Congress may cut federal funds flowing to colleges and universities that fail to combat antisemitism on campus, the chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee warned Sunday.
“We cannot tolerate taxpayer dollars being given to institutions that condone antisemitism and call for the genocide of Jews,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who chaired the panel that launched an investigation into the higher education institution last week, told Fox News.
The Congressman stressed that lawmakers are not predicting the situation, telling the panel “will conduct an investigation where it takes us.”
Foxx announced a wide-ranging investigation into antisemitism on college campuses on Thursday, following tense committee hearings that featured testimony from the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania.
All three presidents balked when asked about condemning student chants that included calls for an “intifada,” which House GOP Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said was tantamount to calling for the “genocide of the Jews.”
Faced with his backlash, UPenn President Liz Magill resigned on Saturday.
Rep. Virginia Foxx denounces the widespread moral decay on college campuses. AP
“This is not just limited to these campuses. We want to look at Columbia, Cornell, and many other institutions,” Foxx emphasized.
“It should be so easy. This country was founded on religious freedom,” he added. “It should not be difficult to condemn antisemitism and calls for the genocide of Jews or anyone else.”
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prevents discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive government money.
Reported incidents of antisemitic activity on campus skyrocketed following the bloody October 7 surprise attack on Israel by Hamas.
Fallout from congressional testimony led to UPenn President Liz Magill (R) resigning, while calls continue for Harvard President Claudine Gay’s departure. AP
The students, who often espouse pro-Palestinian sentiments, were caught peddling Hamas rhetoric against Jews, including repeating phrases like “intifada” and “from the river to the sea.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s congressional hearings, Republicans highlighted the stories of four Jewish students who emotionally recounted their ordeal on campus.
“People are paying attention because we have moral decay,” Foxx said, adding that his panel has been looking to address postsecondary education reform broadly for “a long time.”
“I don’t call them elite institutions, I call them the most expensive institutions in the country,” he said. “They don’t teach morality, they don’t teach higher order thinking.”
However, “we don’t want to prejudge what we will find in the investigation,” he added.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
