
| Professor Wiesel always used to teach that anti-Semitism is not a parochial problem for the Jewish people or for the state of Israel, but that anti-Semitism is a vile form of hatred that begins with the Jewish people but never ends with the Jewish people. | ||
| And once this form of hatred is unleashed, it knows no boundaries and it attacks other vulnerable parts of our society, our cultural institutions, and our core democratic values. | ||
| ISGAP is a research center that operates globally. | ||
| We operate in the United States, in the United Kingdom, where we have a research center at Cambridge University. | ||
| We do programs at Oxford University. | ||
| We're also at Tel Aviv University at the INSS in Israel, in Italy, and in Canada. | ||
| Our mission is to map and decode contemporary anti-Semitism and the anti-democratic forces at the highest levels of scholarship, developing scientific, evidence-based strategies to assist policymakers in combating this ancient scourge. | ||
| Our research demonstrates that anti-Semitism has infiltrated mainstream discourse across educational, political, and social fears. | ||
| Our most prestigious universities and campuses, we've witnessed hundreds of anti-Semitic resolutions and protests, which some of them turned violent, others leading to the harassment and exclusion of Jewish students, faculty and staff. | ||
| While anti-Semitism is known as the world's oldest hatred, the Hamas attack of October 7th triggered an explosion of organized anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish people and Jewish institutions initially on college campuses before it spread nationwide. | ||
| Anti-Semitic incidents have surged 360% since October 7th, according to the ADL survey, and 83%, 83% of Jewish college students across this country have reported witnessing or experiencing anti-Semitism on their campus. | ||
| I have personally seen that many Jewish students and faculty no longer feel physically safe on their college campus, which should be a bastion of tolerance and intellectual freedom and exploration. | ||
| ISGAP's primary or premier research project now is called Follow the Money, which examines the relationship between foreign funding to United States universities and the rise of anti-Semitism on campus, but also in the classroom. | ||
| Our research has documented disturbing patterns of foreign influence through the financial contributions that coincide with increased anti-Semitic activity, compromise academic freedom, and distort campus discourse on issues related to Israel, Jews, and the Middle East. | ||
| In 2019, I presented our initial findings of this Follow the Money research project to federal officials, revealing that $3 billion of undisclosed money coming from Middle East, anti-democratic, anti-American, | ||
| and anti-Semitic forces, primarily from the Qatari regime to American universities, has led to a federal investigation that identified more than $6.5 billion in unreported foreign funding to our universities. | ||
| Our ongoing research establishes that the Qatari regime donations have substantially impacted anti-Semitic discourse at American universities while also promoting anti-democratic values. | ||
| It should be noted that the Qatari regime maintains documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. | ||
| The Muslim Brotherhood is a reactionary, I would even say, perversion of Islam that combines a perversion of Islam with European anti-Semitism and even the protocols of the Elders of Lion that the protocols of the Elders of Zion that led to the Holocaust. | ||
| They have this, it's called a baya, a spiritual oath to the Muslim Brotherhood, that has given also support and gives rise to Hamas, the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, and other violent anti-Semitic and anti-democratic extremist affiliations. | ||
| Since October 7th, ISGAP has published 12 comprehensive reports revealing tens of billions of dollars in undocumented foreign funding coming to American universities, again, primarily from the Qatari regime, unreported to the Department of Education as required by law. | ||
| Our analysis shows that between 2015 and 2020 that there's been a 300% increase in anti-Semitic incidents as well. | ||
| We have uncovered systematic efforts to circumvent the transparency required by Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. | ||
| Universities underreport foreign gifts, use third-party foundations to shield donor identities, and fail to disclose conditions and restrictions attached to the donations. | ||
| Can I finish in 30 seconds? | ||
| 30 seconds. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Very quickly, we found in we did a report on Texas A ⁇ M. | ||
| We found $1.3 billion in undocumented money between the Qatari regime and Texas A ⁇ M. | ||
| We found 502 research projects. | ||
| Texas A ⁇ M gave all of their intellectual property rights to the Qatari regime. | ||
| 58 projects we flagged that have military dual-use purpose. | ||
| 13 have nuclear research dual-use purposes. | ||
| Qatar has very good relations with the Iranian revolutionary regime, Hamas, and the Taliban. | ||
| At Cornell University, we found $2 billion in unreported undocumented funding going from Qatar to Cornell. | ||
| K through 12, we just published a report, hundreds of millions of dollars going to create curriculum across the United States of America for children that remove Jews and Christians from curriculum about the Middle East. | ||
| We've done reports on SJP. | ||
| I'll end it there and I'll get to the recommendations in the QA. | ||
| But thank you for listening. | ||
| Senator Sanders. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Our next witness is Rabbi David Sapristin, the Director Emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. | ||
| Rabbi Sapestin has served as the Director and Counsel for the Religious Action Center of Reform for 40 years. | ||
| Rabbi, thank you very much for being with us and you may proceed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chair Cassidy. | |
| Turn the mic on, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chair Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, distinguished members of this important committee. | |
| As a rabbi, a First Amendment lawyer, a civil rights advocate, a diplomat, having served as the United States Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, I've engaged in a career of fighting for religious freedom and equal rights for all, fighting against discrimination of any group because of their identity. | ||
| The foundational lesson I take from this half century of work is that we cannot counter and delegitimize hatred against any one group unless we counter hate against all, which I think is embodied in Elie Wiesel's quote that you gave. | ||
| So to countering anti-Semitism at this period of unprecedented levels of anti-Semitism in our society on the campuses, I won't go into you've described it very, very well here. | ||
| And there are distinctive aspects to fighting anti-Semitism. | ||
| And we should accept nothing less than every Jewish student being safe. | ||
| Doesn't mean you're going to be free of hearing speech that you're deeply troubled by and find offensive, but I want to say it again, we should accept nothing less than every Jewish student being safe on their campuses. | ||
| And we cannot ensure that Jewish students are safe on campus until all students are safe, unless the mechanisms against discrimination are robust enough to support all protected groups, unless we effectively address the broadest spread of hate speech, hate crimes, dehumanization, demonization, discrimination, ostracization against all those who are so victimized. | ||
| Hate speech and hate crimes are intended to tear at the threads that hold our society together. | ||
| Haters seek to undermine the commity and unity of Americans. | ||
| Our responses must not add to those divisions. | ||
| Any attempt to secure the rights and safety of Jews that undercuts the rule of law, that weakens our public schools or higher education, that further divides our nation and college campuses, undermines the very principles and institutions, undermines the democracy that have made it possible for Jews to flourish with more rights, more freedoms, more opportunities, more achievements in this country than Jews have ever known in diaspora life. | ||
| But sadly, alarmingly, a number of recent actions against judges, law firms, defunding universities, the ignoring of judicial rulings, stripping due process in acting against protesters, the dismantling of the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, and the subsequent loss of its knowledgeable professionals seems to be doing exactly that. | ||
| The administration should build on, not abandon, successful approaches that have shaped and embraced by prior administrations of both parties. | ||
| Improving consistent comprehensive reporting of anti-Semitism, strengthening security resources for vulnerable nonprofits and for religious life on our campuses, expanding support for strong Holocaust history of anti-Semitism, anti-bias education on our campuses in our society, pressing social media platforms to curb anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and other expressions of group hate, | ||
| and continuing vigorous efforts in identifying anti-Semitism, enforcing existing education, anti-discrimination, and hate crimes laws. | ||
| As to the last of these recommendations, I leave it to my colleague to talk about how IRA should and should not be used to affect that. | ||
| There is unity across political and ideological lines on what constitutes most anti-Semitic speech and action. | ||
| There are, however, different views about when expressing substantive criticism of Israel's policies and actions steps over the line into anti-Semitism, or just may be right or wrong on its merits. | ||
| Whichever side of that line of speech may fall on, our law is clear against intimidation or harassment or threats, regardless of the content of the speech targeting them. | ||
| For example, it is prospected speech, even if deeply objectionable speech, to assert that Israel is an apartheid state or guilty of genocide. | ||
| But whenever a Jewish student is taunted, blamed, or accused of supporting apartheid or genocide because they are Jewish, this constitutes discrimination because of their religion, national origin, shared ancestry. | ||
| The same principle would apply to a student who looked to be Muslim being taunted for being a terrorist, a jihad supporter, as well as the Jewish student wearing a yarmulke, facing taunts, saying no Zionists are welcome here. | ||
| How many babies have you killed today? | ||
| One key aspect of fighting anti-Semitism in the committee's purview is we know the higher the levels of education, the less likely to hold racist or anti-Semitic attitudes. | ||
| It's not an inoculation. | ||
| We're looking at politicized forms of anti-Semitism on our campuses here, but for 340 million Americans, it is true, according to all the studies, the higher the level of education, the less racist and anti-Semitic here. | ||
| Finally, this, above all, to succeed, political leaders of both parties, civic religious leaders, their communities must come together if we are to make hate have no place in America. | ||
| As Rabbi Stacey Friedman observed in conclusion, it is our compassion, our common humanity that defines us. | ||
| It is the way people have united as allies and partners in standing up against such hatred that defines us. | ||
| It is the support so many have shown one another after each attack that ultimately defines us. | ||
| It is the love and tears we have shed for one another at our vigils. | ||
| That is what defines us, and I hope defines Congress's work as well. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Sanders again. | ||
| Our final witness is Mr. Kenneth Stern, the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. | ||
| Mr. CERN was also the lead drafter of the IHRA-IRA definition of anti-Semitism, which he has vocally opposed codifying into law for purposes of enforcement. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. CERN, thank you very much for being with us. | |
| Thank you, Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and the other honorable members of the committee. | ||
| I'm Kenneth Stern. | ||
| I do direct the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, and I also worked at the American Jewish Committee for 25 years, where I directed the Division on Anti-Semitism and was the lead drafter of the text that is now known as the IRA definition of anti-Semitism. | ||
| Let me emphasize five points. | ||
| First, students, including Jewish students, have a right not to be victims of true threats, harassment, intimidation, bullying, discrimination, let alone assault. | ||
| However, they should expect to hear ideas that cut them to their core. | ||
| Attempts to affect the campus that aren't grounded in protection of free speech and academic freedom are not likely to work. | ||
| Anything that smacks of a hate speech code will backfire. | ||
| Recent threats against funding without a full investigation and an opportunity to be heard are not only likely illegal, but horrible policy. | ||
| Arresting students should be a last resort, not a first impulse, especially for technical violation of rules. | ||
| The campus environment can be improved with programs and courses, but if we bludgeon the campus into submission, we risk destroying an institution which has made America the envy of the world. | ||
| In 2020, I wrote a book entitled The Conflict Over the Conflict, The Israel-Palestine Campus Debate. | ||
| I worried then and am more worried now that the campus tensions over this issue threaten higher education as each side tries to silence the other. | ||
| Pro-Palestinian activists sometimes use a heckler's veto, promote academic boycotts, and sometimes exclude Zionists from social spaces, which is almost always McCarthy-like and sometimes clearly anti-Semitic. | ||
| But I'm more worried about the use of law to silence pro-Palestinian speech. | ||
| When the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act passed the Senate in 2016, proponents cited the suspension of a professor for an alleged anti-gay blog post and the stopping of the film American Sniper as anti-Muslim. | ||
| They were saying violate free speech and academic freedom for us too, a message I find deeply troubling. | ||
| There are church-state implications here too. | ||
| Some House members said adopting it would be a congressional declaration that the Gospels were anti-Semitic. | ||
| Some have suggested that that one example from the definition be dropped. | ||
| The others are no less protected speech. | ||
| In the case of SJP versus Abbott, where IRA had been mandated in Texas university policies, the judge found it was illegal viewpoint discrimination and chilling. | ||
| In Germany, the definition was adopted and applied to label Jews protesting the war in Gaza anti-Semites. | ||
| One person said, quote, once again, Germany defines who is a Jew, right? | ||
| That the German state would actually classify what's a legitimate Jewish position is beneath contempt. | ||
| Most Jews are Zionist, as am I. | ||
| But for many who for whom Judaism teaches about repairing the world and treating the stranger leads them to anti-Zionism, Congress shouldn't decide this internal religious conflict. | ||
| A recent court decision involving Haverford College rejected a claim that since Zionism was essential to Jewish identity, no religious issue was presented, calling it disingenuous. | ||
| Recently, Harvard settled an anti-Semitism case, agreeing to use IRA, but OCR settled two related complaints, one alleging anti-Semitism and one anti-Palestinian anonymous with George Washington University. | ||
| GW wasn't required to use IRA. | ||
| But imagine if the GW facts had taken place at Harvard. | ||
| and the settlement required using IRA and the definition of anti-Palestinian racism. | ||
| Would a professor who tweeted about Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria be open to a Title VI case if they gave a Palestinian student a bad grade? | ||
| Can each side be affected by calling for exclusive control from the river to the sea? | ||
| How could you use one without violating the other? | ||
| Then there's the arrest of green card holder Mahmoud Khalil because he distributed, quote, pro-Hamas propaganda. | ||
| Seriously? | ||
| Are we that weak that our national security and foreign policy is threatened by a former student allegedly distributing a leaflet? | ||
| We're America, not Russia or Iran. | ||
| There are things we can do, one of which is to increase funding for OCR so the backlog of cases can be resolved. | ||
| On campuses, there are courses, initiatives, and even an AI program called SWAY that pairs students in discussions of contentious topics like Israel and Palestine. | ||
| No raised voices, no eye rolls, just texts back and forth, fun and effective. | ||
| Instead, we're seeing this, a desire to silence political speech because of the discomfort of many pro-Israel Jewish students, the gutting of the Department of Education or an OCR when complaints about anti-Semitism are pending, thinking it's only pro-Israel Jewish students who are having difficulties. | ||
| It's also anti-Zionist Jewish students, Muslim students, Arab and Palestinian students, immigrant students, and many more. | ||
| Shockingly, we're seeing existential threats against universities without a modicum of due process. | ||
| We are not going to improve the campus for Jews or anyone else this way. | ||
| We cannot burn down the House in order to save it. | ||
| Mr. Stern, you and Ms. Gamel did the best at sticking your landing in five minutes. | ||
| Let me just kind of acknowledge that. | ||
| I will begin my questioning. | ||
| Since October the 7th, Columbia University has been the epicenter of campus protests posing threats to students' safety. | ||
| The Trump administration has taken a strong stance with regard to Columbia, withdrawing federal funds and contracts due to its, quote, continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students. | ||
| Ms. Gammel, do you think that the Trump administration's efforts to address these, frankly, rampant displays of anti-Semitism have been more effective than the Biden administration's? | ||
| I think there's no question that these efforts have been more effective. | ||
| As was mentioned a moment ago, certainly there was recognition by the Biden administration of the need to address anti-Semitism as a national problem. | ||
| The Trump administration's efforts, including at Columbia, have put teeth to that discussion for the first time that we've seen. | ||
| What else should the President and Congress do? | ||
| Well, as I mentioned before, while yes, there is debate, I would say, and I'm happy to engage in further discussion about the differences of opinion about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. | ||
| I think it's important for Congress, now that the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act has been before it for quite some time, to finally codify that definition. | ||
| Again, yes, there are certainly restrictions on how that definition can be used, but the definition itself is not a problem. | ||
| It's like no other definite definition that you would find. | ||
| It is a tool for educating, helping people to better understand. | ||
| Importantly, every time that that definition is brought up and challenged, there is a complete ignoring of the text of that definition and the guidance that goes with it. | ||
| And the reality is that the examples of anti-Semitism that people like to fight over and the controversy is over are introduced with clear indication and instruction that these are examples that could be, depending upon the overall context, examples of anti-Semitism. | ||
| The decision that was just referenced in which there were problematic and concerns raised about First Amendment concerns raised about the use of that definition, completely wrong on the facts and the law, including that fact, that context is crucial. | ||
| And so again, passing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, I think, is number one, as well as Senator Cassidy, your bill regarding protecting students on campus. | ||
| I think it is crucial that students know where to get advocacy and where to get help. | ||
| But in order to do that, we also have to have robust enforcement, teeth in resolutions of Title VI complaints. | ||
| Rabbi Shimchov, a quick assessment, the Biden administration versus Trump assessment, Trump administration's efforts to combat the anti-Semitism that we've seen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I will say that the Biden administration did make special efforts, which were unprecedented, in bringing together a broad array of Jewish communal leaders and had top representation at the meetings, including White House principals, one of whom himself is Jewish. | |
| I said at that meeting, and I say again here today, that even though they had a whole-of-government approach, and it was unprecedented, they did allow to seep in, in a way which I felt drilled a little hole in the boat, the views of people who are downright anti-Semitic and those who sought to weaken IRA for the sake of weakening it. | ||
| They didn't strengthen the fight against anti-Semitism. | ||
| But we must say that the effort in and of itself was a good step. | ||
| The second thing is we all fly on planes and we're told that if oxygen pressurization changes, your mask is going to drop from the ceiling and you have to put your own mask on first. | ||
| But you want to save the kids who are with you. | ||
| Don't do that. | ||
| Put your own mask on first because if you stop breathing, you can't help anybody. | ||
| We, the Jewish community, have to help ourselves first. | ||
| And then we have to help everyone else as we can. | ||
| But we can't be helping everybody all at the same time because the dilution itself is dulling the point that our colleague just spoke about. | ||
| So I think that what the Trump administration has done is said there is not only going to be a ramp up in policy, but there will be a sharp ramp up in enforcement. | ||
| University administrators. | ||
| I'm going to stop you there because I have one really quick for Dr. Small. | ||
| Dr. Small, you've talked about funding from the Middle East being associated with a sharp increase in anti-Semitic activity. | ||
| Statistically significant. | ||
| What else can you comment? | ||
| You have about 30 seconds. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So it's a very important issue. | ||
| In one of our reports, we show that American universities taking money from the Qatari regime have 300% more instances of anti-Semitism compared to American universities not taking money from the United States. | ||
| Is that just because of more exchange students, or is there something more than that? | ||
| I think it's the use of soft power. | ||
| It's funding certain institutes and professors in the classroom and connected to the encampment. | ||
| SJP comes out of AMP, which is part of the Muslim Brotherhood. | ||
| And I should say that the spiritual leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, this is not Islam. | ||
| It's a perversion of the great religion of Islam. | ||
| The teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood is that the true believer, the true Muslim, is obligated to complete the work of Hitler. | ||
| This is what is now entering into our universities unchecked. | ||
| And we're calling for investigations into the funding of these anti-democratic, anti-American, sexist, homophobic, and genocidal anti-Semites funding our universities. | ||
| Senator Sanders. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| And my questions are going to be addressed to all five. | ||
| We have five experts on anti-Semitism, and I look forward to taking advantage of their knowledge. | ||
| This is not the Foreign Relations Committee, so we're not here to debate the wisdom or lack of wisdom of what the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza right now. | ||
| But the reality is that 92% of the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed. | ||
| Most hospitals and primary health care facilities have been bombed. | ||
| Civilian infrastructure has been devastated. | ||
| 50,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed. | ||
| Over 100,000 have been wounded. | ||
| If I or any other member of this committee makes that point that we think, and again, I don't want to debate the policies right now, but if we think that the United States should not be supplying more bombs and artillery to the Netanyahu government, do you think, I don't want the debate on Israel, do you think that is anti-Semitic? | ||
| Briefly, Ms. Gammel, start it and go right down the line. | ||
| Am I being anti-Semitic if I say that the United States taxpayers should not supply more weapons to Israel? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That statement alone is not anti-Semitic. | |
| It does not attack Jewish identity. | ||
| Rabbi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I must say you are revered on one side of the aisle and respected on the other side of the aisle for the strength of your convictions. | |
| You do not say dispassionate statements. | ||
| So just like I believe we have to respect the right of everyone to their opinion, I believe the Prime Minister is a democratically elected official and is entitled to his opinion. | ||
| Do I think it is anti-Semitic to criticize him? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| If you criticize somebody who's Jewish, that's not anti-Semitic. | ||
| If you criticize the fact that they're Jewish or use that to criticize something, that's anti-Semitic. | ||
| Dr. Swall, briefly, we don't have a lot of time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So again, I would agree with the rabbi. | |
| What you said is not anti-Semitic, but what I would say with great respect is that we have to flip the equation. | ||
| I think instead of blaming the victim or looking to the victim of Hamas, of the Muslim Brotherhood, we have to understand the ideology at work that's confronting. | ||
| I don't think there's any debate up here. | ||
| The Hamas is a terrorist organization and what they did on October 7th is beyond disgusting. | ||
| Rabbi Sapostink. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't. | |
| No, I don't think it is anti-Semitic if you say it or people on college campuses say it. | ||
| But on college campuses, there are too many instances in which those kinds of political statements are mixed with rank hatred against Jews. | ||
| And that steps over the line into anti-Semitism. | ||
| Mr. Surfin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator Sanders, just that statement, that opinion alone is not anti-Semitic. | |
| Okay, now I need your help on something else. | ||
| I have never met George Soros in my life, to the best of my knowledge. | ||
| I don't believe I've ever received a nickel in campaign funding from Mr. Soros. | ||
| But I think as all of you know, Soros has been a stereotype, a manifestation of anti-Semitism all over the world. | ||
| Yes? | ||
| Warren? | ||
| So when we talk about anti-Semitism, one of the tropes that has always been used, Prodigals of Zion, is that there's this mysterious underground group of zillionaire Jews who are manipulating the whole world, right? | ||
| Is that the trope? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| This from the Holocaust Memorial Museum is something that appeared in Hungary, a Hungarian anti-Semitic publication. | ||
| Jews, puppeteers, right? | ||
| Familiar with that trope? | ||
| This is from a Donald Trump campaign email. | ||
| George Soros, puppeteer, Biden is the puppet being manipulated. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Doesn't want to make a big deal about it, Ms. Gammel. | ||
| Does that look to you like an anti-Semitic trope? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that there's no question that there is a relationship when you look at the two images that would cause that question to be raised. | |
| Again, I think context. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Rabbi. | ||
| George, briefly, I've got one to hear from everybody. | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is that anti-do you think that has anti-Semitic overtones? | |
| I think that George Soros is Jewish, although he doesn't really identify closely with the community. | ||
| One minute. | ||
| No, I don't have one minute. | ||
| I've got 17 seconds. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| 17 seconds. | ||
| He's anti-Semitic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Very simply, he's being criticized. | |
| He's Jewish. | ||
| I don't know that he's being criticized because he's Jewish. | ||
| Dr. Swan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I would say very briefly, we're living in a time where the Democratic Center is under attack from the extreme right, the extreme left, and radical Islam. | |
| I ask you a question. | ||
| Does this look like an anti-Semitic trope? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Rabbi Sophistine? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Mr. Stern? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Anti-Semitism is two things, and it's essence. | |
| A conspiracy theory that Jews try to harm humanity and giving an explanation for what goes wrong in the world. | ||
| That picture is anti-Semitic. | ||
| Orban was using it recently as well. | ||
| Well, clearly anti-Semitic. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator Collins. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, first let me thank you for holding this important hearing and also for convening the roundtable last year where we were able to hear such distressing testimony directly from Jewish students about what they were encountering on college campuses, | ||
| particularly after the October 7th attacks in Israel. | ||
| Mr. Stern, I'm going to start my questioning with you. | ||
| We agree that every student should feel safe on campus. | ||
| And I'm interested to learn about your book, Conflict Over Conflict. | ||
| I agree that colleges and universities are often the best places to have tough conversations and robust debate. | ||
| But how is it allowable for a faculty member to give extra credit to students to participate in anti-Israel protests? | ||
| Do you think that's right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator, I think that there are questions of bad teaching that go across the board with all this. | |
| But in that situation, it may well be. | ||
| But the point is that on a campus, the idea is that students should be not singled out, not discriminated against, but should hear things differently. | ||
| So if the professor says, I want everybody to go and report back, I don't care what you say about it, but I want you to, because it's happening, to tell me what you think. | ||
| That's something different than saying, I'm going to give you extra credit for supporting someone. | ||
| So do you agree that it is wrong for a student to be given extra credit for attending an anti-Israel debate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It depends. | |
| If I had a student and that debate was happening on the campus, I might want them to come back and say, tell me the different sides. | ||
| On the other hand, if they're saying, I want you to go because this is the correct way, that is a wrong thing to do. | ||
| So this reminds me of a conversation that I had with a college president in Maine, whom I deeply respect, who told me that in his experience, these anti-Semitic protests are not being generated by students. | ||
| They're being inspired by faculty members, graduate assistants, and outside groups. | ||
| This isn't spontaneous. | ||
| And I remember one of those students at the roundtable telling us that when she went up to a student and said, do you know what you're saying when you say from the river to the sea, Palestine should be free? | ||
| And they had no idea what that meant. | ||
| Ms. Gamel, I want to ask you a question. | ||
| Last year, I questioned the former Secretary of Education, Cardona, at a Senate appropriations hearing about his enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which is intended to protect all students from discrimination. | ||
| At the time, the Secretary had no one on the ground at colleges and universities where investigations into anti-Semitism were occurring. | ||
| He could not give me a timeline for resolving these investigations. | ||
| He acknowledged only that they had a large backlog. | ||
| He could not answer any of my questions about the penalties for schools that were found to be in violation, if they were found to be in violation. | ||
| To me, that was an appalling demonstration of a very lax, even indifferent approach to what had been more than a 300% increase in anti-Semitic incidents across this country, including and primarily at our college campuses. | ||
| So I want to follow up on the question to ask you about the chairman. | ||
| Are you seeing a difference now in the implementation of Title VI? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Senator. | |
| We are beginning to. | ||
| We are encouraged by what we are seeing. | ||
| I believe that you're absolutely correct, that there need to be actual investigators, as there now are, on these campuses. | ||
| I also believe, though, that it is crucial that the institutions themselves be held accountable for being the first line of addressing these problems. | ||
| This is not an issue that the federal government should have to come in and police. | ||
| And again, I go back to there are often not people who are well qualified and equipped to address these things on the campuses themselves. | ||
| It should start there. | ||
| But yes, I am encouraged by what we are seeing in terms of enforcement. | ||
| I'll say that I was discouraged to see at the end of last year when institutions came out of the woodwork begging OCR to resolve open complaints for obvious reasons. | ||
| And there was capitulation to that. | ||
| There's too much capitulation going on, not enough enforcement. | ||
| So I'm very encouraged to see what we're seeing. | ||
| That is why we need to make sure that office continues to be adequately resourced. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator Murray. | |
| Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Obviously, every student should feel safe on campus. | ||
| It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, what religion you practice, you should feel safe. | ||
| You should be able to learn and grow without facing harassment or assault or discrimination. | ||
| You may debate complex issues and hear diverse viewpoints on campus. | ||
| That's part of life as much as it is part of a higher education, and it is important. | ||
| Everyone in this country should be able to use their voice and exercise their First Amendment rights peacefully without fear of government retaliation. | ||
| And at the same time, no one should ever fear for their safety on campus. | ||
| No one should ever be forced to tolerate bigotry. | ||
| That's a very simple principle, and I think it's one that the vast majority of Americans agree with. | ||
| In fact, here in Congress, we agree with it so much that we have an office at the Department of Education dedicated to upholding that principle, the Office of Civil Rights, that the Senator from Maine just referenced. | ||
| And that is why I have fought for years to secure more resources and funding for OCR. | ||
| It does really important work to make sure every student is safe on campus. | ||
| And it makes sure schools are living up to their obligations under our civil rights laws. | ||
| When hatred and bigotry are on the march, from recent spikes in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, or to the wave of anti-Asian hate during COVID, when students' safety is at stake, whether that means addressing hate crimes in hostile environments or actually addressing sexual assault on our campuses, OCR is really our front line. | ||
| So if you want to fight anti-Semitism, you should support OCR. | ||
| It is as straightforward as it gets. | ||
| It's like saying if you want to fight fires, you should support the fire department. | ||
| Well, I hate to tell you all, but Trump is axing the fire department. | ||
| He has fired nearly half of the OCR staff and shuttered more than half of the OCR offices. | ||
| So I don't know how anyone can actually say they're serious about stopping anti-Semitism on campus without also saying that they are concerned by this movement to gut that agency on the front line of stopping anti-Semitism, because you can't upend that entire office, as Trump wants to do, without upending the work. | ||
| You can't pause the investigations, which Trump already did, without creating a huge backlog that means students will not get the justice that they deserve. | ||
| You can't just cut an agency in half and pretend everything's fine. | ||
| Closing those offices means throwing 6,000 cases into limbo, leaving students in 28 states without the critical tools to fight back. | ||
| Firing those workers means doubling the caseload for the remaining investigators who are already stretched thin. | ||
| I think it's clear that if we are serious about fighting anti-Semitism, we need to get serious about fighting this administration's decimation not only of OCR but the entire department. | ||
| So I want to ask our witnesses what those cuts mean to students. | ||
| And Rabbi Saberstein, let me start with you. | ||
| Does drastically eliminating OCR's capacity help protect students, including Jewish students? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It harms it in so many ways, Senator. | |
| You've already talked about how overloaded they were before any of these cuts. | ||
| Each one of the investigators had an average of 46 cases that they had to deal with. | ||
| Now it's 86 cases that they're going to have to deal with with the staff after the cuts were made. | ||
| They shut seven of the 12 regional offices. | ||
| They're talking about moving it to this kind of work, integrating it into the Justice Department. | ||
| The Justice Department, not an administrative enforcement agency. | ||
| It doesn't look at it in a holistic kind of manner here. | ||
| This was really something extraordinary. | ||
| Is who is better? | ||
| ProPublica did a deep dive. | ||
| Before the cuts happened in the first few weeks, 20 new cases were open in the beginning of this administration. | ||
| In the beginning of the Biden administration, the same period of time, 110 cases. | ||
| In the last year of the Biden administration, 240 cases. | ||
| Now it was down to 20. | ||
| They're grinding it to a halt. | ||
| And it is the students of America of all kinds who are facing discriminations that are going to suffer. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I only have 20 seconds left. | ||
| Mr. Chern, you want to comment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I had the experience of working with OCR. | ||
| There were Jewish students outside of Binghamton, New York. | ||
| There was a kick of Jew Day. | ||
| The school district did nothing. | ||
| I can tell you, OCR worked magic. | ||
| It helped the students. | ||
| It helped the district do something that was educationally important. | ||
| Also, there were other students that didn't want to be part of the complaint because they were worried about the retribution to them. | ||
| This gave an opportunity to go work with them behind the scenes to make sure their voices were heard too. | ||
| I agree with Rabbi Sapristina. | ||
| This becomes a Department of Justice issue. | ||
| I think back to that case. | ||
| I don't know that I would have been a complaint. | ||
| I don't know that the students would have come forward. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator Marshall. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome everybody as well. | ||
| There's no doubt that 70% of Jewish students feel harassed. | ||
| They feel threatened. | ||
| And unfortunately, I found that in my home state at the University of Kansas, I went and sat down and visited with the Jewish students there. | ||
| And when these riots and protests were going on, to Senator Collins' point, the leaders of the riots were actually teachers there and graduate students and outsiders showing them how to do this type of rioting. | ||
| The students were being followed into their classrooms. | ||
| The protesters, the class, maybe it was a clash in Jewish history, and the protesters were inside the buildings, outside the class, harassing these students. | ||
| And certainly this is all very, very unacceptable. | ||
| And I'm glad that we're proceeding this. | ||
| I think there's a great opportunity for some type of an anti-Semitic commission going forward. | ||
| This problem was happening 2,000 years ago. | ||
| It's going to keep happening, and we need to keep this in mind as well. | ||
| I want to go to Dr. Small first. | ||
| Dr. Small, what was Qatar's role in the hostage release of Americans? | ||
| It's a good question. | ||
| I'm not an expert at that level, but I know that the Qataris certainly were funding Hamas. | ||
| They have very good relationships. | ||
| That's not my question. | ||
| I'll answer the question for you. | ||
| So the Qataris were vastly responsible for the freeing of American hostages and many others. | ||
| Dr. Small, what was Qatar's role in the evacuation of Afghanistan, and especially how did it impact America? | ||
| The Qatari regime has good relations with the Taliban, with the Iranian revolutionary regime. | ||
| It's interesting just the prejudice that I hear coming out of your mouth here that Qatar was so important. | ||
| Of the 120,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan in our moment of need, Qatar stood beside us. | ||
| And of the 120,000 removed, 60,000 of them came through Qatar. | ||
| Without Qatar, we would have had thousands more deaths as well. | ||
| So I'm really, I don't know why you won't answer that question. | ||
| I want to think about just a little bit more objective here. | ||
| I'm going to say this century, in the past decade or so, Qatar has given about $5 billion to the educational institutions of America. | ||
| And a vast majority of that, probably 80%, is setting up universities in Qatar, whether it's Texas AM and Engineering, Cornell and Medicine. | ||
|
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A vast amount of that money is research-oriented as well. | |
| Qatar has been a great ally to America, so I don't know why you're attacking them. | ||
| And then why don't you compare? | ||
| So China's given over $3 billion, the Saudis $1.5 billion, UK $1 billion, Germany over a billion. | ||
| So why aren't we attacking them as well? | ||
| And I want you to answer this question. | ||
| Two universities heavily funded by Qatar were Carnegie Mellon and VCU. | ||
| Were there any large anti-Semitic riots or protests there? | ||
| So this is a very important issue, and I would say... | ||
| So were there any anti-Semitic riots or protests in VCU or Carnegie Mellon? | ||
| The answer is no. | ||
| So the answer is no. | ||
| So they were vastly funded, but yet there was no riots there. | ||
| So I don't understand why you're picking on the Qataris here when other people are funding. | ||
| Take Texas and Texas A ⁇ M. Texas A ⁇ M has a university presence in Qatar. | ||
|
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University of Texas doesn't. | |
| So you would make the conclusion that Texas A ⁇ M was funded. | ||
| But UT is where the riots were. | ||
| UT, so it had nothing to do with Qatari funding there. | ||
| I don't know how you, you know, causation doesn't, what's my saying here that Senator Cass uses all the time here. | ||
| What is association is not necessarily causation. | ||
|
unidentified
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There you go. | |
| Association is not causation. | ||
| So I don't know why we're here fueling the fire. | ||
| Not all Muslims are anti-Semitic. | ||
| Not all Muslims are anti-American. | ||
| And here we have a Muslim country that has stood beside America for the most part, and they're not perfect. | ||
| They're not perfect, but they help us get back hostages. | ||
| They saved the day in Afghanistan. | ||
|
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In so many ways, they've stood beside us. | |
| I think you're picking on them. | ||
| I think you're coming to conclusions that are not well-founded. | ||
| I think that that's called discrimination. | ||
| I think it's prejudiced as well. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| May I respond, please? | ||
| May I answer the question? | ||
| 26 seconds. | ||
|
unidentified
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Pardon me? | |
| Well, I would just say that Qatar is a country of less than 350,000 citizens. | ||
| They give more money to American universities than any country in the world. | ||
| The greatest victims of political radical Islam are Muslims. | ||
| But you're missing the rest of the story, though. | ||
| This just continues the prejudice that you have. | ||
| You don't mention China. | ||
| You don't mention Saudi. | ||
| You don't mention the UK. | ||
| They all have significant donations as well. | ||
| Look, nobody is perfect. | ||
|
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And I know that you built your life on this one thing, but no country is perfect. | |
| And I'm as pro-Israel as any member is up here. | ||
| I certainly recognize the anti-Semitism that's been around for over 2,000 years. | ||
| I don't know why you want to make, to use an anti-Semitic term, I don't know why you want to make Qatar the scapegoat here. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Marshall. | ||
| Senator Baldwin. | ||
| I assume I don't have your list over here. | ||
| Are you next? | ||
| I was not here at the gap. | ||
| Oh, good. | ||
| Then, Senator Hassan. | ||
| I hate to admit that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you all for being here. | ||
| I want to thank the chair and the ranking member for this hearing today. | ||
| Before I turn to my questions, I want to say a few words regarding the alarming and disturbing anti-Semitism that we are seeing across the country. | ||
| Vigorous debates regarding foreign policy are constitutionally protected. | ||
| But too often since October 7th, when Hamas attacked Israel, these debates and protests have veered into both implicit and explicit anti-Semitism. | ||
| Across the country, Jewish centers on campus have been protested and vandalized, and Jewish faculty and administrators have been targeted. | ||
| At one school, Jewish students had to be escorted by security to escape a mob. | ||
| And too often during protests, we've heard chants and slogans that justify and even celebrate Hamas's violence, or heard speakers deny Hamas's atrocities, including the atrocity of sexual violence. | ||
| There is no legal right to threaten the safety of any student. | ||
| Even if someone has a legal right to say hateful words, it's still wrong to say them. | ||
| And the rest of us have the right and responsibility to condemn them. | ||
| Denouncing anti-Semitism should not be a partisan issue. | ||
| Whether by torchlight in Charlottesville or on the quads of our universities, anti-Semitism is always, always wrong and entirely at odds with what our country is supposed to be, what people like my dad, who served in World War II, knew America could be. | ||
| The fact that we are seeing this kind of anti-Semitism today in today's day and age is shameful and a reminder, obviously, that we need to do much, much better. | ||
| Because extremism, no matter what fringe it comes from, doesn't go away on its own. | ||
| And frankly, on this issue and others in our politics today, I do fear that the further we are removed from World War II, the more likely we are to forget the lessons that many paid a terrible price for all of us to learn. | ||
| I was going to ask the same question that Senator Murray did about the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education, an incredibly important office. | ||
| I was grateful, Rabbi, for your description of how it has been undermined and what the impact of that will be. | ||
| And Mr. Stern, yours as well. | ||
| It's an incredibly important tool. | ||
| It is extremely disappointing, more than disappointing. | ||
| It is wrong that this administration has worked to undermine it so quickly and so strongly. | ||
| And it is at odds with the administration's rhetoric about wanting to do something about anti-Semitism on our campuses. | ||
| But I do have a couple of other questions. | ||
| And Rabbi Saperstein, I want to start with you. | ||
| In your testimony, you highlight the importance of strengthening resources for security of our religious and communal institutions. | ||
| We've made progress in recent years by creating the Nonprofit Security Grant Program at the Department of Homeland Security, which helps to address the security needs at houses of worship, but there's still more work to do. | ||
| Senator Johnson and I have a bill called the PRAY-SAFE Act, which would establish a federal clearinghouse through which faith-based organizations, houses of worship, and other nonprofits could access information on safety and security best practices, available federal grant programs, and training opportunities. | ||
| The PREYE SAFE Act passed out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by unanimous consent last Congress. | ||
| I invite my colleagues to work with me in getting it signed into law this Congress. | ||
| Rabbi, can you speak to how a centralized, easy-to-navigate clearinghouse like this would help you and other faith leaders? | ||
| And also, if there are other supports you'd like to see us work to provide, please comment on those. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, thank you for your comments at the beginning about the state of where we are with anti-Semitism. | |
| Great with everywhere. | ||
| We're hearing things I never thought we would hear again after the Holocaust. | ||
| We're seeing things I never thought I would see in my lifetime. | ||
| So thank you so much for that. | ||
| Here, I spent much of my career working with the National Reform Jewish Movement, the largest movement. | ||
| I think I can speak for all of the movements, that that kind of clearinghouse is invaluable to us. | ||
| We have nearly 900 synagogues around the country here, and they desperately need guidance. | ||
| They desperately need to know what best practices are here. | ||
| This is a safety that they have to worry about every single time they gather, every single time they pray, every single time they teach, every single time they provide social services to the community. | ||
| So it would be an invaluable contribution. | ||
| Well, I appreciate that very much, and I have very little time left, but I do just want to comment that one step I think we can take to counter the hate we are seeing is investing in Holocaust education programs so that our young people understand the evils that drive anti-Semitism. | ||
| So I will submit a question for the record to you, Rabbi Shemtoff, about the role that Holocaust education can play in fighting the spread of anti-Semitism. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Should I answer it? | |
| And for the record, I am. | ||
|
unidentified
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We'll go to Senator Moody next. | |
| For the record, I am assured that OCR currently has the resources necessary in order to investigate these claims. | ||
| Mr. Chair, with respect, I think an analysis of their current staffing versus what they had and the number of backlog cases would refute that. | ||
|
unidentified
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But I appreciate the comment, and let's see what we can dig in and find out together. | |
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Senator Hassan. | |
| Senator Moody. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you to everyone that took the time to be here today. | ||
| Such an important hearing. | ||
| I think it's important after we've heard some of the questions and responses to point out that immediately upon taking office, I think out of our thousands of colleges and universities, the Trump administration immediately sent out letters to some of the more egregious violators of civil rights, especially our Jewish students, as on campuses, and said the days of a tepid response or toothless resolution agreements are over, | ||
| and we will aggressively go after those that are violating the rights of our Jewish students. | ||
| Those letters have gone out. | ||
| Universities have now been put on notice. | ||
| I don't think there's any question that there has been a change in the tenor on how we will protect the rights of Jewish students on our campus. | ||
| And I just want to make sure that that is clear because some of the questioning has suggested otherwise. | ||
| I think it's also important to remember that we're here on a hearing today, and I want to make sure I'm going to get the title right so I'm going to specifically read the topic of this hearing: anti-Semitic disruptions on campus. | ||
| And we're talking about attacks on campaign flyers of President Trump and defending coordinators of chaos on campus. | ||
| I mean, I think it's important when we're addressing an issue that people understand who is actually targeting the issue that we're talking about and not talking about something else to distract from the point that our Jewish students have had to transfer, have had to skip graduations, have missed major opportunities in life, have been followed to class, have been threatened, have been kept from campus buildings. | ||
| I mean, that is why we're here today in Florida. | ||
| We're not immune. | ||
| We saw a rapid escalation in anti-Semitism and criminal acts within our own state, and that was minor compared to the rest of the nation after October 7th, what we saw in terms of criminal acts. | ||
| So I think it's important to remember. | ||
| I mean, it's the same thing happened when we were talking about men participating in women's sports and taking those opportunities and the danger to women. | ||
| We were, you know, who was talking about protecting women? | ||
| Who was not distracting from that? | ||
| Who stood up for that? | ||
| And I think we need to remember that in this hearing today. | ||
| I don't think it's wrong to question foreign funding. | ||
| I mean, candidates for federal office can't take foreign donations. | ||
| I don't think it's wrong to question foreign funding in universities and colleges and whether foreign nations are trying to persuade or influence or brainwash our children. | ||
| I mean, do you think that they want us to be more pro-American, more democracy, pro-freedom, pro-capitalism? | ||
| Is that why they're giving hundreds of millions of dollars to our universities? | ||
| I mean, I'm sure there are instances of good faith there, but we have to pay attention to that. | ||
| I filed a bill yesterday to deny now student visas to Chinese students because China has just passed a law that now requires every national to gather intelligence, including Chinese students here studying, gather intelligence and report back. | ||
| How do we not pass a law that prevents student visas in that respect? | ||
| I mean, in the past few years, we've had an explosion of Chinese students that were caught gathering information on military basis on college campuses. | ||
| How do we as lawmakers, policymakers, not do that? | ||
| And so I've watched what's happened over our camp in our campuses over the last few years and sat in horror. | ||
| And people, there are tools right now in terms of revoking funding or denying funding if campuses are allowing the violation of civil rights. | ||
| I filed a bill today that said we should go one step further because clearly what we have on the books isn't working. | ||
| I believe that if money has been given or designated for universities and they cannot protect their Jewish students and there are violations of civil rights, any money that has been dedicated to them should be clawed back. | ||
| Any taxpayer money that has been dedicated to them should be clawed back from the federal government. | ||
| And Ms. Gamma, I would like to know what you think. | ||
| Number one, do you think additional tools are necessary? | ||
| And number two, do you think that that is a good policy? | ||
| I certainly think that additional tools are necessary, as I've mentioned several times. | ||
| I do think that looking at every aspect of what our taxpayer dollars are being used for and ensuring that those dollars are being used in compliance with the law is crucial. | ||
| There's simply no question that the teeth that have been lacking in resolutions under Title VI need to be returned to those resolutions. | ||
| I want to say this. | ||
| I've dealt extensively with resolution agreements under Title VI. | ||
| There is a process that allows universities to seek voluntary resolution. | ||
| It is typically through that process that resolutions come about. | ||
| That is when the university approaches OCR and says, we would like to voluntarily resolve this. | ||
| Unfortunately, what we see there is talk about compliance concerns. | ||
| We do not see findings of violation. | ||
| I think it is critical that when OCR investigates or whomever it is, because I have every faith that someone will be investigating and enforcing Title VI, whether it is OCR or another department in the government. | ||
| When they do that, I believe it is crucial that we move beyond just talking about compliance concerns and actually issue findings of violation. | ||
| And where those findings are found, federal funds need to be removed. | ||
| Thank you, Ms. Gamelin. | ||
| We have these new timers that nobody can see where the time is. | ||
| So I apologize if we went over. | ||
| No, believe me, this is our first meeting in this new room. | ||
| And so now I can see. | ||
| A lot of new technology. | ||
| I can see on my dial, it's Senator Kim, who's next. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| Thank you to all of you. | ||
| And very powerful testimonies here. | ||
| One thing I just wanted to sort of start from is sort of an area, hopefully, of agreement here. | ||
| But Mr. Stern, you said something in your written testimony. | ||
| You said students have an absolute right to expect a campus environment where they will not be victims of true threats, real harassment, or intimidation, bullying, or discrimination, let alone assault. | ||
| And I think that that is something hopefully that all of us can agree to, including my colleagues and I. | ||
| So this question is how do we determine what then crosses that line? | ||
| And I think that that's something I've tried to grapple with, and I've engaged the people in my state, and it's challenging. | ||
| And certainly, you know, when we look back at what happened at campuses and across this country over the last two years or so, you know, I personally feel like I've seen things that have crossed that line. | ||
| We've seen things that have entered that level of bullying, intimidation, discrimination, assault. | ||
| But what we also know is that we shouldn't then cast that across the entirety of everything that is happening. | ||
| So the question is, how do we try to separate that? | ||
| The question is also who decides that. | ||
| We've talked about the Office of Civil Rights. | ||
| And Mr. Stern, I guess I'd just start with you. | ||
| You've said that for us to be able to achieve with what Ms. Gammel just talked about, I agree with you that we want to make sure there's teeth. | ||
| We want to make sure that we can get the findings of violation. | ||
| Mr. Stern, you've proposed increasing the budget to the Office of Civil Rights. | ||
|
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Can you explain that to me in terms of what would that be able to do further in terms of being able to try to identify what the problem was, what the violation was, and then what the appropriate response is. | |
| Thank you, Senator. | ||
| Well, one of the issues is that there's a huge backlog. | ||
| So on a campus, when complaints are not resolved in a timely fashion, I think we probably all agree on that. | ||
| That sends a message that nobody cares. | ||
| So more funding would do that. | ||
| But the other thing I want to stress is that the solution that people are pointing to about speech, about using the IRA definition, is going to backfire. | ||
| And it's not just me saying that. | ||
| It's the Cato Institute, the Federalist. | ||
| Christopher Rufo said the second problem with the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, especially for conservatives and civil libertarians, is that it's operating using the same coercive and corrosive principles as DEI. | ||
| The legislation codifies an ideologically charged definition of anti-Semitism into law, provides special protections based on group identity, and expands anti-discrimination enforcement to include constitutionally protected speech. | ||
| And what I worry about is when we tend to think about anti-Semitism, is it on this side of the line or that side of the line, we're ignoring how anti-Semitism actually works. | ||
| Senator Sanders talked about the Tree of Life massacre. | ||
| The background noise to that was anti-immigrant animus. | ||
| If you look at how anti-Semitism works, you know, Charlottesville, Jews will not replace us. | ||
| The driving force is when anybody in our society is seen as a danger internally and it's noble to go and attack them. | ||
| It's in that environment, not whether this is about Israel on this side of the line or that, that promotes people to a conveyor belt of thinking in anti-Semitic terms. | ||
| Ms. Gamble, I wanted to turn to you. | ||
| Definition aside, I think you made your point and that was helpful for me to understand your perspective on that. | ||
| But certainly we need some entity to be able to decide and make adjudications here. | ||
| Do you have an opinion in terms of whether or not the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Education is the place or if the Department of Justice is the place which is what's being proposed by this administration right now? | ||
| I'll be honest with you, Senator. | ||
| I don't particularly care which one it is. | ||
| I believe that enforcement is what is necessary here. | ||
| I believe that they need to be well educated on these issues, whomever it is going to be. | ||
| I will say what we have seen recently when it is OCR investigators is one, a lack of proper understanding in education and a lack of understanding of the law that requires enforcement. | ||
| So to the extent that there is some cooperation between the Department of Education and the Department of Justice, I think that may be absolutely the recipe that we need. | ||
| Thank you for your perspective here. | ||
| I mean, let me just kind of say on my front what I worry about, because I agree with you. | ||
| Something you said earlier, Ms. Gamble, was context is important. | ||
| And I do think that there is very strong need for having that context within the system of education, understand the dynamics there in our education are different than other parts of our society. | ||
| I agree with you, though. | ||
| We want to make sure that there's teeth to it in terms of being able to engage. | ||
| And what we want to make sure is there's a process there. | ||
| And I'll be honest, when I see these efforts that are targeting Young Seung Chung or Khalil or others without a process, whether in the Department of Education or the Department of Justice, it worries me. | ||
| The last thing I'll just say here as I'm wrapping up is, you know, I know it was mentioned before about Chinese students coming to the United States, espionage issues. | ||
| I just want to say, like, look, like, my son, seven years old when he was seven, was at school, had a kid calling Tante and calling me Chinese boy, Chinese boy, over and over again. | ||
| And so when there was that anti-Asian hate rising, you know, the first people in New Jersey I came to, I heard defense were some of the Jewish American community leaders. | ||
| We wrote an op-ed together. | ||
| I think that's important. | ||
| I understand that there are nuances and differences, and I know that there's a concern about lumping it all together, but it is this understanding that when we protect all students, we are stronger than where we are seeing that kind of division that's out there. | ||
| So I just wanted to respond and say, look, you know, I'll stand up to try to address these needs, try to do it in a way with teeth. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman, for letting me go a few seconds over here. | ||
| Senator Houston. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I appreciate everybody being here today. | ||
| While anti-Semitism is millennias old, the flashpoint was October 7th for the issues that we're currently dealing with. | ||
| I was on college campus at Ohio State in the days after that occurred. | ||
| The students very scared there. | ||
| It seemed as though it was a coordinated effort in many cases in the days following as if there was an organization ready to go soon after October 7. | ||
| I do believe that for all the sake of the Palestinian people and peace throughout the Middle East, if Hamas would just simply release the hostages and the bodies of those who are deceased, that we could take a step forward. | ||
| I hope we all can condemn them for failing to do that. | ||
| However, a couple of quick questions. | ||
| We're talking about the is our universities protecting students from anti-Semitism? | ||
| I'll ask each one of you a quick answer, yes or no. | ||
| Are all of our college campuses doing enough to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitism? | ||
| No. | ||
| Definitely not. | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| No. | ||
| No, but the better answers for the long term are educational as opposed to discipline. | ||
| Well, that may be the case, but it seems like the circumstances where we see the most anti-Semitism are on some of the most elite campuses in this country. | ||
| So it's clearly education doesn't do enough. | ||
| There seems to be some coordinated agenda. | ||
| Let me ask about the students on those campuses. | ||
| If a student is here on a student visa and it is proven that they are involved in anti-Semitic activities and that they are connected to a foreign government or a terrorist organization, should they have that visa student visa revoked? | ||
| If it's a violation of their visa terms, absolutely. | ||
| Foreign government, I can't say, but terrorist organization, definitely. | ||
| Yeah, if they're supporting a terror organization in the United States, they must have lied on their visa application, which is against the law. | ||
| I agree with that. | ||
| If it's a terrorist organization and they are supporting it, the law is quite clear. | ||
| Senator, I think the law is clear if there's material support, but advocacy is something different. | ||
| Let me share with you a quote from Justice Brandeis in the Whitney case when there was a conviction of a woman for belonging to the Communist Party because they were advocating political violence. | ||
| He said, those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. | ||
| They believe the freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think means indispensable. | ||
| I understand that, but we're not talking about American citizens here. | ||
| We're talking about people who have the privilege of being here. | ||
| The question is First Amendment rights, how much it applies, especially to a green card holder. | ||
| People like Nadine Strawson say it does. | ||
| Some areas of the question is policy. | ||
| There could be a real debate about that, but these are not citizens of the United States. | ||
| But do you see their guests? | ||
| Do you want students that come to America because of what we offer, including freedom of speech, to decide they don't want to come here? | ||
| I would not want them to do it if they were indeed connected to a foreign government who is trying to influence situations here in America or a terrorist organization. | ||
| What if they're misinformed about what River to the Sea means and they're on a campus and they're 18 years old and they see what's happening in Gaza? | ||
| I'm asking you the questions. | ||
| You're not asking me the questions. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| How this works. | ||
| My apologies. | ||
| So as we look at this situation, and again, I was on college campuses in the days after the students were very, very concerned. | ||
| I'll let Rabbi Semtoff, you may want to answer this, Ms. Gamel, you may want to answer this. | ||
| Do you believe that there were coordinated efforts in advance of with American citizens or people who are here that had knowledge of the October 7 attacks and were working to coordinate anti-Semitic activity here in America? | ||
| Of the October 7th massacre, I have no idea. | ||
| Of the post-October 7th anti-Semitic violence thinly veiled as anti-Zionist or anti-Israel activity, absolutely yes. | ||
| And I'm sad to say some of that support came from within the Jewish community, including many people say, and there's circumstantial and better evidence, including from Mr. Soros' circle, which is why I was so reticent to answer the ranking member's question before. | ||
| I'll just add that I likewise have no specific information about what knowledge individuals here in the U.S. had. | ||
| I can say that with absolute certainty that immediately following October 7th, there was clear evidence of a concerted campaign in the form of a toolkit for individuals on campus to follow in order to be in lockstep with Hamas and its ideas. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Senator Volt from Shrivo. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. | ||
| Let me be clear: there is no place for anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination anywhere in this country, including on our college campuses. | ||
| As we've heard this morning, the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education is responsible for enforcing laws that protect the civil liberties of more than 49 million K through 12 students and more than 24 million post-secondary students, including 1.2 million students in the state of Wisconsin. | ||
| There's been some debate at the DS, on the DS, about whether the Office of Civil Rights is adequately resourced for the important charge that it has. | ||
| The Office of Civil Rights was established by Congress within the Department of Education and is charged with protecting the rights of students. | ||
| We know that the office has seen a rise in cases and allegations of anti-Semitism and other religious-based discrimination on college campuses. | ||
| And so I would expect to be talking today more about how we are ensuring that the Office of Civil Rights is properly staffed and resourced. | ||
| The Trump administration has taken the opposite approach, intending to gut not only the Office for Civil Rights by firing staff, closing regional offices, and freezing OCR cases, but also by intending to dismantle the entire Department of Education. | ||
| During her confirmation process, I pressed Secretary of Education Linda McMahon about whether she would commit to using appropriated funds provided to the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights for necessary staffing. | ||
| And she responded that she would ensure that students would have equal access to education through vigorous enforcement of civil rights. | ||
| But since then, Secretary McMahon and President Trump have shuttered seven Office of Civil Rights regional offices, including one that serves the state of Wisconsin. | ||
| You've already been asked about the impact of this. | ||
| And so I'm going to move to another topic, and that is the impact of broad attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion on the topic that we have before us today. | ||
| Rabbi Saperstein, I appreciate your message of unity and observations that hate speech and hate crimes tear at the unity of Americans. | ||
| As you attest, anti-Semitism thrives in environments where civil liberties are curtailed and that anti-bias training is critical to combating anti-Semitism and fostering an inclusive environment for all students to learn and thrive. | ||
| I'm very interested in your assessment of the potential impact of policy choices being made to attack diversity, equity, and inclusion. | ||
| Will these broad attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion sweep up important anti-bias training and other efforts to combat anti-Semitism? | ||
|
unidentified
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The question as you phrased it, I think, answers itself. | |
| Yes, it will greatly restrict anti-bias training. | ||
| It will greatly restrict our commitment to the pluralistic democracy in which Jews have always thrived most. | ||
| Pluralistic democracies have to be taken away. | ||
| You think of the Nazis in Germany. | ||
| They have to be destroyed in order to go about the work of a state-sponsored anti-Semitism here. | ||
| We don't want to worry about our democracy or the pluralistic nature. | ||
| There was a problem in a number of the DEI programs that they didn't include Jews in anti-Semitism. | ||
| And we pushed very hard to ensure that they would be included and actually be recognized. | ||
| But the need to have a diverse, inclusive, pluralistic society, including in our higher institutions of learning, I think is more important today as we are growingly diverse in America than ever before. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator Banks. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Dr. Small, this week the Americans for Public Trust released a report that documented that China has donated over $170 million this year over the last year alone to U.S. colleges. | ||
| And I wonder what connections you have found between the influence campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party, that money that's being sent to U.S. colleges, and to groups like Students for Justice in Palestine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So thank you for your question. | |
| It's an important issue. | ||
| And in our circles, we sort of joke that the Chinese government steals IP from the United States and the Qataris buy it. | ||
| And these are both important issues. | ||
| So the Chinese Communist Party is connected, for example, to in our in our assessment to Code Pink, for example. | ||
| We have people like Mr. Roy Singham supporting kind of the extreme left in the United States and some of these issues on campus that we're confronting in terms of anti-Semitism. | ||
| Radical Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have long cooperated and trained together with radical Marxist organizations such as the PFLP and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. | ||
| And this sort of exploded on our campus on October the 7th. | ||
| So U.S. groups echoing these narratives and these type of kind of extreme groups, violent groups on campus. | ||
| I got a lot I want to get through. | ||
| You can't establish a link between the Chinese influence campaigns and Students for Justice in Palestine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We call it the Red-Green Alliance. | |
| So on campus. | ||
| The Red-Green Alliance. | ||
| I want to get to that because the connections between China and the radical Islamists like Hamas are no coincidence called the Red-Green Alliance, as you said. | ||
| And the socialist left and radical Islamists are coordinating to undermine the United States and Israel. | ||
| And Code Pink is a big part of it. | ||
| And it's too bad that our Code Pink guest had to leave because I really want to get into that. | ||
| Dr. Small, Code Pink isn't just a far-left anti-war protest group anymore. | ||
| It has become a direct tool of the Chinese Communist Party and the CCP influence in the United States funded by CCP intermediaries. | ||
| Code Pink is defending the Communist Party's internment of the Uyghurs. | ||
| I mean, it's really crazy, but Code Pink is defending the human rights abuse against Uyghur Muslims. | ||
| Code Pink says that Taiwan is a part of China, and they even accuse the U.S. of being the invader during the Korean War. | ||
| Isn't that correct? | ||
| Code Pink calls America the arsenal of genocide. | ||
| And just yesterday, they interrupted a Senate intelligence committee hearing shouting anti-Israel slogans. | ||
| Dr. Small, what links are you aware of between the CCP and Code Pink and other pro-Hamas organizations? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So our colleagues have done some research on this, and there definitely is links. | |
| There's links to Hamas. | ||
| There's links to the Iranian revolutionary regime as well. | ||
| The Code Pink people have visited Gaza and Iran on various occasions. | ||
| So there is this sort of, this is the, they embody the Red-Green Alliance. | ||
| They're anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic. | ||
| Yeah, I'm really sorry they left because I wonder, like, do they even know that? | ||
| Do they understand that? | ||
| Do they understand that they're being, do they agree with that, or are they taken advantage of by Code Pink organizers and financers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they take advantage of the free speech that we have here. | |
| And I think in a way, a lot of this conversation was framed as free speech. | ||
| But I also think in terms of anti-Semitism and what's taking place on campus is intimidation, violence, and criminal activity. | ||
| So I wish there would be somebody from a police force here. | ||
| We've spoken to NYPD. | ||
| I want to get to that. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter a letter into the record that I sent to the Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday requesting an investigation of Code Pink for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection. | |
| And Dr. Small, do you think Code Pink's leaders may fit the definition of foreign agents and should they be investigated? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they should definitely be investigated. | |
| And Dr. Small, you mentioned this already. | ||
| The New York Times reported in August 2023 that Code Pink's founder is now married to Neville Roy Singham, a multi-millionaire who lives in Shanghai and funds a whole network of pro-CCP and anti-Israel protest groups. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I would like to also enter that record, that article from the New York Times end of the record. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection. | |
| If American-backed organizations protested like this in China, they would be locked up and shut down immediately. | ||
| That's the fact of it. | ||
| Dr. Small, what should the U.S. government be doing to stop this flow of subversive money into our country? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So in my submission, we call for various recommendations, including the Department of Education and other government entities should do thorough investigations into foreign funding and its impact on our higher education. | |
| We believe our higher education is young people come to universities to learn how to be citizens, and they're being miseducated on many important issues that guarantee our freedoms, such as freedom of speech and other democratic freedoms that we have here. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Senator Markey. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Tragically, anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States. | ||
| It is outrageous. | ||
| It is wrong. | ||
| We cannot and we must not tolerate it. | ||
| We saw it when white supremacists marched in Charlottesville with swastikas yelling blood in soil. | ||
| We saw it when a man walked into the Tree of Life synagogue and killed congregants in their house of worship. | ||
| We see it when synagogues are threatened and vandalized. | ||
| And we see it when Trump administration officials support far-right Holocaust deniers. | ||
| Anti-Semitism is a threat to our most basic freedom in the United States, the freedom to pursue faith without fear. | ||
|
unidentified
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But rather than seriously address anti-Semitism and protect Jewish student safety, this administration is cutting funding for the Office of Civil Rights. | |
| And Trump is cynically using the rise in anti-Semitism as a tool to restrict freedom, stroke fear, and silence dissent. | ||
| And it is as terrifying as it is evil. | ||
| Under the guise of combating anti-Semitism, this administration cut off $400 million in funding for Columbia University, funding that, amongst other things, supports critical Alzheimer's and cancer research. | ||
|
unidentified
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We can't have cutoffs in Alzheimer's and cancer research in America. | |
| This month, ICE officers arrested students in Columbia and Georgetown and elsewhere, lawfully here in the United States, but haven't charged them with a single crime. | ||
| We're the United States of America. | ||
| It's 2025. | ||
| You need evidence. | ||
| You need a crime. | ||
| You have to say what it is. | ||
| And on Tuesday, masked ICE officers grabbed Rumesa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University, off the street as she was on her way to break fast for Ramadan. | ||
| She has not been charged with a single crime. | ||
| As far as I understand it, the Trump administration arrested these students because they engaged in the freedom of expression that is explicitly protected under the Constitution of the United States. | ||
| What these individuals said or believed is besides the point. | ||
| What matters is that we have a president arresting people because he disagrees with their constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression. | ||
| And that imperils the basic democratic principles upon which all of our freedoms relies. | ||
|
unidentified
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When the government of the United States is sending mass police to grab students off the streets and from their homes, holding federal dollars, threat of investigation as blackmail to force institutions into silence and routinely violating the Constitution, the laws passed by the United States in order to do what he wishes while using the Jewish people and others as a shield for its transgressions. | |
| We have crossed a dangerous, dangerous threshold from which we cannot return unless we call it out for what it is, authoritarianism. | ||
| We have a very serious anti-Semitism problem in the United States of America. | ||
| It is a problem that deserves a real and a forceful response. | ||
|
unidentified
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But the answer to anti-Semitism will never be authoritarianism. | |
| We cannot guarantee freedom if we let Trump march in and steal freedom while we remain silent. | ||
| So, Rabbi Saperstein, in your testimony, you state, quote, anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews as Jews, thrives in an authoritarian environment where civil liberties are curtailed, not in spaces of robust, protected democratic discourse. | ||
| So please expand on how Trump administration's authoritarian actions are a threat to the safety of the Jewish community and the role that Congress should play in response to it. | ||
| You know, I said before that the Jewish community in America has thrived, enjoying more rights, more freedoms, more opportunities than anywhere else. | ||
| There are a number of reasons for that. | ||
| One is the rule of law, which is at the core of our democratic system, our constitutional system. | ||
| A second was the separation of government and religion here, that government would not interfere with the reorigin and be a wall keeping government out of religion. | ||
| This was the first country in the history of the world in which we said your rights as a citizen will not depend upon your religious identity, your religious beliefs, or your religious peaceful practices, which is a standard in my work as U.S. Ambassador for Religious Freedom. | ||
| I try to hold every other country accountable to its embodied in the international human rights covenants. | ||
| We have always thrived better in open, pluralistic countries than we have in dogmatic and authoritarian countries. | ||
| We are always the other in those authoritarian countries. | ||
| And the reason we have thrived here has been the opportunities that higher education has given us, that the public schools brought us up through for generations in this country here, and the attacks on each one of those that we're seeing on higher education, on cutting back, even restricting funds, the public schools in terms of the attacks on the rule of law on judges, | ||
| the judicial system, ignoring judicial decisions that are being made. | ||
| All of this undercuts the safety of not just Jews, but everyone who is a victim of discrimination in this country. | ||
| Anti-Semitism is the problem. | ||
| Authoritarianism is not the answer. | ||
|
unidentified
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Indeed. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Senator Holling. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thanks for calling this important hearing. | ||
| Thanks to our witnesses for being here. | ||
| Mr. Stern, if I could just start with you. | ||
| I see that five or six days ago you gave an interview in which you said that the removal of Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Hamas foreign rioter, is a form of McCarthyism and makes Jewish students less safe. | ||
| Now, this is an individual who has been accused of endorsing and espousing terrorist activity, who has been accused of lying on his application to a green card in the United States, who's currently being sued for terrorizing and assaulting Jewish students. | ||
| Do you stand by your view that trying to remove him is a form of McCarthyism? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely, Senator. | |
| Why in the world would that be the case? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me answer. | |
| He hasn't been charged with the crime. | ||
| The clear predicate for this White House said was handing out pro-Hamas propaganda. | ||
| When you start talking about people's views and what they're talking about in the public square as a basis for discrimination and then the effect on Jewish students, it's not just the fact that Jews may be seen as, well, we're pushing this and that's going to happen. | ||
| The way that this is going to harm Jewish students is it harms the academy. | ||
| Wait a minute. | ||
| My time is limited. | ||
| I'm sorry to interrupt you, but just wait a minute. | ||
| I've got to correct numerous inaccuracies there. | ||
| Number one, as you very well know, United States law says that a non-citizen is inadmissible for entry into this country if they, and I quote, endorse or espouse terrorist activity or persuade others to do the same. | ||
| That same law provides you can be removed for the same reasons. | ||
| That is what Mr. Khalil has been accused of. | ||
| He has further been accused of by the United States government lying on his visa application. | ||
| That on its own would be sufficient to remove him from this country. | ||
| He is being sued as you and I sit here in New York court by the victims of October 7th for terrorizing and assaulting Jewish students, unlawfully taking over and damaging public university property, and physically assaulting Columbia University employees. | ||
| And you're telling me that it's McCarthyism to remove this individual? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator, the deportation was started before that lawsuit, before that second question about what he was saying on his forms. | |
| No, this is what the government has alleged in open court, Mr. Stern. | ||
| This is the basis for their removal proceedings. | ||
| And our law makes clear if you endorse or espouse terrorist activity, you can be removed from this country. | ||
| He has done so. | ||
| He's been accused of doing so from the beginning. | ||
| He's been accused of lying to get into the country. | ||
| I just, I'm amazed that you're saying that this is McCarthyism. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator, you weren't here when I quoted part of what Justice Brandeis was talking about back at a case where there's somebody that was convicted for supporting the Communist Party because they were talking about violence as a political solution. | |
| And Brandeis cautioned us that this type of robust speech is long. | ||
| This isn't speech. | ||
| Lying on a visa application is not speech. | ||
| Seeking to assault Columbia University employees and Jewish students is not speech. | ||
| You are defending an individual who has espoused the destruction of this country, the destruction of the state of Israel, the destruction of Jews, and has taken actions in furtherance of the same. | ||
| You've also said that investigating the 60 colleges and universities that are currently under investigation by the Trump administration for anti-Semitism is a form of weaponizing anti-Semitism for political benefit. | ||
| You're opposed to investigating these institutions for anti-Semitism? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator, I've been very clear that OCR has a very important role, that there are complaints that should go through the process when you start using the Department of Justice and threatening universities' funding. | |
| You are opposed. | ||
| I just want to get this on the record. | ||
| You are opposed to investigating Columbia University and others for anti-Semitism? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| That's what you said six days ago. | ||
|
unidentified
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I am not opposed to doing it the right way. | |
| What does that mean? | ||
| Doing it the right way. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's not to claw back funds, not to say we're holding you ransom. | |
| We're getting the faculty. | ||
| You were asked about an investigation for failing to protect Jewish students, and you said that's just weaponizing anti-Semitism. | ||
| It makes students less safe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is when the Department of Justice has a list of places they want to go to. | |
| Senator Markey's question. | ||
| Oh, I heard Senator Markey's questions. | ||
| I heard his whole speech. | ||
| I thought it was insane. | ||
| I just want to say for the record, I thought it was totally insane. | ||
| And I think your positions are similarly insane. | ||
| I think the idea that we would bend over backwards to hug and kiss and make nice to a pro-Hamas rioter, because that's what Khalil is, and that we would say, heavens, we can't remove him, and that makes Jewish students less safe on our campuses. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's not the same. | |
| That's not Rabbi Saberstein's point. | ||
| If you look at American history, the times when Jews were most vulnerable was during the Palmer raids in World War I when there was political. | ||
| Jews are vulnerable now on our campuses because of people like Khalil. | ||
| And I want to say for the record, I'm glad he's gone, and I hope he never comes back. | ||
| Senator Hickenlooper. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chair. | |
| Thank you all for your time here and all your work. | ||
| I think we've covered sufficiently to say that all of you agree that every student should feel safe on their campus. | ||
| Certainly the troubling rise of anti-Semitic incidents on campuses over these past two years is troubling and should not be accepted. | ||
| Students barricading in their rooms to protect themselves is unacceptable by any standard. | ||
| But we've cut the Office of Civil Rights dramatically, and we seem to be pitting two of our fundamental goals against each other. | ||
| One is the necessity to stop anti-Semitism, but also making sure that we uphold the First Amendment rights. | ||
| And I think American universities are trying to do that. | ||
| I went to a little college in Connecticut, Wesleyan, where there's been a lot of effort about going out and trying to have discussion with both sides and at the same time, always keeping students safe. | ||
| That that is their constant priority. | ||
| And so I thought, Rabbi Sapristeim, do you agree that university leadership should work harder at making sure we have not just keeping them safe, but making sure that that dialogue can help create that safety? | ||
| I do. | ||
| There are a number of things that are going on at universities that would be very helpful now. | ||
| Exactly, the university encouraging and structuring those kinds of dialogues, having courses that teach about both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism so that people can hear it from an academic point of view here, having opportunities that there can be an open space and safe space where these dialogues can be held. | ||
| And the one thing I would say to your statement and to some of the others, it is always difficult to come up with a perfect answer of when something steps over speech into harassment or into intimidation, which are clearly not allowed. | ||
| What's really important is for the universities to make clear what their standards are and what kind of protests will step over the line to be public about it, transparent about it, and consistently enforce it. | ||
| Nothing is more important in terms of actually being able to tone down things for everyone to know what the rules are, what the limits are, and to see it consistently enforced no matter who the perpetrators may be. | ||
| Great. | ||
| Any other comments on that? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think that, you know, I'm obviously a supporter of the First Amendment. | ||
| I'm a very deep beneficiary of the First Amendment. | ||
| I believe that discussion between peoples is always important. | ||
| One thing I'm proud of is the numerous relationships I have with Muslims and Arab leaders who come to this country. | ||
| But you've got to go a little faster. | ||
| I'm going to understand them. | ||
| It will be three sentences. | ||
| On the campus of the George Washington University, I was just told firsthand by a student that they were taught in the first session of a class they needed to take that just to balance things out, there will be no Israeli written materials allowed in this course. | ||
| I believe. | ||
| I hear that argument, but that's not answering my question. | ||
| Dr. Small. | ||
| I just want to start by saying my family friend's daughter goes to Wesleyan, and she withdrew because she couldn't stand the pressure of being a young Jewish woman in this space. | ||
| That's the first question. | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
| I've got to get another question. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| I apologize. | ||
| I wish I had six minutes. | ||
| Michael Roth, the president there, is one of my heroes. | ||
| What he said when there was an encampment, he said, you want to camp camp. | ||
| You harass somebody, you intimidate. | ||
| That's a different story. | ||
| We're going to use this as a learning experience. | ||
| One other thing. | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
| I want to get this last question. | ||
| Sorry, Ms. Campbell. | ||
| Can you get your one sentence? | ||
| I think we have to stop hiding behind free speech. | ||
| What we are seeing on campuses is not a matter of speech by and large. | ||
| I hear you. | ||
| That's come through. | ||
| And I don't disagree, but that balance between free speech and what we're talking about. | ||
| I wanted just a quick yes or no right down the line, because this is a crux. | ||
| Do you think it's appropriate that the federal government threatens to withhold research money that has nothing to do with any of this issue from major universities across the country based on how they're addressing this specific issue? | ||
| The federal government has the authority to condition how it spends its money. | ||
| Do you think that's okay? | ||
| When institutions are violating the law, yes, it is okay. | ||
| I believe they can reapportion the funding to institutions that will abide by the law and will protect Jewish students and other students and not have intimidation on their campuses. | ||
| So research dollars are very hard to reapportion, but okay, I hear you. | ||
| There should be a way to do that. | ||
| It's against federal law to fund private or public entities that discriminate against American citizens. | ||
| The money is there to do what you're talking about, the rabbi here. | ||
| To take it from here is punitive. | ||
| It's really just aimed at undermining universities who do things that we can find a better way to get them achieved. | ||
| Senator, I see it as an existential threat to universities. | ||
| They're going to kill cancer research and diabetes research. | ||
| Some of the researchers are Jewish, and they're doing it without due process. | ||
| That is not the way to deal with this problem. | ||
| That's only going to make it worse. | ||
| Thank you all. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Yield back. | ||
| Rob Severson pointed out that there's a fine line between free speech and violence. | ||
| That shouldn't be a cover. | ||
| Chasing kids into a room and pounding on the door when they are there is wrong. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| Let me just say that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And blocking their way to get across the commons to go to their class is wrong. | |
| And that shouldn't have to be established in a behavior handbook. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That should just be known when the kid shows up. | |
| And if you're guilty of perpetrating that, you should suffer consequences. | ||
| And I think that is that is not free speech. | ||
| Now, we're closing. | ||
| I asked for unanimous consent to enter three letters into the record. | ||
| The first record from the American Jewish Medical Association, describing and highlighting the danger of anti-Semitism in medical education to the detriment of Jewish students and patients alike. | ||
| The second letter from the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, providing recommendations to address anti-Semitism on college campuses and supporting the passage of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, the Protecting Students on Campus Act, and the Deterrent Act. | ||
| The third letter from the Zionist Organization of America, highlighting the long history of anti-Semitism on college campuses, including the surge since the attacks on October the 7th, 2023. | ||
| And I asked unanimous consent, and I so acknowledge. | ||
| The hearing record will remain open for 10 business days. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senators may submit questions for the records within that time if they would like. | |
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Senator Sanders? | ||
| I have a couple of unanimous consents. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I'm sorry. | |
| One to enter the record, a letter from the Jewish Electorate Institute regarding today's hearing, and another one dealing with the impact of Trump's cutting of the Office of Civil Rights. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, thank you for being here today. | |
| The committee stands adjourned. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| You have to have everybody. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Former Wyoming Senator Alan K. Simpson recently died at the age of 93. | ||
| On Saturday, the Simpson family is hosting a public celebration of his life at the University of Wyoming. | ||
| Mr. Simpson served three terms as a U.S. Senator from 1979 to 1997. | ||
| He became Republican Whip in 1985 and held that leadership position for 10 years. | ||
| Watch his memorial service live starting at 1 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Vice President JD Vance visited a U.S. military base in Greenland, where he thanked troops for their service and sacrifice on behalf of President Trump. | ||
| He also took questions from reporters and was asked about the president's desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark and about China's presence in the region. |