Washington, D.C.-- Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Congressman Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) sent a bipartisan letter to the board members of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania demanding the immediate dismissal of the three campus presidents and provide an action plan to ensure the protection of Jewish and Israeli students, faculty and community.
Stefanik and Moskowitz were joined by 72 of their Congressional colleagues in their demands.
The letter states,
Jewish students should have found comfort on their campuses. Instead, many Jewish and Israeli students have faced an increasingly hostile educational environment, in the form of targeted harassment, protesters calling for the elimination of the Jewish state, and even acts of violence.According to a recent survey by ADL and Hillel International, 73% of Jewish college students surveyed have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism on campus since the beginning of the school year. This is unacceptable. Antisemitism has been allowed to fester on campuses for years, and in the wake of the October 7" attack, the world is witnessing the consequences.
The letter continues,
This is a clear result of the failure of university leadership. To hold universities accountable,Congress held a hearing on confronting campus antisemitism. Testimony provided by presidents of your institutions showed a complete absence of moral clarity and illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities that your university presidents enabled.The university presidents' responses to questions aimed at addressing the growing trend of antisemitism on college and university campuses were abhorrent. When pushed on whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates university policies on bullying or harassment, Presidents Gay (Harvard), Kornbluth (MIT), and Magill (Penn) were evasive and dismissive, failing to simply condemn such action. This should have been an easy and resounding "yes."
In conclusion, the letter demands,
Given this moment of crisis, we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, teachers, and faculty are safe on your campuses. Anything less than these steps will be seen as your endorsement of what Presidents Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth said to Congress and an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture. The world is watching - you can stand with your Jewish students and faculty, or you can choose the side of dangerous antisemitism.
Find the full letter HERE.
