Pressure mounts on Ivy League universities to address antisemitism after presidents testify; calls for resignation

WASHINGTON − Pressure is intensifying on two Ivy League universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after a heated congressional hearing earlier this week on combating the rise of antisemitism on U.S. campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel.

A group of 13 House Democrats sent a letter Friday to the leaders of Harvard University, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania seeking policy changes to combat antisemitism on campus.

The letter led by Rep. Kathy Manning, D-N.C., comes days after Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York had a viral exchange with the three university presidents about campus policies to address antisemitism. At a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing, the presidents spoke about an increase in anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attacks since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel's subsequent invasion of Gaza.

Stefanik led a separate letter on Friday of more than 70 lawmakers, primarily Republican, calling for the universities to remove their presidents in response to the hearing.

Claudine Gay of Harvard, Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania and Sally Kornbluth of MIT condemned hatred against both groups and spoke about efforts to improve campus security.

Stefanik asked the presidents whether "calling for the genocide of Jews" would violate their codes of conduct. Gay said antisemitic speech would violate university policies when it "crosses into conduct," and Magill similarly said it would be harassment if "speech becomes conduct." Kornbluth said it would be "investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe."

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The comments drew immediate blowback, including from the White House. "It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The group of primarily moderate Democrats led by Manning joined that chorus Friday, saying in the letter addressed to each university's governing board that the testimony "did nothing to assuage our concerns" about antisemitic incidents on college campuses.

"Instead, the presidents’ unwillingness to answer questions clearly or fully acknowledge appalling and unacceptable behavior – behavior that would not have been tolerated against other groups – illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities at your universities," they wrote. "The lack of moral clarity these presidents displayed is simply unacceptable."

They called upon the universities to update their codes of conduct to ensure students are protected and to outline actions taken to protect Jewish and Israeli students and staff.

Hamas militants entered Israeli towns near the Gaza strip on Oct. 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking almost 200 civilian hostages. Following the attack, Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza in what have been weeks of destructive attacks. Nearly 17,500 people have been killed and more than 56,000 wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The ongoing conflict has roiled college campuses, including some violent clashes amid demonstrations. Students who align with both sides have raised concerns about their safety as tensions remain high.

The university presidents' testimony prompted calls for their resignation and outcry from faculty, policymakers and others concerned that the elite institutions would not adequately protect Jewish students from antisemitism on campus. Gay and Magill have publicly apologized for their statements at the hearing.

"I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,” Gay said in an interview with the Harvard Crimson. “What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community − threats to our Jewish students − have no place at Harvard and will never go unchallenged."

Columbia University declined invite to testify

Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, a selective Ivy League school in New York City, previously declined to attend the raucous hearing Tuesday citing scheduling conflicts, according to committee spokesperson Nick Barley.

Like the other presidents, her first year on the job has been largely overshadowed by disruptive campus protests and scandals stemming from disagreements about the Israel-Hamas war, which have struck the campuses of selective schools in the northeast particularly hard.

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Columbia, like Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, is currently under a federal civil rights investigation. The probe was opened in November, and though it’s unclear what type of discrimination was alleged in the complaint to the Education Department, the agency confirmed last month that the investigation at Columbia was one of seven explicitly identified at the time as related to antisemitic or anti-Muslim harassment.

In recent weeks, the university also came under scrutiny for suspending two anti-Zionist student groups, Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. Administrators claimed that the clubs had violated event policies. However, those policies had been quietly changed a few weeks before the groups were suspended, according to the campus newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator.

CONTRIBUTING: Michael Collins.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Harvard, MIT, UPenn leaders asked to quit after congressional testimony