Harvard, MIT and UPenn presidents pressed on 'race-based ideology of the radical left' at antisemitism hearing
The presidents of Harvard, MIT and UPenn are being confronted Tuesday during a House committee hearing dedicated to confronting the surge in antisemitism seen on American college campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, as Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., pressed the trio about the "race-based ideology of the radical left" she said their institutions are supporting.
In her opening statement, Foxx, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, held a moment of silence "to recognize all the Israelis and others who have been killed, injured, or taken hostage by Hamas terrorists." Addressing the witnesses, Harvard University President Dr. Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Dr. Sally Kornbluth, Foxx said that "each of you will have a chance to answer to and atone for the many specific instances of vitriolic, hate-filled antisemitism on your respective campuses that have denied students the safe learning environment they are due."
"As you confront our questions in this hearing, remember that you are not speaking to us, but to the students on your campus who have been threatened and assaulted and who look to you to protect them," Foxx said. "
Foxx played a video of many pro-Palestinian protesters at college campuses shouting "intifada," an Arabic word for uprising that is used to describe past Palestinian campaigns against Israel. The second and most recent intifada, which began in 2000, was marked by suicide bombings and other terror attacks.
Foxx then quoted a speech on antisemitism made by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on the floor of the upper chamber of Congress last week.
"Many of the people who express these sentiments in America aren’t neo-Nazis or card-carrying Klan members or Islamist extremists. They’re in many cases people that most liberal Jewish Americans felt previously were their ideological fellow travelers. Not long ago, many of us marched together for black and brown lives," Schumer said last Wednesday.
Foxx said the speech "by the most powerful elected Jewish politician in America was addressed to many on his left flank. He questioned how those elements of the left, which pride themselves on diversity and inclusion, could be responsible for fomenting such hatred towards liberal Jewish Americans."
Foxx went on to say that she quoted Schumer to the three university presidents because she understands the address "to be a sort of reckoning for the Jewish identity with the radical left, yet for 40 minutes he fails to use the word university a single time."
"However, after the events of the past two months, it is clear that rabid antisemitism and the university are two ideas that cannot be cleaved from one another. We must be clear on the ideological dimension of this problem. For years, universities have stoked the flames of an ideology which goes by many names — anti-racism, anti-colonialism, critical race theory, DEI, intersectionality, the list goes on," Foxx continued.
The chairwoman said that this "value system … centers the identity on immutable racial and sexual characteristics," and "presents a delusion that the color of one’s skin and expression of one’s chromosomes sort society into classes of oppressed and oppressors."
"And now it is clear that Jews are at the bottom of the totem pole and without protection under this critical theory framework," she said.
She went on to say, "Harvard also, not coincidentally but causally, was ground zero for antisemitism following October 7th and is the single least tolerant school in the nation according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 2024 College Free Speech Rankings. UPenn is right behind them at 247th of 248. MIT is in the middle of the pack. What I am describing is a grave danger inherent in assenting to the race-based ideology of the radical left."
"Senator Schumer hasn’t put the pieces together, but the picture is far too clear now to American Jews," Foxx said. "Institutional antisemitism and hate are among the poisoned fruits of your institutions’ cultures. The buck for what has happened must stop on the President’s desk, along with the responsibility for making never again true on campus. Do you have the courage to truly confront and condemn the ideology driving antisemitism? Or will you offer weak, blame-shifting excuses and yet another responsibility dodging taskforce?"
Foxx closed by saying she appreciated the appearances on behalf of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT, respectively.
"It proves your universities have at minimum a sense of accountability to the American people," she said. "But my praise for postsecondary education is very limited these days. Harvard, UPenn, and MIT, you have a very big role to play in shaping the future for all of academia. This moment is an inflection point. It demands leaders of moral clarity with the courage to delineate good from evil and right from wrong."
Fox News' Tyler Olson contributed to this report.