The White House said Monday that it is trying to combat an “alarming rise” of antisemitic incidents at colleges as President Biden faces pressure to push back on protests viewed as attacks on Jews per se or on Israel’s existence.
Biden officials said they were coordinating with campus police agencies and accelerating the process for filing formal civil rights complaints as the FBI investigated weekend threats against Jewish students at Cornell University.
“There’s no place for hate in America, and we condemn any antisemitic threat or incident in the strongest — in the strongest — terms,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Still, Republican leaders have accused the administration of being “in denial” about campus activists who have excused terrorism by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7.
House Republican leaders are considering votes on twin resolutions that seek to exploit divisions within the Democratic Party. Some liberals have condemned Israel as an “apartheid” state oppressing Palestinians seeking their own state.
The first measure would censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat of Palestinian descent, for criticizing Israeli policies — but not Hamas by name — in an Oct. 8 statement on the Hamas attacks.
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The other measure condemns “the support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education, which may lead to the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”
Campuses are at the epicenter of the nasty and potentially violent dispute over the Israel-Hamas conflict, which is reviving ethnic and religious animus in the Middle East and around the globe.
College administrators went into crisis-communications mode after groups at Harvard University and other institutions blamed Israel for the Hamas attacks, which killed more than 1,200 civilians in southern Israeli towns.
Police were dispatched to a Jewish center at Cornell University in New York on Sunday after death threats, including the address of a kosher dining hall, were posted on a website unaffiliated with the university.
The FBI is reportedly investigating the threats, which New York Attorney General Letitia James called “absolutely horrific.”
“There is no space for antisemitism or violence of any kind. Campuses must remain safe spaces for our students,” Ms. James wrote on X.
Ms. Jean-Pierre said the administration is closely monitoring the situation at Cornell.
“To the students at Cornell and on campuses across the country, we’re tracking these threats closely, we’re thinking of you, and we’re going to do everything we can both at Cornell and across the country to counter antisemitism,” she said.
Republican leaders say the White House had been silent for weeks in the face of rising reports of anti-Israel behavior, including slogans projected on the wall of a George Washington University building in Washington that included “free Palestine from the river to the sea.”
“For anyone unfamiliar with Israel’s geography, that is a call for the destruction of the Jewish state,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said in a floor speech last week. “But just a few blocks away, the Biden administration is in denial.”
The White House responded to those accusations Monday with a fact sheet listing three main steps it is taking to assist colleges in combating antisemitism.
The administration said the Homeland Security and Justice departments are including campus police agencies in threat assessments, and federal security advisers and cybersecurity experts are offering help to colleges.
Second, the Department of Education is speeding up its intake of complaints under provisions of the Civil Rights Act.
“For the first time, this intake process will make it clear in the complaint form that discrimination on the basis of national origin in federally funded programs or activities — including ethnic or ancestral slurs or stereotypes against students who are for example Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, or Hindu — are forms of prohibited discrimination under this law,” the fact sheet said.
The administration offers webinars to help people who want to file complaints under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Ms. Jean-Pierre did not outline the penalties for violators. She said that is a Justice Department decision.
Third, the administration is conducting site visits to coordinate with Jewish groups and show support on campuses across the nation.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona addressed antisemitism Monday at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Later this week, Mr. Cardona and White House Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden will visit an unspecified university to address antisemitism. The White House said the Education Department made similar visits to San Francisco, St. Louis and Maine.
Federal data shows antisemitism in America was rising before the Hamas attacks.
Hate crimes against Jews rose 36% from 2021 to 2022, accounting for more than half of all reported religion-based hate crimes, the FBI said in a report released this month.
Jews constitute less than 3% of the U.S. population.
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer database recorded 1,124 anti-Jewish crimes in 2022 compared with 824 in 2021. By comparison, the database recorded 158 anti-Muslim crimes in 2022, virtually the same as the 153 such incidents reported in 2021.
Ms. Jean-Pierre said Mr. Biden might have to take additional steps, given the scale of the problem, but the president wanted to signal he takes the issue seriously.
“This is the beginning. Maybe there will be other things that will be needed,” she said.
Mr. Biden won plaudits from some Jewish leaders for his support for Israel, but he faces competing pressure from within the Democratic Party base to prevent discrimination against Muslim Americans as Israel responds to the Hamas attacks with an intense barrage in the Gaza Strip that is killing civilians, including children.
In recent days, the White House has cited Islamophobia as abhorrent alongside antisemitism.
Mr. Biden condemned former President Donald Trump’s proposal to reinstate his travel ban on visitors or immigrants from certain Muslim-majority nations.
He offered condolences to the family of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois who was stabbed to death in what police described as a hate crime motivated by the Israel-Hamas war.
“We can’t stand by and stand silent in the face of hate,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism. We must also, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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