House Republicans: Campus Antisemitism “Systemic Problem”

In a blistering report released Tuesday, Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee say campus antisemitism didn’t begin with the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and isn’t confined to a handful of universities.

“Instead, antisemitism in higher education is a systemic problem that affects a broad swath of America’s colleges and universities,” the report states. “The evidence demonstrates that antisemitism on campus is driven by persistent leadership failures and radical faculty and student groups that legitimize and foment antisemitism in classrooms and on campus grounds. Meanwhile, universities with satellite campuses overseas are failing to stop antisemitism and live up to their stated goals of spreading Western values.”

Republicans on the committee have spent several years investigating and criticizing how universities respond to reports of antisemitic harassment and discrimination. The committee held two hearings last year on the issue, and this latest report builds on those sessions and makes several recommendations to institutions and lawmakers. 

The staff report recommends that colleges adopt the broad International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition for antisemitism, which lists as examples the killing or harming of Jews in the name of radical ideology and comparing Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, among others. The report’s other recommended practices include reviewing applicants’ online presence as part of the hiring process and tailoring admissions questions to learn more about students’ views on civil discourse.

“For many years, admissions offices have asked students in supplemental essays and interviews to highlight the ways in which they have engaged in activism,” the report states. “This type of prompt has encouraged universities to select candidates who are seeking admission not to understand the perspectives of others but to demand adherence to their own perspectives.”

Lawmakers also want universities to ramp up oversight of branch campuses in other countries. The report is very critical of the Qatar campuses of Northwestern and Georgetown Universities. Further, they recommend that university governing boards be “engaged and intellectually diverse.”

“Antisemitism continues to spread like wildfire at schools across the nation,” Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the committee, said in a statement. “Let the release of this report serve as an important reminder: if university leaders forget their legal responsibility to address discrimination of any form on campus, my colleagues and I will remind them.”