House campus antisemitism hearing sweeps up Northwestern and Rutgers: ‘Gravely concerning’

The House Education and the Workforce Committee is amending its antisemitism hearing to include the presidents from Northwestern University and Rutgers University over “gravely concerning” agreements reached with pro-Palestinian protesters on their college campuses.

Originally, the presidents from Yale, the University of Michigan, and UCLA were to testify before the committee on May 23 for a hearing titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.” However, “shocking concessions” from Michael Schill, president of Northwestern, and Jonathan Holloway, president of Rutgers, pushed Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) to change the witnesses appearing on Capitol Hill.

“They have surrendered to antisemitic radicals in despicable displays of cowardice,” Foxx said in a statement. “As a result of these gravely concerning actions, the Committee believes it’s necessary to reevaluate the scope of the May 23 hearing and bring in the presidents of Northwestern and Rutgers — along with UCLA — to testify before the Committee.”

Schill recently came under fire from Jewish organizations after Northwestern became the first U.S. school to publicly announce a deal with pro-Palestinian encampment organizers on April 29, according to the Daily Northwestern. Several organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League Midwest, StandWithUs, and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, called for Schill’s resignation for what they said was an inadequate response to the levels of antisemitism at the university.

“Northwestern’s foremost responsibility is ensuring the safety of our students,” Jon Yates, spokesman for Northwestern, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “We are confident in the actions we have taken to address antisemitism on our campus and President Schill looks forward to discussing them with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.”

Calls for Holloway’s resignation also arrived after he and Rutgers Chancellor Francine Conway came to an agreement with protesters last week following a four-day standoff at Rutgers’s New Brunswick campus.

Rutgers leaders agreed to several requests on a 10-point list of demands from the protesters, including implementing support for 10 displaced Palestinian students to finish their education at Rutgers and reviewing the student movement’s main demand that universities divest from companies with business interests in Israel, according to NorthJersey.com. An encampment at Rutgers’s Newark campus is still active as of May 3.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, one of the original witnesses, will still testify on May 23. However, Foxx said the other two original witnesses, Presidents Peter Salovey of Yale University and Santa Ono of the University of Michigan, are “by no means off the hook.”

Instead, Salovey and Ono will appear before the committee to give transcribed interviews at a later date, “or risk deposition and subpoena.”

Foxx announced last week she sent notices to appear to Block, Ono, and Salovey in the wake of rising antisemitism on university and college campuses over the war between Hamas and Israel.

“As Republican leaders we have a clear message for mealy-mouthed, spineless college leaders: Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of duty to your Jewish students,” Foxx said last week. “American universities are officially put on notice that we have come to take our universities back.”

Former presidents from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania and the current presidents of MIT and Columbia University have testified previously before the committee on the levels of antisemitism on their campuses. Following their testimonies on Capitol Hill, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in December last year and Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned in January.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Several House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), have called on Columbia President Minouche Shafik to resign “in disgrace” due to the encampments sprouting up on the campus’s lawn.

The Washington Examiner reached out to Rutgers for comment.