Washington, D.C. – House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik published an op-ed in the New York Post highlighting how the resignations of the presidents of Harvard and Penn are just the beginning of “a reckoning” and outlining the next steps in the ongoing congressional investigation into the rot plaguing America’s higher education.
Read House Republican Chairwoman Stefanik’s full op-ed below.
New York Post: Penn, Harvard firings just the start — House will expose ALL the higher-ed rot
By House Republican Chairwoman Elise Stefanik
It has been over a month since I asked the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn whether calls for the genocide of Jews violated their campus codes of conduct on bullying and harassment. Their dithering and morally bankrupt answers were so shocking that the video went globally viral with billions of views becoming the most viewed congressional testimony of all time.
What are the ramifications of a hearing viewed billions of times? A reckoning. The forced resignation of two Ivy League presidents is just the beginning. The problem was never just about three people or even three universities. Their attempt to contextualize genocide of Jews was merely a symptom of decades of moral decay, intellectual laziness, and dangerous radical groupthink at elite institutions across society. Replacing the wallpaper is not enough when there is deep rot within the walls.
To remove that rot, we first need to keep exploring how deep it goes. That’s why my colleagues and I on the House Education and Workforce Committee under the leadership of Chairwoman Virginia Foxx are conducting an extensive oversight investigation into numerous colleges and universities, including Harvard and its governance body, the Harvard Corporation which backed the failed leadership of former President Gay and has done nothing to combat the dangerous antisemitism on campus.
For one, we want to understand their actions over the past months such as their failure to protect Jewish students and the blatant attempt to cover up Claudine Gay’s plagiarism. We know the Harvard Corporation acted in bad faith multiple times, including by sending a letter to the New York Post threatening legal action if it reported the facts. We’re going to deliver transparency and find out why.
More than that, we will get to the bottom of the broader lack of moral clarity made clear by the reluctance to address the rise of antisemitism. Much of this, we know, is the fruit of DEI, a radical racist ideology that classifies all people as either oppressors or oppressed based purely on their race, gender, or sexual orientation. As a result of this disgusting ideology’s takeover of campuses, it is now mainstream to teach that capitalism is racist, Israel is racist, and American is racist. And these colleges received billions of hard earned taxpayer dollars in federal funds.
Led by Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, the Education and Workforce Committee is going to explore this. We’re hiring investigators and dedicating extensive resources to uncovering how deep this goes and who is behind it. We’re looking at foreign donations to our universities, the failure to protect Jewish students, the federal accreditation system, the assault on viewpoint diversity and free speech, the erosion in academic integrity, and the extent to which taxpayers have been forced to bankroll the political indoctrination of young Americans at these institutions.
We’ll make the results of this investigation known to the public so they can see colleges and universities for what they are, not what they pretend to be. We know President Biden will refuse to sign meaningful reforms, but that won’t stop us from putting them forward, even if it means setting the table for the next Republican Administration under President Trump. We’ll also signal to states how they can move the needle now, particularly with regard to state universities.
I’ve been somewhat heartened to see initial actions already taken to scale back DEI and call out institutionalized antisemitism. Some states like Florida and Texas have taken measures to ban DEI in public education. Since the hearing, there are encouraging signs even in the unlikeliest places—like the mainstream media—that the conversation is turning, which is significant, because the only way DEI has survived this long is through a climate of fear that suppresses conversation and criticism.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we’re going to continue shining light on the rot in the university system—not just at Harvard, MIT, and Penn, but colleges and universities across the nation. In my home state of New York, that includes the likes of NYU, Columbia, and Cornell.
We must never forget that these institutions exist to serve and benefit society. When they no longer serve that purpose, the best way to change them is to expose them. The hearing last month proved it, and we’ve only just begun. And as everyone knows, I will not be deterred in this important mission.
