Washington, DC -- Congresswoman Elise Stefanik joined her colleagues, and students from Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to highlight the rise of antisemitism at colleges and universities across America and how House Republicans are working to protect Jewish students from antisemitism that these colleges and universities have failed to condemn.
View the full transcript of her remarks below:
“This is a very important day on the House Education and Workforce Committee. We're about to have an incredibly important hearing, addressing the rise of antisemitism on our college campuses and universities. Joining us today to share their personal stories we have four incredibly brave students: Talia, Bella, Eyal, and Jonathan.
Jewish students, faculty, and communities at these so-called elite institutions, including my alma mater, Harvard, Jewish students are facing sustained attacks from students and professors who are openly propagandizing terror. And why? Merely because these Jewish students exist.
In response, campus leadership has cowered to the woke antisemitic mob. This fanaticism against Israel is rooted in ignorance and hatred. Our institutions of higher education are failing our next generation. They are failing Talia, Bella, Eyal, Jonathan, and countless other students.
The attacks on October 7th shocked the conscience of the world marking the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust; however, these atrocities were met with callous cruelty at universities across America. At Harvard, thirty radical student organizations disgustingly blamed Israel for the barbaric attacks against innocent Israelis, only for the groups’ actions to be brazenly defended by Harvard President Claudine Gay as, ‘free expression.’
Following our remarks today, the students will join my colleagues at the Education and Workforce Committee hearing where Harvard, MIT, and Penn’s leadership will likely defend, desperately, their indefensible recent actions and the campus culture that has enabled antisemitism on their campuses.
Any voice who openly defends the massacre of innocents has chosen the side of terrorism. I continue to demand that Harvard President Claudine Gay resign and that Harvard and schools like it are prohibited from collecting taxpayer dollars.
In the words of a Holocaust Survivor and Jewish advocate who dedicated his life to ensuring the horrors of the Holocaust are not forgotten famously said, ‘For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.’
House Republicans refuse to do NOTHING. In the last few months, under this Speaker’s leadership, we have passed bipartisan resolutions in support of our most precious ally, Israel, holding college campuses accountable, and bringing transparency to the progressive propaganda pushed on American students and paid for by our foreign adversaries. We passed an Israeli aid package sitting with Chuck Schumer in the Senate. This week, House Republicans will bring the DETERRENT Act to the House Floor, ensuring our foreign enemies cannot buy the minds of American students and protecting our national security and our college and universities’ research. We will continue to fight this scourge of antisemitism on college campuses across this country.
To discuss this further, I want to turn this over to the Chairwoman of the Education and Workforce Committee, who has been a leader on this issue, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx.”
