Going easy on protests jeopardizes universities; Title VI protects Jewish students

University officials made “shocking concessions” to anti-Israel demonstrators and withheld support from Jewish students as unrest roiled college campuses in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, according to a long-awaited House report.

The final Republican staff report of the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s yearlong investigation into campus antisemitism was unsparing in its criticism of academic leaders who “capitulated to the mob” by allowing student activists to violate campus rules with impunity.

“Information obtained by the committee reveals a stunning lack of accountability by university leaders for students engaging in antisemitic harassment, assault, trespass and destruction of school property,” said the “Antisemitism on College Campuses Exposed” report released Thursday.

Even so, the 325-page report found that at “every school investigated by the committee, the overwhelming majority of students facing disciplinary action for antisemitic harassment or other violations of policy received only minimal discipline.”

The investigation into postsecondary institutions included interviews and documents from 11 universities: Harvard, Columbia, Barnard, Northwestern, Rutgers, Yale, Pennsylvania, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley, the Massachusetts of Technology and George Washington.

Not a single student was expelled for misconduct at the 11 universities, and six of the 11 schools “failed to impose a single suspension” after activists took over swaths of the campus, disrupted classes and harassed Jewish students, the report found.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Republican and the committee chairwoman, said some universities have “likely” violated Title VI, which bars discrimination based on race, color and national origin and includes Jewish identity, putting their federal funding at risk.

“For over a year, the American people have watched antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities, but what was happening behind the scenes is arguably worse,” Ms. Foxx said.

“While Jewish students displayed incredible courage and a refusal to cave to the harassment, university administrators, faculty, and staff were cowards who fully capitulated to the mob and failed the students they were supposed to serve,” she added.

She called on the executive branch to “enforce the laws and ensure colleges and universities restore order and guarantee that all students have a safe learning environment.”

The report said universities fell short in four ways: by giving “shocking concessions” to students who built unlawful anti-Israel encampments, by waffling on support for Jewish students, by failing to impose “meaningful discipline” on student violations of campus rules and the law, and by resisting congressional oversight.

Northwestern put “radical anti-Israel faculty” in charge of negotiating with encampment leaders, approved a proposal to “quietly” boycott hummus made by Israel-based brand Sabra, and considered an activist demand to hire an “anti-Zionist” rabbi.

At UCLA, campus police alerted the administration on April 25 after 50 unidentified people began unloading tents, pallets and logs on Royce Quad, but officers were told to “hold off,” setting the stage for an “eruption of violence” on April 30 as encampment protesters clashed with counterprotesters.

“By rewarding egregious conduct violations with staggering concessions rather than enforcing university rules, these agreements set dangerous precedents that invite future chaos and could open colleges and universities up to potential violations of Title VI,” the report said.

At Harvard, the initial draft of the university’s post-Oct. 7 statement was edited to remove a reference to the more than 200 hostages kidnapped by Hamas and to remove the word “violent” to describe the Islamist terrorist group.

When Harvard Corp. Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker raised concerns about students using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” saying that “it feels very antisemitic to me,” she received considerable pushback from Harvard President Claudine Gay and her successor, Alan Garber.

Columbia initially said 22 students arrested on April 30 after occupying Hamilton Hall would face expulsion, but the university lifted the interim suspensions “after pressure from radical faculty and students,” the committee said.

Seven of the 22 students were allowed to graduate, 11 are in good standing and one remains on disciplinary probation. Three are still suspended. Another 27 students arrested outside Hamilton Hall had their disciplinary cases closed on grounds of “insufficient evidence.”

“This feckless response comes despite the grave nature of the incident, during which the students and others who occupied the building shattered windows, barricaded doorways, covered security cameras, and held university custodians against their will,” the report said.

At UCLA, 96 students were arrested in May as police cleared the encampment, but 92 signed resolution agreements “that let them off the hook without consequence.” No student has been suspended or put on probation for conduct related to the protests, the report said.

At Penn, 21 students were investigated for their involvement in the encampment. Nine were arrested, and only two were suspended. Both were repeat offenders.

Harvard didn’t suspend a single student for anti-Israel and antisemitic protest activity despite bringing 68 disciplinary cases related to the encampment. Of those, 53 received disciplinary probation, but the school’s administrative board downgraded 35 of them.

The committee obtained more than 400,000 pages of documents during its investigation and issued the first subpoenas in its 157-year history.

The presidents of Harvard and Penn stepped down after giving much-criticized testimony at the committee’s Dec. 5 hearing on campus antisemitism.

Universities geared for the 2024-2025 academic year by strengthening and clarifying their policies on campus protests, establishing task forces on antisemitism and requiring antisemitism education.

The Anti-Defamation League commended 10 universities — including Penn, Barnard and New York University — on Wednesday for making “positive strides to fight campus antisemitism.”

In a Thursday statement, a Columbia spokesperson said the university has taken “decisive actions” to reinforce its academic mission, increase safety and improve its disciplinary processes.

“Under the university’s new leadership, we have established a centralized Office of Institutional Equity to address all reports of discrimination and harassment, appointed a new rules administrator, and strengthened the capabilities of our Public Safety Office,” the spokesperson said. “We are committed to applying the rules fairly, consistently and efficiently.”