[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                         THE CRISIS ON CAMPUS:
                 ANTISEMITISM, RADICAL FACULTY, AND THE
                    FAILURE OF UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 13, 2024

                               __________

                          Serial No. 118-FC28

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
         
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                               __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
57-108                     WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------    


                      COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

                    JASON SMITH, Missouri, Chairman
                    
VERN BUCHANAN, Florida               RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska               LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania             MIKE THOMPSON, California
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona            JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois               EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
BRAD WENSTRUP, Ohio                  BILL PASCRELL, Jr., New Jersey
JODEY ARRINGTON, Texas               DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
DREW FERGUSON, Georgia               LINDA SANCHEZ, California
RON ESTES, Kansas                    TERRI SEWELL, Alabama
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania          SUZAN DelBENE, Washington
KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma                 JUDY CHU, California
CAROL MILLER, West Virginia          GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin
GREG MURPHY, North Carolina          DAN KILDEE, Michigan
DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee             DON BEYER, Virginia
BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania      DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania
GREG STEUBE, Florida                 BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York             JIMMY PANETTA, California
MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota        JIMMY GOMEZ, California
BLAKE MOORE, Utah
MICHELLE STEEL, California
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
MIKE CAREY, Ohio
                       Mark Roman, Staff Director
                 Brandon Casey, Minority Chief Counsel
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Hon. Jason Smith, Missouri, Chairman.............................     1
Hon. Richard Neal, Massachusetts, Ranking Member.................     2
Advisory of June 13, 2024 announcing the hearing.................     V

                               WITNESSES

Talia Dror, Student, Cornell University..........................     5
Shai Davidai, Assistant Professor of Business, Columbia Business 
  School.........................................................    10
Dr. Jonathan Pidluzny, Ph.D., Director, Higher Education Reform, 
  America First Policy Institute.................................    20
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus, Founder & Chairman, Louis D. Brandeis 
  Center for Human Rights Under Law..............................    33
Hon. Ted Deutch, Chief Executive Officer, American Jewish 
  Committee......................................................    46

                    MEMBER QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

Member Questions for the Record and Responses from Shai Davidai, 
  Assistant Professor of Business, Columbia Business School......   192

                   PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Public Submissions...............................................   195

[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


 
                         THE CRISIS ON CAMPUS:
                 ANTISEMITISM, RADICAL FACULTY, AND THE
                    FAILURE OF UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2024

                  House of Representatives,
                               Committee on Ways and Means,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:49 a.m. in Room 
1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Jason T. Smith 
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
    Chairman SMITH. The committee will come to order.
    Following Hamas's horrific October 7 terrorist attack on 
Israel, antisemitism raged across the world, including on 
America's college campuses. This committee moved swiftly to 
investigate the spike in hate by holding a hearing just a few 
weeks after the attack.
    Over the last eight months Americans have seen how the 
inaction of university leaders emboldened anti-Israel, anti-
Jew, and anti-American radicals on college campuses. That 
inaction resulted in encampments springing up at many of 
America's so-called elite universities, and brought education 
at those institutions to a grinding halt. Students, faculty, 
and outside agitators stormed campus buildings and blocked 
entrances. Classes were disrupted or moved online. Long-awaited 
graduation ceremonies were canceled.
    Following this committee's hearing in November we launched 
an investigation into several universities regarding their 
handling of violence and harassment of Jewish students on their 
campuses. The universities under investigation all failed to 
root out antisemitism and protect Jewish students on their 
campuses. The committee continues to receive evidence and 
firsthand accounts that schools are ignoring the concerns of 
Jewish students, failing to enforce campus policies, and 
refusing to discipline students found to have violated 
university rules and codes of conduct.
    Just a few examples of such failures include the failure of 
MIT to discipline students who violated campus policies simply 
because they were not Americans and were here on student visas; 
the failure of Harvard to listen to the recommendations of its 
antisemitism advisory group, even though the committee 
identified ways Jewish students were being harassed; the 
failure of Cornell to enforce real discipline on campus 
agitators who violated campus policies by repeatedly disrupting 
basic educational functions, including class and exams; the 
failure of Penn to take meaningful disciplinary action against 
students and faculty who violated campus policies, including 
one student who stole an Israeli flag from a campus apartment 
and the Faculty for Justice in Palestine blocking the entrance 
to campus.
    The committee's investigation has identified three key 
areas of concern: first is the fact that weak university 
leadership has repeatedly failed to protect students and focus 
on its actual mission of educating students; second is the role 
that radical faculty are playing in fueling and, in some cases, 
taking part in violations of campus policy and law, on top of 
teaching concepts that fuel antisemitism and hatred; lastly, 
there is the role that international students are playing in 
antisemitic and dangerous protests on college campuses across 
the country.
    Our investigation continues. But based on the evidence 
already gathered, we can easily see that many universities are 
failing their students by turning a blind eye to antisemitism. 
Instead, they are caving to the demands of loud, hateful, and 
destructive detractors, often to the detriment of student 
safety, coursework, class time, and academic success on campus. 
That is no way to fulfill an educational mission.
    I am glad that Speaker Johnson called for a collective 
House investigation to bolster this committee's effort that 
started in November. House Republicans will continue to press 
universities to fulfill their tax-exempt purpose by changing 
course to regain control of campuses.
    To the universities listening: If you think we will lose 
focus, interest, or forget about this, you couldn't be more 
wrong. We will continue to use the tools of the Ways and Means 
Committee to protect Americans on college campuses from danger 
until university administrators grow a spine and start doing 
their job.
    I want to thank each of our witnesses for being here, and I 
look forward to learning more about what is occurring on 
college campuses today, and how the situation has evolved since 
the hearing in November.
    Chairman SMITH. I am pleased to recognize Ranking Member 
Neal for his opening statement.
    Mr. NEAL. Thank you. I want to thank our witnesses for 
being here this morning, and especially a warm welcome to our 
former colleague and my friend, former Congressman Ted Deutch.
    And congratulations to Talia for her graduation, as well.
    At the outset, I think it is fair to say that we all 
condemn antisemitism. Since our last hearing we are saddened 
that the hateful actions and rhetoric that has too often 
targeted Jewish students has continued. These incidents have 
disrupted campuses, leaving too many questioning safety. 
Universities certainly have a responsibility to cultivate safe 
and supportive learning environments, and today we are going to 
hear what has happened in the spring, and consider 
recommendations to combat antisemitism on campuses this fall.
    Some of today's witnesses may blame campus antisemitism on 
DEI programs. I do not agree. Celebrating and learning from our 
differences is how we become a more inclusive nation while 
combating some of the biggest threats. The idea here should 
remain part of the universal form called unity without 
uniformity.
    The Biden Administration has been hard at work to help our 
campuses, announcing multiple actions to address reported 
antisemitic incidents at our schools and our college campuses, 
including the role of DHS and DoJ as they engage with state, 
local, and campus law enforcement. The Administration has also 
updated the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights 
Discrimination Complaints to process and specify that there are 
certain forms of antisemitism and Islamophobia that are 
prohibited under title 6 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Our 
universities, I anticipate, will take this summer to prepare 
for what comes next.
    Americans are counting on the continuation of free thought, 
and at the same time the safety of students on our college 
campuses. We need to meet the moment with great care, 
thoughtfulness, and vigilance. Fighting antisemitism and, 
indeed, all hate should remain a priority, not to miss the 
point that there was ugly strains of religious bigotry 
throughout American history, including the role that the Know 
Nothings played in opposition to immigration more than a 
century ago. Denouncing bigotry in all forms is an American 
value, and that is one that we must carry forward from here 
today.
    Mr. NEAL. Let me yield the balance of my time to a 
gentleman who has exhibited, I think, great sound temperament 
and advice to the committee, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 
Schneider.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you, Ranking Member Neal, and welcome. 
I will take the privilege to also welcome my dear friend, 
former colleague, Ted Deutch, and make note of the piece of 
tape on your lapel that says 251 days since the hostages were 
captured.
    And to Talia, I extend congratulations to you and your 
family on graduation, graduation from Columbia, which has been 
at the center of much of what we are talking about today, and 
it is not surprising. It is not something that happened 
overnight at Columbia. It is an issue that has festered there 
for a very long time, but was accelerated following October 7, 
and we will talk more about that today.
    What should every young person be able to rightly expect 
when attending college or university, often leaving the safety 
of their home communities for the first time? To be educated, 
to learn the lessons and skills to prepare for a successful, 
fulfilling career and life. To be intellectually challenged, 
including having some of their core beliefs, their most closely 
held truths, proven wrong. But also, to be safe, in their 
person and their spirit, in their ability to learn and grow, to 
step out of their comfort zones and expand their horizons.
    What we have seen on campuses across the country since 
October 7 is an explosion of antisemitism, often in its most 
vile forms, specifically targeting Jewish students under the 
guise of anti-Israel or anti-Zionist protest. According to the 
ADL, we saw a nearly 400 percent increase in antisemitic 
incidents in just the first few months after October 7, and the 
rate only accelerated in the spring as the weather improved and 
the protesters moved to occupy campuses.
    To be clear, being anti-Israel is not necessarily 
antisemitic, any more than being opposed to the policies of any 
other country or government. However, delegitimizing Jews' 
aspiration for a state in their national homeland, a land in 
which Jews have continuously lived for 3,500 years, is 
absolutely antisemitism. Excluding Jewish, Israeli, and pro-
Israeli students from classrooms, public spaces, and 
organizational activities on campus is antisemitism. 
Vandalizing the homes, offices, or rooms of Jewish 
administrators, faculties, or students is antisemitism.
    Our colleges and universities should be safe places for 
learning and growth, not hotbeds of hate and discrimination. 
Too many Jewish students on campus have been targeted as 
individuals and collectively.
    This is not about free speech. I will defend everyone's 
right to stand at the Rock at Northwestern, or Harvard Yard, or 
the quad, or the center of any school and express their views. 
But when speech crosses over into hate, to intimidation, to 
exclusion or isolation, it is imperative that school leaders, 
including university presidents but also faculty and even 
student governments and student leaders, recognize that hate 
has no place on their campus.
    Every student, irrespective of religion, nationality, or 
ideology, must feel safe, and we expect our universities to 
ensure that they do.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Before I begin I want to take a moment and acknowledge Dr. 
Murphy, and also Mr. Evans, both valued members of our 
committee that are not with us because they are both recovering 
from treatments and procedures, and we will continue to keep 
them in our prayers, and we look forward to both of them coming 
back to our committee very soon.
    I will now introduce our witnesses.
    One of the witnesses from our November hearing, Ms. Talia 
Dror, is back today to update us on how the environment on her 
college campus, Cornell University, has worsened. To her 
credit, despite the sad circumstances on campus, she graduated 
college a few weeks ago. And on behalf of the entire committee 
I would like to extend our congratulations and welcome you 
back.
    We have Professor Shai Davidai.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Shai Davidai.
    Chairman SMITH. Shai Davidai. Is that--well, it is closer.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Like the adjective, shy.
    Chairman SMITH. I am going to call you Professor. 
[Laughter.]
    Professor. He is an assistant professor of business at 
Columbia Business School.
    We have Dr. Jonathan Pidluzny, who is the director of 
higher education reform at America First Policy Institute.
    We have the honorable Kenneth L. Marcus, who is the founder 
and chairman at Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under 
Law.
    And we have the honorable and former colleague, Mr. Ted 
Deutch.
    Welcome back to the House.
    He is the chief executive officer at American Jewish 
Community.
    Thank you all for joining us today. Your written statements 
will be made part of the hearing record, and you each have five 
minutes to deliver your remarks.
    Ms. Dror, you may begin when you are ready.

STATEMENT OF TALIA DROR, CURRENT STUDENT AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
     AND VICE PRESIDENT OF FINANCE, CORNELLIANS FOR ISRAEL

    Ms. DROR. Chairman Smith, Ranking member Neal, and members 
of the Ways and Means Committee, thank you for inviting me back 
to testify today. My name is Talia Dror. I am a recent graduate 
of Cornell University.
    Seven months ago I described how, directly after the 
October 7 attacks, my campus erupted in celebration. I 
explained how the antisemitic environment fostered by pro-Hamas 
students, professors, and administrators led to a Cornell 
student threatening to bomb our kosher dining hall and 
slaughter every Jew on our campus. I am here today to tell you 
that, since then, blatant violations of Cornell's code of 
conduct continue, appeased and rewarded by my university.
    Now these violations have been exposed for what they truly 
are: expressions not just of Jew hatred, but of a burning 
hatred for the United States itself. In December students 
occupied our main building, vandalizing it with genocidal 
slogans and hoisting a Palestinian flag on an American 
flagpole.
    In January, student protesters chanted, ``Houthis, Houthis, 
make us proud, turn another ship around.'' The Houthis are a 
U.S.-designated terrorist organization whose slogan reads, 
``God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the 
Jews, victory to Islam.''
    Throughout the month of February, protesters held weekly 
die-ins. I was in the library during the first die-in. I 
watched as hundreds of masked students lay on the floor and 
began chanting antisemitic slogans. As I watched alongside 
visibly disturbed students, I saw an administrator just 
standing there and watching, doing nothing to enforce Cornell's 
policies. A Jewish freshman who was studying there recognized 
me and began sobbing in my arms.
    As I held this girl, whose name I did not even know, I 
realized the gravity of the moment: Cornell's administration 
has made a decision to protect hateful radicals at the expense 
of everyone else.
    In the following weeks, Cornell's policy of appeasement 
resulted in classes constantly being canceled and exams needing 
to be moved as the pro-Hamas group wreaked havoc.
    Anti-American students stifle intellectual disagreement by 
threatening anyone who does not conform to their orthodoxy. On 
March 3, a Jewish student was accosted by a fellow student who 
approached her and yelled, ``F'ing Zionist scum. Yes, I have 
seen you around, Genocidaire. God forbid a Zionist feel 
unsafe.'' The university's investigation has been open for over 
three months now, with no resolution in sight.
    On March 29, a member of Cornell's student government 
refused to allow pro-Hamas students to break election rules. 
That night a student told him that he had better watch his 
back, and that he would regret ever joining the student 
assembly.
    This should come as no surprise, as the administration not 
only allows these incidents to occur, it promotes the 
antisemitic ideology fueling them. As part of their education 
series on antisemitism and Islamophobia, the university 
sponsored a lecture by Sahar Aziz, who is currently being 
investigated by both the U.S. House and Senate for espousing 
vile, antisemitic propaganda.
    Cornell has also platformed a vocal pro-Hamas student who 
referred to Jewish students as ``bloodthirsty Zionists only 
satiated by the blood of Palestinians,'' and claims that he 
does not take his cue from the Cornell Student Assembly, but 
rather from the armed resistance in Palestine, referring to 
Hamas. Next year this student will be teaching an introductory 
course for incoming freshmen.
    On April 25, Cornell students formed an encampment, 
blatantly violating the code of conduct. In-campers chanted 
phrases like, ``There is only one solution, intifada 
revolution,'' a call to kill Jews worldwide. Three weeks later, 
when the encampment was dismantled, the university issued a 
statement expressing gratitude that the students terrorizing 
campus somehow restrained themselves from physically carrying 
out their violent sentiments. All the administration had to do 
was enforce its existing rules. Instead, it chose to negotiate 
with the protesters, grant them immunity, and thank them for 
their self-restraint. The message was very clear: Rules are 
meaningless and lawlessness is rewarded.
    Let me be very clear. The hostile environment I have just 
described to you pervades campuses all across the country, from 
Harvard to UC Santa Barbara, from UCLA to Yale. American 
universities have allowed themselves to be controlled by 
vicious chants, rule-breaking, and anarchy. If they wish to 
continue benefitting from government funding, they must start 
upholding American values, rather than bowing to those who wish 
to see this country burn. My tuition has subsidized the 
indoctrination a generation that hates our country. It would be 
a disgrace for even one more taxpayer dollar to do the same.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
    [The statement of Ms. Dror follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Professor Davidai, you are now recognized.

   STATEMENT OF SHAI DAVIDAI, PH.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF 
               BUSINESS, COLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL

    Mr. DAVIDAI. My name is Shai Davidai. I am an assistant 
professor at Columbia Business School.
    Since October 7, when Hamas raped, tortured, slaughtered, 
and kidnaped more than 1,400 of my people, Columbia's campus 
has been a hostile environment for Jews and Israelis like me. 
Over the past months, Jewish students have locked themselves in 
dorms to avoid being assaulted. They have been spat on, 
attacked, bullied, vilified, chased, and told to keep F'ing 
running. This is not an exaggeration. This is the reality of 
what it is like being Jewish and Israeli at Columbia since 
October 7.
    For more than eight months, Columbia University has refused 
to deal with the student organizations whose leaders and 
members have, among other things, publicly supported Hamas, the 
PFLP, and the Islamic Jihad; illegally occupied public spaces 
on campus from which they denied entry to Jewish and Israeli 
students; violently took over a university building and held an 
employee hostage against his will; chanted in support of the 
Houthis, a terrorist organization whose flag calls for death to 
Israel, death to America, and a curse upon the Jews; called for 
the extermination of Israel; called for Zionists to be killed; 
called for rockets to be shot at Tel Aviv; supported the 
Islamic Republic of Iran in its attack on Israeli civilian 
targets; harassed a rabbi who was escorting Jewish students to 
safety; hosted the wife of a man convicted of providing 
material support to Hamas; amplified calls by Hamas for 
violence in Jerusalem; set up memorials for convicted 
terrorists on campus; called on the military wing of Hamas to 
attack Jewish-American students; and invited speakers with 
known ties to terrorist organizations to an event in support of 
terrorism.
    Everything I have just noted is well documented and known 
to the university leaders, yet there are two Columbias, a 
Columbia in theory and a Columbia in practice.
    In theory, Columbia suspended two organizations and a 
handful of their leaders for their pro-terror activity. In 
practice, these suspensions were never enforced, and they 
continue to organize on campus without interruptions.
    In theory, Columbia has stated that pro-terror campus 
protests are unauthorized. In practice, the university has 
never dispersed even a single protest.
    In theory, Columbia cares about the safety of its Jewish 
and Israeli students. In practice, it doesn't.
    Minouche Shafik, Jerry Rosberg, Cass Holloway, and Phyllis 
Rosen have all personally allowed these organizations to 
terrorize Jewish, Israeli--and Israeli students with complete 
impunity. They must be held accountable.
    Yet these individuals are just the tip of the iceberg. We 
must hold accountable the entire administration and the board 
of trustees. We must hold accountable the faculty who openly 
support and celebrate terrorism: Professor Joseph Massad, who 
expressed his jubilation and awe at the massacre, rape, 
torture, and kidnaping of Israeli civilians; Professor Mohamed 
Abdou, who openly supports terrorism, stating that he is with 
the resistance, be it Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad; 
Professor Katherine Franke, who has justified terrorist attacks 
against Israel and has claimed that Israelis are a danger on 
campus; Professor Rashid Khalidi, who was reportedly the 
spokesperson for the PLO when it was still an active terrorist 
organization, and who has legitimized Hamas and Islamic Jihad 
as resistance fighters; Professor Mahmood Mamdani, who has 
called for the dismantling of the Jewish state; and Professors 
Asim Ansari and Kamel Jedidi of Columbia Business School, who, 
along with many other professors, signed a letter minimizing 
the massacre, rape, and kidnaping of civilians as merely a 
military response.
    These professors receive millions of dollars in Federal 
funding for their research and teaching.
    These professors teach the next generation of American 
doctors, lawyers, teachers, leaders, and social workers.
    These are the professors with whom American parents entrust 
their kids' safety.
    This is why I am here. I am here to speak up for every 
decent American who believes that antisemitism and support for 
terrorism have no place on campus.
    I am here to speak up for every person, Jewish or non-
Jewish, who believes that rape is never, never, never okay.
    I am here to speak up for the future of higher education. 
Yes, I have had--I have paid a price, a personal price for 
speaking up. But I would rather pay the price for speaking up 
than the price for staying silent.
    Let me be clear. This is not about politics. The terrorists 
who kidnaped Keith Seigel, an American from North Carolina, did 
not stop to ask him who he voted for in the previous elections. 
The professors who called the kidnaping of Omer Neutra, an 
American from Long Island, ``a military response'' do not care 
about his geopolitics. The students who desecrate pictures of 
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American who had his arm blown off 
before being kidnaped into Gaza, do not care about his views on 
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is not about politics. 
This is about hate, hate for Israel, hate for the Jewish 
people's right for self-determination, and hate for America and 
all that it stands for.
    Like the U.S. Congress, I and many others have been asleep 
at the wheel for too long. It is time to take action. It is 
time to wake up. Thank you very much.
    [The statement of Mr. Davidai follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Doctor.
    Dr. Pidluzny, you are now recognized.

    STATEMENT OF JONATHAN PIDLUZNY, PH.D., DIRECTOR, HIGHER 
        EDUCATION REFORM, AMERICA FIRST POLICY INSTITUTE

    Mr. PIDLUZNY. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Neal, and 
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
testify today. It is a real privilege.
    I direct the Higher Education Reform Initiative at the 
America First Policy Institute. Prior to joining AFPI, I was 
vice president of academic affairs at the American Council of 
Trustees and Alumni. I began my career on a public university 
campus, and spent 10 great years teaching political science in 
Kentucky.
    What has happened on U.S. campuses since the Hamas massacre 
should shake us to the core. It is not just that the hatred is 
deep in the places where we train tomorrow's leaders. 
University administrators have reacted to violent displays of 
antisemitism with indifference to their Jewish students' well-
being.
    Perhaps most surprising of all, the worst of the violence 
and harassment has occurred at the country's wealthiest and its 
most prestigious institutions. This matters for many reasons, 
not least because our elite universities shape the broader 
public culture. What happens on campus today will radiate 
through American society, reshaping attitudes for years to 
come.
    With my time today I would like to explore some of the 
reasons I think the hatred is most pronounced at elite 
universities. There are three main drivers of campus 
antisemitism, in my view: anti-Zionist faculty; radical 
students and the pro-Hamas student groups they lead; and the 
diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that now suffuse 
higher education. I would like to focus on DEI, because it is 
the atmospheric cause, the ideas in the air that dispose young 
people to find antisemitic faculty and students so compelling.
    DEI is not about ensuring that under-prepared students have 
the support they need to succeed in educational programs that 
promise a high return on investment. Universities should 
actually be doing more of that. DEI's real priorities are drawn 
from critical race theory. The goal is to use the university to 
reengineer American society away from its aspirational ideals: 
equality before the law, equal treatment according to 
individual merit.
    Instead, DEI pushes relentlessly for equity, equal 
outcomes, and to dismantle ``systemic oppression'' by making 
race and identity central to everything we do and everything we 
think. As such, DEI teaches that the world is made up of 
oppressors and the oppressed, victims and those with privilege. 
This divisive ideology primes students to make snap judgments 
about each other based on skin color and identity group 
stereotypes.
    Jews are coded as the oppressors by virtue of their 
political and economic success. This is what creates a kind of 
permission structure for students to join in with the true 
radicals cheering for the Hamas terrorists who deliberately 
kill children and rape hostages.
    Major universities spend tens of millions of dollars each 
year on DEI, and their armies number in the hundreds. This 
helps to explain why antisemitism is more pronounced on elite 
campuses. They have been funding what drives it for over a 
decade.
    Four points in closing will give perspective on how this 
relates to higher education finance.
    First, of the 12 wealthiest private universities by 
endowment value, 11 had antisemitic encampments or arrests. In 
2022 Harvard's endowment hit 53 billion. Columbia's topped 14. 
The 300 private schools with endowments valued at more than 
$100,000 per student together control well over a half-trillion 
dollars, war chests that receive supremely favorable tax 
treatment.
    Second, elite universities receive billions in Federal 
grants and contracts every year. To be sure, these programs 
fund important research. But universities also receive indirect 
cost reimbursements as high as 69 percent on top of the 
programs funded. That is unrestricted revenue that can be spent 
on other priorities. In 2022 Columbia took in $1.2 billion in 
Federal grants and contracts. And again, all but 1 of the top 
12 private university recipients of Federal grants saw 
antisemitic arrests or encampments this spring.
    Third, foreign money has been flowing to elite universities 
for decades. In recent years the sums have been enormous: for 
example, 1.8 billion since 2014 for Cornell, and that is just 
from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
    Last, elite universities enroll thousands of foreign 
students who generally pay full freight. It only takes a small 
number to spark violent and menacing protests. Our analysis 
revealed that, out of the 111 universities with antisemitic 
encampments and/or arrests this year, 20 have student bodies 
consisting of more than 20 percent foreign students; 13 
campuses surpassed 25 percent.
    In conclusion, the spasms of hate that have convulsed elite 
universities demonstrate that existing accountability 
structures are insufficient. Immense public investment in 
higher education rightly makes this an important subject for 
congressional oversight. It also gives the Congress several 
powerful policy levers to affect positive change. Thank you.
    [The statement of Mr. Pidluzny follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Mr. Marcus.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. KENNETH L. MARCUS, FORMER TRUMP APPOINTEE 
 AS U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, FOUNDER AND 
CHAIRMAN OF THE LOUIS D. BRANDEIS CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER 
                              LAW

    Mr. MARCUS. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Neal, 
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting 
me to join you. I am Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Louis 
Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and former assistant 
secretary of education for civil rights.
    Over the last 20 years I have been fighting antisemitism on 
college campuses, but never seen anything like what we have 
experienced since October 7. Even in the year prior to October 
7, we saw record levels of antisemitism on college campuses. In 
the three weeks following October 7 we saw as many incidents 
reported to us as in the prior record-breaking year.
    Over the time since then, and in particular since this 
committee had its last hearing, what we have seen is a 
spreading of the extreme and violent situation on a handful of 
campuses throughout this country. While there are elite 
institutions such as Harvard and Berkeley that have been in the 
news, the fact is that we are seeing problems even at 
institutions that had previously seen none of them. We are 
seeing a kind of perfect storm of student violent extremism, 
professorial politicization, undisclosed foreign funding, and 
often feckless and weak administration. This is happening all 
over the country to the extent that I would say it is a crisis 
that needs to be dealt with.
    Most of these institutions are tax exempt, and need to be 
held accountable if they do not meet the requirements of their 
tax-exempt status. That is true of the universities, and also 
of some of the organizations that have been fomenting hatred.
    My former agency, the U.S. Department of Education's Office 
for Civil Rights, has a central role in addressing this campus 
antisemitism. During this Administration they have done some 
things right. The National Strategy from the White House raised 
awareness of the issue. There has been transparency and also, I 
would say, a number of cases open, some of them in a timely 
manner.
    At the same time, we have seen no significant policy 
advances. We have seen extremely slow enforcement of campus 
antisemitism cases. We have seen tools available to the agency 
that are not being used, such as the possibility of proactive 
compliance reviews, proactive agency-directed investigations, 
the possibility of joint investigations by OCR and the 
Department of Justice, which has been used in prior 
administrations and could be used here. Lots of different tools 
that are available that aren't being used, and we would like to 
see that changed.
    Beyond that, beyond that, we have seen good cases being 
dismissed in ways that appear to deviate from the law. For 
example, cases that are being dismissed under rule 110(h) of 
the OCR manual, which allows dismissal in some class actions, 
but which has been used for dismissals in some non-class action 
cases. In other words, we are not seeing the sort of 
enforcement that we would like to see.
    In fairness, the Education Department doesn't have all of 
the tools that it could use. While it does have the ability to 
deny all foreign--all Federal funds to an institution, that is 
a remedy that is not necessarily sufficient because it is used 
so rarely, if ever at all. It would certainly be helpful if 
additional remedies were available to address recalcitrant 
institutions that permitted hostile environments.
    This House of Representatives did good work when it passed 
the Antisemitism Awareness Act. The fact is that one of the 
greatest problems for universities, and also for the Federal 
Government, is an inability to determine when incidents can be 
considered antisemitism and when they aren't. The Antisemitism 
Awareness Act, if enacted into law, would be a big step.
    But there are other problems that are still unaddressed. 
One of the most disturbing problems that we have seen is that 
when Jewish students try to report antisemitism through 
university grievance programs, they often face retaliation. 
They are often accused of other sorts of incidents, and those 
accusations are taken seriously. Retaliatory claims and 
counterclaims have to be addressed, as well.
    Beyond that, we need to look at joint compliance, national 
initiatives, and investigation into those groups that have at 
least the appearance of potentially advancing terrorism. Any 
university that has a student organization that has indicated a 
potential support for terrorism should be investigating it. And 
to the extent that isn't happening, it should be done by the 
United States Federal Government.
    Given the importance of tax-exempt status for institutions 
that receive it, I think that it is entirely welcome that this 
committee is looking into this issue, and that there is room 
for strengthening the protections that we have for our 
students.
    I thank this committee for its attention, and thank you for 
including me in this hearing.
    [The statement of Mr. Marcus follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Congressman Deutch, you are recognized.

  STATEMENT OF THE HON. THEODORE ``TED'' DEUTCH, FORMER U.S. 
   REPRESENTATIVE (FL-22), CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICAN 
                        JEWISH COMMITTEE

    Mr. DEUTCH. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Neal, members of 
the committee, it is an honor to be before you to testify in 
this body, where I served alongside many of you for seven 
terms. Today I am here in my capacity as CEO of American Jewish 
Committee, on the heels of our global forum, where 2,000 Jewish 
leaders, including hundreds of young leaders from around the 
world, convened.
    And what is happening on university campuses in the United 
States is the threat that everyone from all of the 55 countries 
represented expects us to confront, because our Jewish students 
and faculty are on the front lines of the battle against 
dangerous antisemitism.
    Protests in the weeks after 10/7 featured students and 
faculty celebrating terror, unapologetically declaring Hamas's 
barbarity to be exhilarating and glorious and liberating.
    Over winter break, the Jewish community held its collective 
breath, hoping the temperature would be turned down on college 
campuses. Instead, we witnessed a doubling down in the spring, 
as Talia and Shai both spoke powerfully to. Radical anti-Israel 
protesters commandeered campus quads, occupied university 
buildings, fomenting vile, antisemitic messaging and creating 
an atmosphere of harassment, intimidation, and fear for Jewish 
students, faculty, and staff, and disrupting normal campus 
activities for all campus citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish 
alike.
    Students have been forced to walk a gauntlet on college 
campuses, finding alternative pathways to classes, dining 
halls, libraries just to stay safe. They have watched as campus 
events featuring Israeli speakers were canceled or moved to 
secret, out-of-the-way hiding spots, and they have had classes 
moved online because it was no longer safe for them to be on 
campus. And the response of many university presidents and 
chancellors to these events has been woefully inadequate, and 
completely lacking in leadership.
    Jewish life on campus became narrowed, relegated to dark 
corners, while lawless protesters took center stage, and were 
allowed to remain there, despite pushing past every margin of 
acceptable conduct. In some cases, these radical individuals 
were granted a seat at the table with university boards as a 
reward for their blatant disregard of the rules.
    It should not come as a surprise that this school year 
shook to the core the Jewish community's trust in institutions 
of higher learning. University leaders must use these summer 
months to confront this problem that risk permanently staining 
the reputations of our country's top academic institutions, and 
they must disabuse themselves of the notion that everything 
will return to normal in the coming year. Accepting 
antisemitism as normal is what helped get us to this place, and 
the news from just the past few days confirms that the threats 
to the Jewish community are increasing, and we know that 
colleges are not immune.
    Last weekend, down the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue 
near the White House, protesters held signs, screamed, and 
defaced statues with, ``Stand with Hamas, Kill Another Zionist 
Now,'' calls for jihad and death to America.
    On Monday in New York, a mob celebrated the Hamas murder of 
over 360 people at the Nova Music Festival.
    On Tuesday a masked group boarded a New York subway car and 
shouted, ``Raise your hands if you are a Zionist.'' Masked 
people on a subway asking, ``Raise your hand if you are a 
Zionist, this is your chance to get out.''
    And also this week, homes of Jewish employees and 
leadership of the Brooklyn Museum were vandalized with signs 
saying, ``White Supremacist, Zionist.''
    Every member of this committee should be sickened by this. 
Every member of this committee should say so publicly. This 
antisemitic and anti-American incitement to violence can no 
longer be tolerated. It must be stopped before it leads to real 
violence.
    Is it any wonder that AJC's most recent state of 
antisemitism in America shows that 78 percent of American Jews 
feel less safe since the attacks of 10/7? In our work with 
administrators and included in our tool kit for university 
leadership, AJC emphasizes initiatives to address antisemitism 
head on so that it doesn't become permanent, which it will 
unless we assertively counter it with a strong, coordinated, 
multi-pronged approach.
    With this in mind, we recommend that schools update their 
codes of conduct and actually enforce their own rules; include 
antisemitism education and training for their entire 
communities; return to centers of fact-based exchange; ensure 
the physical safety of Jewish students; and university 
presidents should announce that they will open title 6 
compliance offices, much like they have title 9 offices.
    Congress has passed--the House has passed the Antisemitism 
Awareness Act, and I encourage you to support and pass the 
Countering Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would help 
strengthen Federal efforts to counter antisemitism, including 
higher education.
    There are students in your districts being told that their 
identity as Jews and Zionists is putting their safety at risk. 
Listen to them. Use your important role as a member of the U.S. 
House to help them.
    In closing, please remember antisemitism is not just a 
threat to the Jewish community; it is a threat to our 
democracy. This moment is not just about antisemitism. It is 
about the society that we want to live in. We must hold schools 
accountable. We must protect all students, and we must work 
together in a bipartisan fashion and declare zero tolerance for 
antisemitism. We have seen throughout the history of the Jewish 
people where antisemitism can lead. Now is the time. Act with 
the urgency this moment demands.
    Thank you for inviting me back to the House for this very 
important hearing.
    [The statement of Mr. Deutch follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you for your testimony. We will now 
move to questions.
    Ms. Dror, you testified before our committee during the 
past fall semester about your experience with violent threats, 
harassment, and other antisemitic behavior on Cornell's campus. 
You recalled being terrified, knowing that, as an outspoken 
Jewish leader, you could likely be identified and targeted by 
anyone seeking to do harm. Did you feel the same way during the 
spring semester that you just completed?
    Ms. DROR. Thank you, Chairman Smith.
    Thankfully, there were no more expressed death threats 
against Jewish students this semester. But watching the 
widespread acceptance and normalization of antisemitism kind of 
created a different type of fear in me. Watching myself and 
fellow Jewish students begin to develop an it-could-be-worse 
mentality--we could be getting stabbed in the eye, like my 
friend, Sahar, at Yale did, or be told that we deserve to go 
back to Poland, like my friend, Shai, did--I began to realize 
how dangerous it is to become desensitized to this form of 
bigotry and hatred.
    Chairman SMITH. Professor Davidai, many of us here have 
heard about what happened on Columbia University's campus this 
spring. I am happy that you are here with us today so we can 
hear firsthand from a member of the faculty about what has been 
going on at Columbia, including the unauthorized encampment, 
which resulted in police arresting over 100 Columbia students.
    What do you think are the main factors that led students to 
feel emboldened to essentially take over Columbia's campus?
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Thank you so much. That is a great question. I 
would say that there are two main factors.
    One is a complete lack of leadership and accountability 
from the administration. The student organizations and their 
leaders have seen that they can do whatever they want with 
complete impunity; that when they break the laws they will--the 
university will send out a strong email, but will not follow 
it; when they get suspended, nothing actually is enforced; that 
they can hold an unauthorized protest and won't be dispersed; 
that they can basically spew out hate, antisemitism, and pro-
terror rhetoric, and nothing will happen to them.
    And the second factor is the faculty. There have been many 
faculty who have not only indoctrinated these students and 
egged them on to keep going, like Professor Katherine Franke, 
but many faculty who actually defended with their bodies to 
stop police enforcement of the illegal encampment.
    So when you have a mixture of pro-Hamas, pro-Islamic jihad 
faculty and an administration that shows no leadership and no 
accountability, that is what you get.
    Chairman SMITH. So I think it is safe to say, based on your 
answer there, that Columbia has not been living up to its 
obligations to its students and fulfilling its educational 
purpose.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. I would say that it even--didn't even pretend 
to live up. It is not that Columbia can't; it is that Columbia 
won't.
    Chairman SMITH. Columbia won't. And the professors you 
listed in your opening statement, that is extremely, extremely 
disturbing. Thank you.
    Mr. Marcus, part of today's hearing is to see what, if 
anything, Congress can or should do to hold schools accountable 
and protect students on campus. For this committee that 
includes considering whether colleges and universities are 
complying with section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code and 
fulfilling their tax-exempt purpose. For other committees, that 
also may mean looking at Title VI and the Department of 
Education's process for resolving these types of complaints.
    Based on your experience, do you think it would be helpful 
if federal agencies had additional tools to use when 
investigating colleges and universities for alleged violations 
of anti-discrimination laws?
    And are there any policy solutions Congress should 
consider?
    Mr. MARCUS. Yes, Chairman Smith, thank you. I do think that 
additional remedies are necessary.
    There is the possibility of lawsuits, but those are 
expensive and lengthy.
    The current process at OCR is also somewhat cumbersome, and 
seldom leads to the sort of resolution that really would 
require fundamental change. Nor is the OCR system necessarily 
built for the sort of crisis that we have today.
    So for those institutions that are recalcitrant in the face 
of growing antisemitism to which they have shown something like 
deliberate indifference, I think a more streamlined, quicker 
process that could lead to issues with respect to tax-exempt 
status would be a welcome addition to the remedies that are now 
at play.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you. I would like to recognize the 
ranking member, Mr. Neal, for questions.
    Mr. NEAL. Thank you.
    Mr. Deutch, I will give you a chance to answer the same 
questions that were just offered to Mr. Marcus, and give you an 
opportunity to discuss safety on campus, what suggestions you 
would make to take action against antisemitism beyond the 
universal condemnation that you have heard.
    And perhaps you could talk a bit about your recommendations 
for integrating antisemitism training in many of our 
institutions.
    Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member Neal.
    First of all, in response to the question about what can 
Congress do, the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of 
Education needs additional resources that--the challenges that 
we have all described are so great, we want and expect the 
Office of Civil Rights to take necessary action to begin 
investigations promptly and, most importantly, to complete them 
promptly so that accountability can actually be brought to 
bear. They need additional resources so that they can do that.
    I mentioned, as well, the Countering Antisemitism Act. 
There are two ways to address antisemitism. One is to identify 
it, and Congress passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act because 
identifying antisemitism is important. That is what the IHRA 
definition does. It is why AJC has worked to pass it so many 
places around the world and around the United States. And it is 
what that bill does, and I hope that the Senate will pass that, 
as well.
    The Countering Antisemitism Act strengthens Federal efforts 
beyond that. Once we have identified antisemitism, we should 
have greater resources. There should be someone in the White 
House going forward in every administration that is focused on 
this issue. Same at the Department of Education. That is what 
that bill, H.R. 7921, does. And I encourage members to look at 
it, to cosponsor it. And ultimately, I hope the Speaker will 
bring it up so that it can pass.
    In terms of safety on campus, there are different steps 
that the universities can take. But first and foremost--and I 
think we all agree, and we have heard different versions of 
this--the campus administration has to enforce its own rules. 
The code of conduct on its campus has to be updated. Some of 
the codes of--student codes of conduct were written so long ago 
they don't even acknowledge the existence of social media, they 
don't acknowledge the current world that we live in. They 
should be revised for the benefit of not just Jewish students, 
but for the community as a whole.
    And then they need to be enforced. There need to be 
repercussions when those rules are violated, and that stands in 
stark contrast to what we have seen on some campuses, where the 
violation of those rules has actually been rewarded. That is an 
important step.
    And universities need--beyond that, they need to be very 
clear in ensuring--and this is, I am sure, a conversation that 
will take place over the course of this day--there needs to be 
viewpoint of diversity on campus. When you allow one group to 
completely silence another--the harassment and intimidation of 
Jewish students, of Israeli students is meant to silence them. 
And universities have a role to play in ensuring that, if they 
intend the university to live up to its ideals as a place where 
a free exchange of ideas can actually take place, then you have 
to actually hear all voices, and you can't silence--you can't 
allow one group to silence the voices that they disagree with 
and--in this case, that they literally--they violently disagree 
with. That is an important step that has to be taken.
    And there is a responsibility--I will just finish, Ranking 
Member Neal, with the faculty, as well. There are--the 
challenges that exist with the faculty, the way that faculty on 
some campuses conduct themselves in ways even in violation of 
the guidelines on academic freedom that the American Academy of 
University Professors sets out, winds up doing damage, again, 
to the ultimate goals of the university, which is to be a place 
where there can be a free exchange of ideas.
    That has to be tackled seriously, and this has to be done 
over not just the coming semester, but this is something that 
universities need to focus on over the coming years, and it 
starts with university presidents who set the right tone, who 
speak with moral clarity, who understand that what is happening 
at this moment when there are protesters supporting terrorist 
groups runs contrary to everything about that university 
campus.
    Mr. NEAL. Thank you.
    Chairman SMITH. I now recognize Mr. Smith.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certainly, 
thank you to our witnesses here today, as well.
    This committee's jurisdiction is built around the tax code, 
obviously, and it is important we conduct oversight to ensure 
entities receiving tax exemptions or credits through the code 
are following applicable rules. That concept is not unique to 
educational institutions. For example, I don't really agree 
with much of the Democrats' stimulus bill from 2022, but they 
understood what they were doing when they wrote domestic 
content requirements into their electric vehicle tax credit.
    We have historically limited who credit unions can serve, 
and how much they can lend to businesses because they are 
exempt from tax, while banks are not. Even popular individual 
provisions like individual retirement accounts and 529s have 
rules about what you can and can't do with the funds in 
exchange for receiving tax deferral or exemption.
    Colleges and universities shouldn't be treated any 
differently. They receive their tax-exempt status on the basis 
of providing quality education in a safe environment. When they 
fail to do that, we should all be concerned.
    I am chilled by what I hear not just on the news, but 
comments here today.
    Professor Davidai, you have spoken publicly about the 
radical viewpoints taught by specific professors, I believe, at 
Columbia. For example, it is my understanding that one 
colleague of yours, known for anti-Israel positions, recently 
published a controversial article which described the Hamas 
attacks as ``awesome,'' and as a ``resistance offensive.'' I 
think you have pointed to some of these.
    But another Columbia professor published a social media 
post stating, ``I am with Hamas, and Hezbollah, and Islamic 
Jihad.''
    I know that this is not limited to just Columbia. That is 
certainly my observation. But it is bad enough when students 
might intimidate other students and the administration would 
take a dismissive posture. When faculty engages in rhetoric 
such as this, I am extremely concerned. I find it chilling, 
absolutely chilling that this situation is what it is.
    Professor Davidai, from your perspective, how would you say 
the spread of these viewpoints from faculty has impacted the 
student population?
    And if you could, elaborate further than what you have 
already stated in terms of the actual impact on students.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Thank you so much for this question.
    So first of all, we have to note that there has been a 
systemic--sorry, systematic--purging of certain viewpoints from 
Columbia University and other universities. It used to be the 
case that students who were interested in engaging in critical 
thinking could go and listen to the professor you mentioned, 
Joseph Massad, hear his viewpoints, which I completely disagree 
with, and then go and sit on a different class with a professor 
with opposing viewpoints who actually believes that Jews do 
have a right to exist, and the students will have some balanced 
point of view.
    The problem is that throughout two, three, or four decades, 
there has been a purge of professors who disagree, who disagree 
with people like Professor Massad, Hamid Dabashi, and the 
sorts. And now students are just not educated. They are 
indoctrinated. When you are only allowed to listen to one point 
of view, then you end up either agreeing with that point of 
view because you didn't get any opposing views, or you drop out 
of the class.
    There are--there have been experiences of students that 
feel like they have to write papers that oppose their own 
values just to get a passing grade. So I believe that is a huge 
problem for education.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Right, thank you.
    Ms. Dror, I want to talk briefly about the, you know, 
501(c)(3) part of our tax code, and that exempt purpose. We 
could talk probably a long time, in addition to the discussion 
here, in terms of, you know, tax-exempt status and what does 
that do for students. It certainly doesn't seem to lower the 
tuition much, but especially when students would feel harassed 
in the environment where these institutions have massive and 
generous tax breaks that they take advantage of. What would you 
say is the impact on students themselves?
    Ms. DROR. Universities are using their federally-allocated 
funds to fund hateful student groups like Students for Justice 
in Palestine. And it is--or fellow organizations that 
essentially organize and spew hatred. So universities are now 
using Federal funds that they get through, if I am not 
mistaken----
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Federal funds would be even 
different than the tax-exempt status that is enjoyed by these 
institutions. But it is resources, nonetheless.
    Ms. DROR. They are using their very exorbitant amount of 
power and wealth to fund anti-American students promoting 
hatred and anti-Americanism.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Okay. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Mr. Doggett.
    Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    So many of the chants and taunts since October 7 have 
fueled antisemitism, and the incidents that you described today 
are truly outrageous. I have joined one resolution after 
another, one letter after another to condemn and respond, 
including the important and very appropriate recommendations of 
the Anti-Defamation League, such as the Never Again Education 
Act and the Department of Education's Center to Combat 
Antisemitism.
    At the same time, I took this position not after October 7, 
but throughout my life, and particularly on August 12, 2017, 
condemning those White nationalists that marched through 
Charlottesville with their torches, yelling, ``Jews will not 
replace us. Unlike President Trump, I did not find good people 
on both sides. Rather, I saw dangerous racists and anti-Semites 
on one side. Yet Trump could not bring himself to treat neo-
Nazis and the KKK any differently than Vladimir Putin. Never a 
genuine word of criticism.
    Even today, our colleagues had to push back this very 
hearing in order to meet with the former President, who very 
recently said that Jews, like our former colleague Ted Deutch, 
who don't vote for him, ``hate their religion and hate 
Israel.'' I think we need a broad concept of what antisemitism 
is, and that it applies there also.
    I also reject the opposition and the attacks that have 
occurred on and off campuses to the very concept of a 
democratic Jewish state, which I support. There were no 
Palestinian martyrs on October 7, only murderers and rapists.
    Our hope, though, of saving the lives of innocent 
Palestinian women and children is diminished by every protest 
that can be discredited as antisemitic, and every action that 
drives our neighbors away, instead of causing more of them to 
recognize the true nature of the catastrophe that is ongoing 
today that results from Netanyahu's indiscriminate bombing and 
unwillingness to facilitate essential humanitarian aid to the 
Gazan people. In confronting rising antisemitism, we need equal 
concern about rising Islamophobia and hateful acts against 
Muslims, blaming the innocent for what they did not cause.
    I believe in policies and practices that protect all 
individuals, Jewish and Muslim, from hate and discrimination. 
This includes robust reporting mechanisms for antisemitic and 
Islamophobic incidents, comprehensive anti-bias training, as 
you have urged today, and a zero tolerance on hate speech and 
discrimination.
    Antisemitism should not be weaponized as a way to attack 
those of us who disagree with the policies of Israel's ultra-
right government, and specifically with the self-serving 
actions of Netanyahu and his partner, Ben-Gvir. Such 
misapplication only demeans the term ``antisemitic.''
    And today one of our Republican witnesses is here to take 
the misuse of antisemitism a step further by arguing that, ``A 
main contributor to the new left antisemitism is atmospheric: 
the radical diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, ideology.'' 
Such claims not only misconstrue diversity, equity, and 
inclusion, but also basically pit one minority group against 
another.
    DEI responds to decades of systematic exclusion of people 
of color from higher education in states like mine in Texas. It 
seeks to create a culture of respect and understanding for all. 
Both communities of color and Jewish Americans are all too 
familiar with the very real prejudice that they have endured. 
Shared mistreatment has often united them to stand up together 
against injustice.
    With the University of Texas at Austin yielding to the 
legislative pressure to shutter the Multicultural Engagement 
Center, we lost a home away from home, as many students 
described it. It is a center where, as Congressman Deutch has 
suggested, there ought to be a place to educate about Jewish 
history and antisemitism.
    I don't say that every DEI program across the country has 
been without fault, but we should be finding common ground 
there.
    And it is a mystery to me why the Republican leadership 
here continues to refuse to permit a vote on Congressman Kathy 
Manning's H.R. 7921, Countering Antisemitism Act to establish a 
national coordinator to oversee an interagency task force to 
counter antisemitism. It should have been approved long ago.
    We live in a time here in America and in the Middle East 
where neither side can appreciate the well-justified pain of 
the other. Together we have got to seek to overcome the fear 
and the pain to promote more understanding and capitalize on 
the talents of all Americans.
    I yield back.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska [presiding]. Thank you.
    Mr. Kelly, you are recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. KELLY. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you all for being 
here today.
    It is amazing that we think we can have a meeting of the 
Ways and Means Committee to come together to try to figure out 
what the heck is wrong with what is going on in the world 
today. The seeds of hate are sown long before the freshman 
year. They are sewn at home by mothers and fathers, grandmas 
and grandpas, aunts and uncles, and families. When we don't 
teach our children early on that hate is wrong at any level and 
in any people at all, I am amazed that we think there is a 
political answer to a human problem. We can pass all the laws 
we can. That doesn't mean they can be enforced, or that the 
people will even accept that that is a law that I have to 
follow.
    We are having a debate today, a political debate that goes 
far beyond politics. This is absolutely incredible, that we 
think that somehow these seeds of hate that are sown at a very 
early age and then fanned as the child grows can be corrected 
by a law. It goes far deeper than that. I think it is appalling 
that we think we have to call a committee hearing to address 
something that is so fundamental in the raising of our 
children.
    We have destroyed the nuclear family with different 
government programs. We have encouraged people to not try to 
get better, to try to get more understanding, to try to become 
a better person. And we have tried to substitute a government-
funded existence that is the worst thing to do to any human 
being.
    Ted, it is good to see you again, and I got to tell you I 
just lost a really good friend of mine not too long ago. We 
used to drive to high school together, and he was Jewish, and 
the things that he had to go through were absolutely appalling 
to me.
    We sit here today and think that a law can be passed to 
outlaw hate. And we know the drivers of most of this stuff that 
happens at our highest universities: it is funding. My gosh, we 
can't lose that stream of funding, so let's try to accommodate 
that. No, what we need to do is quit accommodating the type of 
behavior that we are seeing taking place not just here in 
America, but around the world.
    It is absolutely appalling that human beings can look at 
each other and hate each other for something that they believe 
in. I wish there was a law--and there is a law from a much 
higher source than men can do on their own.
    I have no questions of you, other than to say thank you for 
taking time out of your life to come here again to talk to 
people who love to turn everything into a political answer, as 
opposed to common decency. If it doesn't start at home, you 
can't expect it to grow. And if it is not supported by mothers 
and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas and 
neighbors, why do we wonder that we see these things happen, 
and by people who are in the highest places of education, and 
say, how can they be so filled with hate? And how can we sit 
back and think that somehow we are going to pass a law that 
changes that?
    The law we need to pass, if you are a mom and dad, it is 
your responsibility. It is your responsibility. There is no law 
that can be enacted that can stop this from happening. 
Recognizing it is one thing; accepting it is not an 
alternative.
    So thank you all for being here. I have no questions for 
you because we have talked before. We have talked before, and 
things have only gotten worse. And somehow, we think it is 
somehow it is the fault of a previous administration, or 
somebody who didn't do this, or didn't do that. And we say, 
please, find a mirror and take the longest look you can at the 
reflection and say, ``What have I done as an individual to make 
sure that my children don't grow up hate-filled, but rather 
thankful for the country they live in, and their opportunity to 
actually make a change or a difference in the world, a positive 
change?''
    So thank you again so much for doing this. I am baffled by 
our continuance to have meeting after meeting, hearing after 
hearing to think who is responsible for all this hate-filled 
part of our society? Find a mirror. Thank you.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. 
Thompson for five minutes.
    Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 
the witnesses for being here today.
    You know, in the months since October 7, communities across 
our country and in my district have had to grapple with 
enhanced antisemitism. On campuses in my district Jewish 
students have been harassed and threatened. There have been 
bloody handprints left on buildings. There is chants and signs 
of, ``From the river to the sea.'' Even Jewish high school 
students in my district have hate messages sent to them by 
fellow students. This is absolutely cruel, it is unacceptable, 
and it has to stop.
    I vehemently defend Americans' right to assemble, to free 
speech, and to protest, and I always will. But when Jewish 
students are being singled out, targeted, harassed, made to 
feel unsafe, that is not peaceful protest. It is not peaceful 
assembly. Reasonable people can and do disagree about Israel 
and Palestine, but we should all agree that students should be 
able to study and to learn, free of any harassment, let alone 
religious bigotry. Along with all my colleagues on this dais, I 
too believe antisemitism is appalling and has no place in our 
society.
    Congressman Deutch, good to see you here today. You 
mentioned that there is things that universities need to do to 
improve the situation on campuses, and you spoke to that in 
regard--in response to Chairman Neal's questions. But could you 
talk about the physical security measures that may be needed to 
ensure a safe and peaceful place from which students can learn?
    Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Thompson, and I don't want to 
take away from your time, but I just want to acknowledge that 
the question that Mr. Kelly asked about what can I do 
individually is a question that I think, really, all of us need 
to ask, and I appreciated that.
    Mr. Thompson, there is, as we have seen this dramatic 
increase in threats to Jewish students on campus, threats of 
violence since 10/7, the university has a responsibility to 
meet the potential security needs. It is true in religious and 
cultural places on campus. It is true in gatherings on campus, 
so that there is adequate security so that they don't have to 
close, shut down events in the middle, send people home because 
they are not equipped with adequate security. It is so that 
they don't have to cancel an event that was meant to be a 
public event, only to shuffle the participants to an 
undisclosed location, and a significantly smaller number, 
because that is all they are able to help secure.
    And it means ensuring that the speakers who come through, 
have the security that they need, so that you don't wind up 
losing the opportunity to hear from Israeli voices, and hear 
from Jewish voices who are told, ``Don't come to our campus 
because it is just not safe for you.''
    There have been now 150--Mr. Marcus can confirm this--more 
than 150 schools that have open title 6 investigations. The 
title 6 cases are important. I mentioned earlier universities 
should have title 6 offices so that they are starting to focus 
on these issues, including physical security, and a way to 
address them directly.
    Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much. I would like to yield 
the remainder of my time to Mr. Schneider.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you very much.
    And, Mr. Marcus, if I can turn to you a little bit, and it 
is a broad question, but I will set it up for later. The 
protests we are seeing on campus, the professors and scholars 
coming out to join or even lead changing curriculums in their 
campuses, is that something new or is this something that we 
have seen on campuses for a long period of time?
    Mr. MARCUS. So Mr. Schneider, we have seen protesters on 
campus for a long----
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. I am talking about the professors, the 
academic scholars, for example, with the ASA and other 
associations supporting anti-Israel positions and rhetoric.
    Mr. MARCUS. We have seen protests, but there are protests 
and there are protests. And we have seen faculty engaged in 
protests, but not at this level. Now we have a much greater 
politicization, a much greater polarization, a much greater 
involvement in faculty.
    And let's admit it, there is a difference between 
protesting a war in which one could say that there are, you 
know, issues of--it is very different when you look at a so-
called protest that began even before the Israeli Defense 
Forces encroached into Gaza, a so-called protest that began as 
soon as the Hamas atrocities became publicized. These are not 
just protests, these are extremist support for terrorist 
actions. The fact that faculty are supporting that in many 
cases, this is unprecedented, and shouldn't be compared to 
prior protest activity.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you, I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Mr. Schweikert is recognized.
    Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
    Okay, we are going to try to go through a couple things 
here. First off our scope is tax money, universities, those 
things. But I am incredibly concerned that the almost evil-
crazy that I see coming in on my own personal phone--the fact 
of the matter--and Congressman Deutch would be able to process 
this--you open up your phones on Monday morning and start 
having your staff go through your voicemails, and there is 
hundreds and hundreds of actually ``Burn civil society down,'' 
just almost evil. And my fear is much of it is a bot. It is the 
use of technology.
    How much of the mind-bending from the people who used to 
have the bumper sticker that would say, ``Coexist,'' to now it 
is a bumper sticker of a Palestinian flag with a weapon 
attached to it? What has snapped here?
    And my fear, Mr. Chairman, as we do our little piece here 
on universities, and how much of this is foreign influence 
money and other things falling through the process, are we 
capable, as Members of Congress, of having a societal 
discussion of the financers and generation of hate that seemed 
to be coming in from foreign entities, maybe even from some 
fairly sick entities in my own country? And it is burning 
down--the potential burning down of civil society across the 
world.
    Congressman Deutch, you won't remember, but years ago you 
and I had sort of a side conversation on some of this and my 
fear, the use of technology to push antisemitism, and that it 
is a handful of people who have bought bots and natural 
language, you know, chat. How much do you believe this evil is 
being pumped into our society, and manipulating young people's 
brains and even other people's brains is being financed from 
outsiders?
    Mr. DEUTCH. Well, we know a couple of things clearly. We 
know that state actors are involved in this effort to help 
divide the people of the United States from one another. We 
have seen the same thing. This is the playbook. That is the 
playbook that the Russians have used around the world and have 
done the same thing here.
    We know that that the Iranians and other state actors are 
also involved. And I am going to--this is one where I defer to 
the House and my former colleagues to continue to make sure 
that that is a focus.
    We also know, though, that when it comes to funding, the 
questions that are being asked are important, and the effort--
the deterrent act that seeks to have--impose penalties for non-
compliance with disclosures, I think, is important. At the same 
time, I think that I would just suggest--please.
    Mr. SCHWEIKERT. No, no, no, you--because you are going 
exactly where I want--can you help young persons, older people, 
people who, you know, they get their news from fringe, crazy 
things here understand through that disclosure you are being 
manipulated, you are being used. These people are trying to 
exploit you.
    Mr. DEUTCH. Right. I think it is important to remember 
that, while there is a serious effort to do that that is coming 
from the outside, what they are manipulating----
    Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Yes.
    Mr. DEUTCH [continuing]. Is the algorithms of the social 
media companies.
    I think we should start by expecting that the social media 
companies enforce their own rules about the kind of content on 
their platforms that put Jewish students, in particular in 
recent months, in harm's way.
    Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, the former congressman sort 
of went--I wish we as a body could have a more holistic 
discussion, because today it is antisemitism. It is burning 
down and moving back to a historic evil. And it will tear civil 
society apart.
    And look, I have a piece of legislation to try to provide 
more flexibility for the Religious Institutions Security Act, 
because how many of my schools actually now have to have armed 
guards there, and things of that nature. I wish we would 
actually look at a number of these ways we can protect each 
other.
    And then we have to have a conversation again. What the 
hell happened when my--the wonderful people--my leftist 
neighbor pulled off the ``Coexist'' bumper sticker and went the 
other direction. What snapped? I am not smart enough to 
understand it, but I am actually quite worried not only for my 
Jewish community, but for my country.
    I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you. Mr. LaHood is recognized for 
questions.
    Mr. LaHOOD. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this 
hearing today. I want to thank the witnesses for your valuable 
testimony here today and your passion.
    Welcome back, Congressman Deutch. Good to have you here.
    Since the atrocious terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on 
October 7, we have seen widespread antisemitic activity on our 
college campuses, as has been alluded to today, one estimate 
reporting a 321 percent increase from 2022. What is worse, we 
have seen a complete lack of leadership by university leaders 
and campus administrators at many institutions, leaving Jewish 
students, faculty, alumni, and community members without any 
actual protection or support.
    As we continue to see this antisemitism rage on college 
campuses, I think it is important to consider the U.S. 
Department of Education's role here, as well. As many of you 
know, Title VI of the Higher Education Act prohibits 
discrimination based on national origin and shared ancestry, 
among other things--and it is supposed to be enforced by the 
Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, also known as 
OCR.
    Unfortunately, OCR too frequently settles these cases with 
schools through resolution agreements instead of making a final 
determination about whether a Title VI violation actually 
occurred. As a result, it appears that many schools avoid 
scrutiny and accountability for their actions by implementing 
short-term remedial corrective actions, as directed by the 
Department of Education.
    Mr. Marcus, I appreciate your public service. As we look at 
this ability of the Department of Education and their Office of 
Civil Rights to enforce Title VI violations, I am just curious. 
As we look at the last eight months and what has gone on in 
these college campuses, I am curious what you think, your 
opinion on whether the Biden Administration has done a good job 
in enforcing Title VI and handling these complaints of 
antisemitism that we have seen across the country.
    Mr. MARCUS. Thank you, Congressman LaHood.
    I think that this Administration has done some things well 
with respect to antisemitism, especially in outreach, public 
messaging, and transparency. But the investigations have been 
extremely slow, the policy formulations have been weak. There 
have been too few in the way of resolutions, and there have 
been dismissals that I think are hard to defend. So I would say 
it has been a mixed bag.
    And I would also say that you make a good point about the 
problem that some cases that should lead to a final disposition 
and perhaps punishments are resolved perhaps prematurely, but 
in ways that the statute may require because, by statute, OCR 
must seek a voluntary resolution, and in some cases that does 
weaken their response.
    Mr. LaHOOD. Can you give us any examples in the last eight 
months where there has been a determination that has been done 
that will send a deterrent message to this type of behavior by 
universities?
    Mr. MARCUS. No, sir, not in the last eight months with 
respect to a university.
    With respect to the Davidson School, which is K-12 in the 
last month, perhaps. With respect to the last maybe 16 months, 
the University of Vermont. So there have been a couple of cases 
that have sent useful signals, but not enough, not recently 
enough, and especially not recently with respect to higher 
education.
    Mr. LaHOOD. Well, I would agree with that. Can you tell me 
if a proper civil judgment was, you know, put in place against 
a university or a college through the Title VI process, tell me 
what that would do in terms of sending a message from a 
financial standpoint and a deterrent message of the 
consequences for the lack of enforcement.
    Mr. MARCUS. So monetary judgments can sometimes be 
available under title 6 with a private lawsuit, but those are 
expensive, not available to everyone, and time-consuming.
    Under the OCR process, there are very few instances in 
which money damages are available. If there were an ability to 
get money damages, it would presumably provide a nice incentive 
effect. I think that that would be a useful addition to the 
process.
    Mr. LaHOOD. Is it your recommendation that we ought to 
think about statutory changes to make the enforcement mechanism 
stronger and more robust?
    Mr. MARCUS. Yes, sir. The process is--it is slow, it is 
weak, and I think it would be useful to consider strengthening 
it not just for Jewish students, but for all.
    Mr. LaHOOD. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Mr. Larson.
    Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 
all the witnesses, especially Talia.
    And for all you have been through, we appreciate your 
testimony and your passion and commitment.
    Also, Mr. Chairman, I want to commend--this is--not often 
on the committee do we see unanimity in terms of the forthright 
concern about antisemitism, and some of the compelling 
testimony, and also some of the compelling questions from our 
colleagues.
    Along the lines of what a number of members have said, I 
wanted to ask our former colleague, Mr. Deutch, especially 
because you are so familiar with the process.
    I would like to submit for the record a report from the 
Department of Education that shows that the Department of 
Education Office of Civil Rights has received a record number 
of discrimination complaints while losing Department staff, and 
so that kind of cuts to the question that Mr. Marcus was asked, 
as well, et cetera, and also plays to your response with regard 
to the administration. If your budget is cut, and you have 
record number of complaints, and were not receiving the 
resources, and the Department of Education isn't able to meet 
these critical cases, what happens, especially when cases are 
put forward and they are left open for months.
    [See the Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Deutch, could you respond to that?
    Mr. DEUTCH. Sure. First, just to follow up on Mr. Marcus's 
point, I think--and your exchange with Mr. LaHood--I think it 
is really important for the Department to be very clear about 
what the potential repercussions are for universities, so that 
everyone understands, so that everyone understands what the 
result of these cases could be, where these could lead. The 
fact that they are now--it is a step forward that they are now 
disclosing the number of cases. I think it is really important 
to be clear about what the penalties are.
    And then, at the same time, the good news is there are so 
many--good news/bad news--but because of the situation we are 
in, there is a crisis, but they are stepping up to meet the 
crisis and launching these investigations. The problem is there 
aren't sufficient investigators. There aren't enough resources.
    I agree with Mr. Marcus that it is slow. The workload for 
each of the investigators almost guarantees that. They need 
additional funding so that you can bulk up the staff at this 
moment, when these--more investigators will mean a greater and 
a faster response.
    Mr. LARSON. Thank you. I agree with Mr. Marcus, as well, 
with regard to that.
    And I also agree that there is no one on this committee on 
this issue that has as much passion as Mr. Schneider, and I 
will yield to him my remaining time.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I am 
going to pick up where I left off. I asked Mr. Marcus about 
what he had seen in the past. Professor Davidai, you have kind 
of been outspoken, and you have experienced it.
    And first, let me apologize. I conflated Columbia with 
Cornell. I know, Talia, you graduated from Cornell, as did you, 
Professor Davidai. But you are at Columbia now.
    And we saw this almost with a flip of a switch on October 
7, the protests. Can you touch a little bit on what you saw on 
October 7 and 8 in Columbia, as far as what the protests, 
including from professors, looked like?
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Yes, actually, I disagree with the premise. 
This was not a switch that changed. This is something that has 
been for decades. There has been a movie in 2004 called 
``Columbia Unbecoming,'' about the antisemitic professors, many 
who I have mentioned in my testimony. Columbia has known about 
this and done nothing about that.
    You asked about protests before. Well, in 2005--or starting 
in 2005, Professor George Saliba used to cancel classes so his 
students can attend anti-Israel protests. What we have seen is 
not a switch, just an increase in the vehemence. And it 
actually points to the question Mr. Schweikert asked of what 
snapped. Nothing snapped. If you look around, the vast majority 
of your colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, are not 
here. They didn't see this as a top priority. So their 
constituents and the students around the country, they see that 
antisemitism, support for terrorism is not a priority for the 
House. So why wouldn't they go and protest?
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you. I am going to challenge you, 
though.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Yes.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. We have often times two, three hearings all 
at the same time.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Exactly.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. There is a Budget hearing going on as we are 
talking now.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. That is why I said a priority. I didn't say 
they don't want to be here. They have other priorities.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. It is not a matter of priority. We come, we 
go. People will be here. You will see them coming throughout 
this. This is a priority. That is why we have this hearing. It 
is a priority. That is why we have had legislation come to the 
floor, and we need to make sure it stays a priority. We elevate 
it. And as Mr. Larson said, this is something that on both 
sides of the aisle in this committee, Republicans and 
Democrats, are focused on.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. I respectfully disagree.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. I yield back.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. I have to say I respect--priorities are--the 
top priority is where you show up, and this is not the top 
priority. It is a second, third, or fourth priority.
    Chairman SMITH. Mr. Davidai, I completely agree with you. I 
believe members of this committee were asked to serve on this 
committee, and they should be present, and it is all about 
priorities. We are busy people, but this is the most important 
committee in Congress, and that is why people should be in 
their seats.
    Dr. Wenstrup.
    Mr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to give a 
heartfelt thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. 
You have been through a lot.
    And before I begin, I would like to submit a statement for 
the record on behalf of my good friend, Dr. Murphy, who could 
not attend the hearing today due to a personal medical issue. 
Dr. Murphy is a former member of the Board of Trustees at 
Davidson College, so he has firsthand knowledge of the seismic 
shift we are seeing on college campuses today.
    [The statement of Dr. Murphy follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    And frankly, I find it disheartening and profoundly 
disappointing that we are all here once again forced to reckon 
with this virulent antisemitism that has only grown worse since 
we last convened in November in the wake of the October 7 
attacks. It is very disappointing.
    You know, what I see happening on our college campuses, to 
me, is anti-American, it is anti-Jewish, it is anti-freedom. 
And to me, these are nothing more--some of these campuses have 
become nothing more than treasonous cells and terrorist cells.
    Ms. Dror, you have been terrorized, and so have many 
others.
    I don't know what people are supposed to do for a college 
education for their kids today. You know, maybe we can go to 
homeschooling for college. I don't know where we are supposed 
to go.
    We need to consider where we allow our tax dollars to go. 
Our President wants to pay off student loans even for those 
that hate America. And it is the very taxpayers whose money it 
would take to do so. What are we doing?
    You know, it is not just universities. It is throughout. It 
is in sports. It is everywhere else. I had an NFL running back 
one time get in my face that I haven't done enough to promote 
DEI. I didn't see him promoting DEI for his offensive line. It 
was merit-based, wasn't it?
    And though many institutions, their intentions may be 
good--and when we see this in professional sports, you know, 
not all teams are playing along with the negativity. And what I 
would much rather see in end zones today is maybe something as 
simple as love your neighbor. That seems to me to cover it all, 
and we would be much better off.
    So I think about what can we do here in this body besides 
greater awareness that only goes so far. Professor, you just 
alluded to that. It is very difficult. But I will say this, and 
I allow any one of you to answer the question. What would 
happen if we cut off federal funds to any university that was 
allowing these types of things to go on on their campuses?
    Mr. DAVIDAI. So I would say that, even before you cut it 
off, their knees will start shaking and change will happen.
    We have to remember, Columbia University is the largest 
private landlord in New York City, and it is a tax-exempt 
largest private landlord. They own the land of Rockefeller 
Center. They own most of Morningside Heights, and many of the 
buildings in Harlem. You know, if only the thought of losing 
that tax exemption would pass through their minds, you would 
see no more antisemitism. You won't see any misdoing anything 
on campus, because these universities--and I have spent a lot 
of time in these universities--they are not elite universities, 
they are expensive universities. All they care about is money 
and PR. And if you start playing with that, things will change.
    Mr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. Anyone else?
    Ms. DROR. I couldn't agree more, and I would like to 
actually take this moment to thank Mr. Smith for his 
investigation. Every single positive action I have seen out of 
Cornell in the past seven months has been the result of the 
pressure of this committee. I have a lot to be grateful for, 
but I do think that you will see tangible, tangible results 
when you place pressure on these universities that think that 
they are allergic to any form of punishment.
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. May I add one thing? And thank you for the 
question.
    I think the premise behind the tax exemption is that these 
are institutions that are organized and operated exclusively 
for educational purposes. Universities don't look today what 
they looked like 50 years ago. They have 4, 5, $6 billion 
budgets. They manage wealth equivalent to a large hedge fund. 
They sell a lavish college experience, luxury dorms, gourmet 
food subsidized by taxpayers. They operate multi-million or 
billion-dollar research labs. They hire teams of lobbyists. 
Some have hundreds of millions in foreign revenue. They run DEI 
programs that understand their purpose as being to reengineer 
American society. That is a political purpose; that is not an 
educative function.
    Elite universities are simply no longer driven by truth-
seeking or education as their guiding ethos.
    Mr. WENSTRUP. Anyone else?
    Thank you, I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Dr. Ferguson.
    Dr. FERGUSON. Thank you, Chairman Smith, and thanks to each 
of you for being here. I want you to think about time in our 
nation's history when we actually had universities that would 
discriminate against African-Americans on admissions policies. 
How horrible do we think that that was and is, and it should 
never happen again.
    And I take you back to the case of United States v. Bob 
Jones University, where, because of their racially 
discriminatory policies, their tax-exempt status was removed. 
And in studying the case--and keep in mind, I am a dentist 
playing lawyer up here, so you will have to excuse my very 
simplistic method here, but it seems that we are in very 
similar territory right now, where you have universities that 
are clearly violating the civil rights of its students.
    And the Honorable Mr. Marcus, could you weigh in on--do you 
think that there are similarities in the violation of the 
students' civil rights today that is like what happened with 
Bob Jones University?
    And do you think that that should be reason for the IRS to 
revoke the tax-exempt status of these universities that 
continue to violate the civil rights of their students?
    Mr. MARCUS. Congressman Ferguson, you have raised an 
important issue. I don't think we need to compare the 
discrimination that Jewish students faced to those of African 
Americans to realize that there is a problem, and a problem 
that is not being taken seriously enough.
    Universities are responding to OCR investigations. They are 
responding to lawsuits. However, most universities are 
virtually addicted to Federal funding and tax exemption. If any 
university was seriously threatened with either one of them, it 
would create a massive change within both that university and 
also its peers around the country.
    Right now we don't have that sort of incentive effect. We 
don't have the sort of action that you described with respect 
to Bob Jones University. But if we had that sort of 
forcefulness, it would get a very different sort of reaction 
than what we have been seeing.
    Dr. FERGUSON. So what--and, you know, look, I am pragmatic, 
and I am a political realist. And we could go through the 
process of writing legislation and passing laws. I don't know 
that--how many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
would move to advance this, particularly in the U.S. Senate, 
and I have really no hope that the current Administration would 
sign it into law, much less enforce it.
    However, there is precedent to do this administratively 
through--with the IRS, and it seems to me that a very similar 
type of environment exists here. And I am just wondering when 
student groups or different advocacy groups would actually look 
at suing these universities to have their tax-exempt status 
removed for violation of the Civil Rights Act.
    In addition to that, not only should the IRS look at it 
administratively following their guidelines from previous 
cases, but I think they should even think about introducing not 
only removing the tax-exempt status, but possibly a financial 
penalty, as well. If these schools are going to receive federal 
funds--and if they don't do that, there should be some sort of 
clawback or even some sort of penalty.
    Professor, could you speak to that?
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Yes, I really appreciate your pragmatism. Like 
you, I don't like big ideas that are not rooted in reality. So 
I would say the most pragmatic thing is for Americans to 
understand what they are funding, right?
    Like, we talk about universities as this broad thing----
    Dr. FERGUSON. But Professor, I think this committee and our 
chairman have done a great job of really looking at that piece 
of it. But in the end, there has got to be a mechanism or a 
lever that can be pulled that has a profound effect on their 
behavior. And it seems to me--and Doctor, if you could weigh in 
on this very quickly--that removal of the tax-exempt status, 
and that tool has been used in the past by the IRS--it seems 
like that would be a very effective tool, and also a financial 
penalty for the violation of student rights while they are 
receiving Federal funds.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Right, so one thing----
    Dr. FERGUSON. Professor, do you mind if I let Dr.----
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Oh, because I would just say--sorry, but one 
thing that I would say. Once the universities' budgets get 
hurt, this will be affecting the professor's budget. And once 
the professor's salaries and research budgets get hurt, they 
will upkeep the norms, and push out the hateful professors from 
amidst them.
    Dr. FERGUSON. So very quickly, Mr. Chairman, do you mind if 
we--response----
    Chairman SMITH. Proceed quickly.
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. So my opinion is that only strong financial 
incentives will change behavior.
    One of the things we have observed in the last eight months 
is that universities that don't have tremendous amounts of 
resources, they don't have this problem. And the reason they 
don't have this problem is because they don't have money to 
waste on highly ideological, divisive programs. They focus on 
educating. And so, if we constrain the funding, universities 
will have to make choices, and some of them will redirect their 
resources to their educational mission.
    Dr. FERGUSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your 
indulgence.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Mr. Pascrell.
    Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for putting 
us together this morning on this very important topic. Each 
witness was excellent, I thought. And I think, Mr. Chairman, it 
is good to point out the fact that some of our brothers and 
sisters have left. They probably have other assignments. But 
don't forget, we were a half hour late. We were a half hour 
late starting the committee to begin with. And I am not trying 
to be a wise guy, but what is fair is fair here.
    The children are listening. Don't think they are not 
listening. So we can compare notes since October the 7th to 
talk about how we, our families, have been put in jeopardy 
perhaps. But we must protect also what I would call academia. 
We are not going to solve this problem by threatening academia. 
We haven't in the past on other issues.
    I agree to some degree with my brother from Pennsylvania, 
Mr. Kelly, that the law and your heart are two different 
things. We know that. But we are a nation of laws. We made that 
decision a long time ago. And balancing those losses is 
difficult. It is complex. That is why we have a legislature. 
That is why we have an executive. That is why we have a Supreme 
Court. Regardless of how you like them or you don't like them, 
that is why we have three branches of government to try to 
check and balance. So you are not going to solve this problem 
and threaten academia.
    And free speech is very important and very critical. When 
it interrupts the comfort of a student trying to learn at a 
college, we have a right to stand and protest that, to get the 
institution who allows it to happen to wake up. I think that is 
critical.
    I studied the anatomy of what happened in Charlottesville. 
I studied it very carefully from the two days before it 
happened until the time when--what was his name? We forgot his 
name already. James Fields killed a counter-protester, Heather 
Heyer. I studied it very carefully, of what started off the 
neo-Nazis that ran the park two nights in a row, and what they 
chanted. Study what they chanted and what it meant.
    We got major problems here. And you cannot equivocate. You 
cannot say there is good and bad in each of the groups and 
everything like that that we heard.
    Democrats and Republicans have not done the job as they 
should. But the children are listening. And the first people 
they listened to were their parents. Listen to what Mr. Kelly 
said. The parents, us. A wink and a blink gets you by 
sometimes, but it causes a tremendous amount of damage.
    Tens of millions of Americans have been shocked and 
disgusted by the antisemitic poison we have seen in college 
campuses. The displays of many of these campuses are a 
disgrace. Administrators, faculty at some of these schools have 
fostered environments of intolerance, ignorance, and cruelty in 
the name of free speech, in the name of free speech.
    No, we are not going to solve this by law. But if we are 
quiet, and we don't speak up our minds, and are not afraid to 
stand even when the crowd may not be with us--it is easy to 
talk to everybody who agrees with us--we are in bad shape, 
worse shape than I thought.
    So I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that this be an ongoing 
situation until not only we cool the waters, but we see 
progress on the campuses so that we define what free speech is 
and what it is not. And when I am on a campus to learn, and I 
don't feel comfortable even to go to class, that is horrific. 
And I will not tolerate it as a legislator. So get rid of me, 
then. Try.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I hope we have another one 
soon.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Steel is 
recognized.
    Mrs. STEEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for hosting this 
hearing, and thank you for all the witnesses coming in.
    I am not here to lecture you, because you know more than I 
do about antisemitism and, you know, what is going on with the 
campus. But we must ensure that schools are fulfilling their 
educational purpose as required to maintain tax-exempt status 
under the law.
    But Professor Davidai just said that, you know, just take 
that tax-exempt status away. I don't think that is enough, 
because we have to do more than that. So my bill, the DETERRENT 
Act, would add transparency, accountability, and clarity to 
colleges and universities, and hold them accountable for 
foreign funds they receive. And I hope that Senate will pass it 
immediately because we see the Qatari, pro-Hamas countries 
that, you know, they are actually pouring money in, hundreds of 
millions of dollars to these universities.
    When we had a hearing at the Education Committee, I asked 
those university presidents--they are the ones raising funds 
for their universities, and I asked them, How much you 
received, the money from Qatar? He decided not to answer. 
Actually, they said they are going to come back to us. But you 
know what? We didn't get any answers because they all resigned 
from their positions.
    So I really want to see how much we really pour money into 
brainwashing our students. Just brainwashing. You know what? We 
have to teach our kids how to think, instead of just 
brainwashing and spreading this propaganda. So we really have 
to change these campuses.
    And another thing is, when we actually take tax money away, 
it is not--as of now, actually, it is not even going to the 
classes or professors. It goes to the administration. We have 
our--these prominent universities. It has a much, much bigger 
administration than actually this money going into the 
classroom. So we have to really watch out that--how much is 
really going to the classrooms and students that, you know, we 
really have to change that.
    So Mr. Marcus, when students are assaulted during campus 
events--because I just saw that--I think you all did, too, the 
video--UCLA is one of the prominent colleges. I didn't go 
there, I went to USC, so it is--you know, I think USC is a much 
better school than UCLA. But having said that, one of the 
Jewish students at UCLA was kicked in the face. They took his 
yarmulke off. And this anti-Israeli protester during a pro-
Palestinian encampment--this protester was chasing him with a 
taser. It should not happen on the campus.
    So do you think it is a good indicator that schools are 
fulfilling their educational purpose, as required by law?
    And what do we have to do?
    I think I am asking Mr. Marcus about this.
    Mr. MARCUS. Well, Congresswoman Steel, I think that it is 
fair to say that, when students are assaulted in that way, they 
are prevented from enjoying an equal opportunity to an 
education, no question about it.
    I would also say that on many campuses there is a 
permissiveness towards masked students. And then the 
universities say, well, what can we do about it? We can't 
identify the perpetrator. Well, they don't have to permit the 
masks in the first place, and they certainly can take action 
after it happens, if not also before. Yes, indeed.
    Mrs. STEEL. How about those--that UCLA had the mandatory 
meeting that the lecturer led the students in a ``Free 
Palestine'' chant. I don't know if you guys all read about it 
or you guys all watched it or not.
    But Mr. Marcus, based on what you have seen, can you speak 
to the role that radical faculty like this play in the 
antisemitism occurring across the college campuses?
    Mr. MARCUS. Look, there are good faculty and not good 
faculty. But too often we are seeing faculty members who are 
promoting this in a lot of different ways. There has been 
discussion today about faculty members who actually join in 
bigoted protest activities. But even beyond that, there are 
faculty members who encourage it through their teaching, 
through the doctrines they adopt, through the ways in which 
they use the bully pulpit, as it were, to spread hate towards 
the Jewish people, towards Israeli-Americans and others.
    We can look at all of the new policies we would like from 
Administration. But as long as faculty are fomenting this hate, 
we are really not going to solve the problem.
    Mrs. STEEL. Dr. Pidluzny--if I pronounced it right; if I 
didn't, I am sorry--I understand that you have written about 
this previously, what are your thoughts on what schools could 
do better to combat the rise of antisemitism on their campuses, 
and the role that radical faculty are playing in it?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. Thank you for the question, and I applaud the 
DETERRENT Act. Thank you for all that work.
    I think we know from empirical research that universities 
with pro-BDS, anti-Zionist faculty see higher levels of 
student-on-student harassment, and we know that those faculty 
are funded by foreign entities.
    So I would say the first thing that they should do is they 
should audit their foreign gifts. That is one thing that OCR 
should ask universities to do as it starts to reach some 
settlement agreements: Audit your foreign gifts and disclose 
their purpose to the Department of Education.
    Another thing that I think they could do is audit their 
academic programs. Is their intense, anti-Israel bias in public 
affairs? If there is intense intellectual bias in public 
affairs disciplines, bring viewpoint diversity to those 
disciplines so that students hear two sides.
    Mrs. STEEL. Thank you very much.
    I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Mr. Smucker.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this 
hearing.
    Since this committee met in November and December of last 
year, not only has antisemitism on college campuses grown 
worse, it has also morphed into anti-American rhetoric, as 
well. And several institutions that we have heard today have 
placated the mob of violent protesters who have terrorized 
Jewish students. And we all worry, I think, about what the 
situation will look like when classes resume at the end of the 
summer.
    At an earlier hearing I had asked about the impact of 
foreign money from adversarial nations, or nations that don't 
have our own interests in mind, the impact of that money on 
domestic higher education systems. For example, Qatar has 
contributed $4.7 billion to U.S. academic institutions from 
2001 to 2021. It is the same country that harbors leaders of 
Hamas in Doha, finances Hamas, and blamed Israel for the 
October 7 attacks.
    The University of Pennsylvania in my state received $130 
million in donations from China from 2018 to 2023, including 
from individuals with ties to the CCP. And of course, that is 
the same CCP which has falsely accused Israel of being an 
oppressor nation, and took the side of South Africa in calling 
Israel's response to the October 7 terror attacks a genocide.
    Mr. Pidluzny--and I hope I got the name close to right--
most higher education institutions are tax-exempt organizations 
under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. This was 
discussed briefly. But when this section of the tax code was 
created, do you believe it was intended to be leveraged by 
foreign governments?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. Absolutely not. You know, I said a moment 
ago--I think you may have not been in the room--that the 
universities' tax-exempt status is based on their being 
organized and operated exclusively for educational purposes. I 
think, if you go back 50 years, that probably is true of the 
vast majority of universities. They take educating very 
seriously.
    Today, you know, I am in the habit of recommending that 
young people don't go to an elite university, as when I was a 
university professor, or that they don't go to an R1 research 
university because the faculty are in their labs doing 
research, they are mentoring their graduate students, and they 
aren't interested in undergraduate education.
    So today our university systems or multiversities, they are 
not focused on education, right? They are focused on 
disseminating an ideology, right? Administrative spending is 
through the roof. Some universities have more administrators 
than they have undergraduates.
    Mr. SMUCKER. So you would agree that it certainly is not 
within the spirit of the law for foreign governments to 
directly or indirectly promote their agendas at colleges and 
universities?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. Of course not. You know, the----
    Mr. SMUCKER. Do you think--and I am sorry, I just don't 
have a lot of time--do you think these institutions that 
receive foreign donations should be subject to taxes on those 
donations?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. I think that is an idea worth exploring, 
because the only way to change behavior will be financial 
levers.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Do you know if foreign universities, just by 
comparison, do they accept donations or grants from American 
citizens, institutions, or the federal government?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. That is not something I have studied.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Yes, and I wonder, if they do, how do foreign 
countries regulate or monitor those grants? Do you have any--do 
you know at all?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. I am not aware, no.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Mr. Marcus, you have seen how the Education 
Department has failed at properly enforcing Title VI. Do you 
believe that foreign donations which fund certain faculty 
fellowships or departmental chairs have influenced the 
curriculum at these institutions?
    Mr. MARCUS. Foreign governments and foreign entities are 
pumping a large amount of money into U.S. universities, and it 
is hard to imagine that it is having no influence, and 
particularly no deleterious influence.
    At the same time, I would have to say that we are doing a 
weak job on our own, particularly when it comes to our 
elementary and secondary schools, which are now themselves also 
a source of antisemitism, which then creates worse problems in 
higher education.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Sure. What transparency do we have now, or 
what could we do to ensure that there is transparency around 
these foreign grants, which potentially shape the school 
curriculum?
    Mr. MARCUS. We do have rules that require disclosure of 
foreign contributions to U.S. universities, but weak 
enforcement systems and little in the way of penalties when 
they fail to do so. As a result, there has been widespread 
failure to report over the years.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Mr. Davis.
    Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
hearing, and I don't think we can discuss the issues enough 
that we are discussing now.
    I want to thank all of the witnesses for the care and 
attention that you have given to your responses and to your 
positions.
    As I listen to the discussion, I am reminded of something 
that President John Kennedy said one time discussing peace. And 
he said that peace is not only found in treaties, covenants, 
and charters, but in the hearts of men. And I guess, if he was 
alive, he probably would say the hearts of men and women. So I 
think we look for many places for answers and solutions.
    It is so good to see you, Ted. And I am very interested in 
the work that you are doing, and I assume that the purpose of 
our hearing is to try and reduce antisemitism, reduce the rise, 
reduce discrimination, reduce hatred, reduce all of those 
negative things that we are seeing exist on college campuses. 
And I guess not only on college campuses, because they exist in 
many other places, many other organizational entities, and all 
of the places where people do business.
    Representative Deutch, let me ask you. Because I think if 
we take or if we allow ourselves to take a deeper dive into the 
history of our nation, the history of our Constitution, the 
history of how America got to be the America that it is, that 
many people would have different levels of understanding and 
different views.
    So my first question to you is, do you think if we studied 
history more in our elementary and high schools, or leading up 
to college campuses, that by the time individuals get there 
their views may be different than some of what is being 
expressed?
    Mr. DEUTCH. Representative Davis, thank you. It is good to 
see you, as well.
    The answer to that is absolutely yes. The challenge--and 
Mr. Marcus just alluded to this--the challenge is that now, in 
too many elementary and middle and high schools, we have seen--
just as we are seeing on college campuses, we are seeing an 
attempt to erase the Jewish contribution in America, to 
specifically exclude the Jewish community, to refuse to 
acknowledge the existence of antisemitism.
    And the problem--I want to make one point, Congressman 
Davis, that has not been made, because it should be obvious. 
The reason all of this--the reason that everything that 
Professor Davidai has experienced is so relevant to everything 
we are discussing, our own survey shows that over 80 percent of 
American Jews, over 80 percent, say that caring about Israel is 
important to what being Jewish means to them. That is the--with 
that understanding, Congressman Davis, yes, we need people to 
better understand the facts about the Jewish community, the 
facts about Israel, the facts about the history of antisemitism 
that did not start on October 8, that for millennia this is 
what we have been battling, what that means, and why we have to 
combat it.
    Mr. DAVIS. You mentioned the need for mandatory 
antisemitism training. Are there examples of----
    Mr. DEUTCH. Yes, sure. We, AJC, has provided training for 
both high schools and, importantly, universities around the 
country who will, when they acknowledge the problem on their 
campus, will come in and provide training to the president and 
his or her senior staff, or to all of the faculty, or, best 
case, to the entire university community to help them 
understand what antisemitism is, what the Jewish community is, 
to help break down the antisemitic conspiracy theories that so 
many people aren't even aware that they are using, and to help 
them understand why anti-Zionism that says that the only state 
in the world that has no right to exist is the Jewish state has 
the impact that it does on the Jewish community when you say 
it, particularly when the way that you say it is to call for 
death to Zionists.
    Mr. DAVIS. So we need to do as much in the way of educating 
as we do trying to change our rules and laws and all of those 
other things, as well. And one is probably as good as the 
other.
    Mr. DEUTCH. We need to educate as--and even as all--as the 
August members of this committee talk about potential changes 
to the law, the opportunity right now to go to all of your 
local universities, all of the universities in the country and 
ask the presidents, ``It is now the middle of June, what are 
you doing to prepare for what is likely to occur, and the 
threats that will exist for Jewish students when they return in 
the fall?'' Now is the time for them to prepare those plans, 
and to share them with the community and with the country.
    Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.
    And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Mr. Hern.
    Mr. HERN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the witnesses 
for being here.
    Congressman, thanks for being here.
    There are many Jewish families and organizations in my 
district in Tulsa, Oklahoma who are integral to our community. 
My district also has a large evangelical population that prays 
for the peace of Jerusalem, and I am proud to be one of those. 
We also have the Sherwin Miller Museum, which hosts a sobering 
exhibit, educating, as you just mentioned, citizens on the 
realities of the Holocaust.
    Understanding and remembering history is important if we 
wish to avoid repeating the horrors of the past, just as my 
colleague from Illinois just mentioned. Every American should 
be outraged by what we are seeing across the country. These 
demonstrations are pro-terrorism and anti-American, and should 
be universally condemned.
    This isn't just about expression. It is a dangerous 
endorsement of violence on American soil. It is alarming, 
protesters scaling buildings, waving terrorist propaganda, 
repeating slogans rooted in hatred, barring Jews from entering 
buildings, holding janitors captive. This isn't activism; it is 
extremism, borderline terrorism.
    It is deeply troubling to see the lack of moral clarity in 
university leaders who refuse to condemn antisemitic 
demonstrations on campuses. It is a sad day in America when 
parents at school board meetings are deemed terrorists, but 
Hamas's brutal violence against women and children is defended, 
even celebrated, on our campuses across America.
    Unfortunately, this confusion and chaos at higher 
institutions of higher ed is not an anomaly. For decades, 
prestigious colleges have slowly soiled their reputations by 
embracing Marxism, Confucius institutes, and moral relativism 
at the expense of merit, virtue, and truth. Education is no 
longer the mission. Whether intentionally or not, this is 
stupidity. Universities have allowed radical ideologies, often 
funded by the Chinese Communist Party, to indoctrinate our 
students. Universities have strayed from their academic mission 
in pursuit of DEI, teaching students to make judgments of 
people based on race, gender, and sexual identity, instead of 
teaching students to respect every person as an individual with 
dignity and inherent worth.
    All is not lost, though. In the face of blatant hatred and 
antisemitism, millions of Americans of all races and religions 
have shown support, love, and kindness to our Jewish friends 
and neighbors. Support for Hamas is support for terrorism, 
plain and simple. Organizations that funnel money to terrorists 
or take money from known terrorist organizations should not 
hold tax-exempt status.
    As members of this Ways and Means Committee, we hold the 
power of the purse and tax-exempt status. With that power comes 
great responsibility to provide oversight on charities and 
universities that potentially abuse their tax-exempt status. 
American universities continue to receive billions of dollars 
in the form of taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks, and federal 
payments. Yet antisemitic incidences increase on our campus. 
Higher ed should not continue to receive taxpayer money in the 
form of federal payments, grants, or tax exemptions if they 
continue to turn a blind eye to antisemitism on their campuses.
    Dr. Pidluzny, I understand you have written extensively 
about DEI efforts on college campuses, particularly about how 
these efforts fundamentally alter the course of an 
institution's academic mission. These are the same institutions 
that receive billions of taxpayer dollars each year through the 
tax-exempt status. Do you believe these institutions, who 
either implement DEI policies or promote antisemitism, are 
worthy of taxpayer dollars?
    Should American taxpayers be forced to subsidize this 
institutional hatred?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. Not if they continue once they are warned.
    So I think universities need to be on warning that this is 
something this committee is looking at.
    I would also like to say a little bit about how profoundly 
DEI has reshaped these institutions. We are talking about an 
investment of 25 to $35 million at large universities like 
University of Texas System or University of Florida System or 
Berkeley. That is a quarter billion dollars over a decade, 
right? That allows an army of activists to incorporate DEI 
screens into hiring processes, into tenure policies. They 
create mandatory trainings that teach young people to make snap 
judgments about each other based on race stereotypes, race 
exclusionary graduations, bias response teams, forbidden word 
lists, new curriculum, right? This has profoundly transformed 
our institutions.
    Mr. HERN. Thank you.
    Mr. Marcus, can you tell us what role you have seen DEI 
programs play in the rise of antisemitism on college campuses?
    Mr. MARCUS. Congressman Hern, I have seen a mixed bag. In 
candor, we have seen some students who say that the DEI offices 
have been a help to them when they face antisemitism. We have 
seen many who say that it is not helpful to them. And we have 
seen some who will say that it is a problem for a few reasons, 
first because DEI offices in so many cases fail to even 
recognize that Jewish students exist, or that antisemitism is a 
problem; second because they too often have this notion of 
oppressors and oppressed with nothing in between, and that sort 
of simplicity isn't helpful; and third because, once they make 
that division, they too often say, well, Jews are not among the 
oppressed, they are among the oppressors, and they fall back on 
stereotypes that are harmful both to Jews and everyone else.
    Mr. HERN. Thank you for your testimony.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Mr. Kustoff.
    Mr. KUSTOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the 
witnesses for appearing today.
    And Mr. Marcus, if I could with you, I want to follow up on 
a line of questioning that Congressmen Smucker and Hern have 
asked about. In fact, I just looked up it has been 250 days 
since the October 7 attacks which--in some ways it seems like 
longer, in some ways it seems like yesterday, I think, to 
everybody.
    This past weekend, with the hostage rescue--by the way, 
they weren't released, as some news organizations said. They 
were rescued, bravely. But we learned that a journalist who was 
working for the Palestine Chronicle was holding Israeli 
hostages in his home in Gaza. Three of the four that were 
released was held by him.
    And I do want to remind people that the Palestine Chronicle 
is part of the People Media Project, which is a 500(c)(3) tax-
exempt organization based in the United States of America.
    So I bring all that up--Congressman Schneider and I 
cosponsored a bill, H.R. 6408. It is a bill to revoke the tax-
exempt status of any non-profit that provides--keywords, 
material support--to a designated terrorist group. And I will 
tell you that I am proud that this committee passed that bill 
out of this committee by a vote of 41 to 0. You know the 
partisan nature of Washington. That says something. I am also 
very proud that the entire body, the entire House of 
Representatives, passed that bill on April 15th of this year by 
a vote of 382 to 11--again, a very strong vote.
    My point is this, and I am coming to my question in just a 
moment: I think if we want to disrupt the financing behind 
terrorists and extremist antisemitism, we have got to know 
where the money is coming from in the first place.
    Now, in your testimony, certainly in your written 
testimony, you talk about the DOJ investigating, you talk about 
OCR investigating. So my question to you is, what tools do they 
have to investigate, to show that, from a reporting standpoint 
or compliance, that it is being done?
    And then secondly, if I can, from your standpoint, has the 
Biden Administration used the tools that they have got with DOJ 
or OCR to investigate and go to the root of the funding?
    Mr. MARCUS. So Congressman Kustoff, we have not seen the 
full array of tools being used by any means. Some tools, yes, 
but certainly not all.
    During the prior Administration we saw investigations of 
undisclosed foreign funding in violation of Federal law. More 
of that would be useful. We are seeing some actions by OCR, 
some by DoJ, but certainly not the sort of joint initiatives 
that those two departments used in prior administrations, 
certainly not the sort of show of combined force on college 
campuses that would send a signal.
    So I would say that there remain unused tools that are 
available that should be handled, but aren't.
    Mr. KUSTOFF. All right. Let me, if I can, ask a question a 
different way, maybe a different way than Mr. Smucker and Mr. 
Hern asked.
    In terms of higher education, you are formerly an 
administration official with the Department of Education. Do 
you have any recommendations on how we can increase the 
transparency of the foreign funding as it relates to higher 
education?
    Mr. MARCUS. Congressman Kustoff, if you were to increase 
the penalties for non-compliance, if you were to increase the 
enforcement over non-compliance, if you were to lower the 
threshold for disclosure requirements, in any of those 
instances I think you would have much greater transparency.
    Mr. KUSTOFF. Thank you. I thank you, I thank all the 
witnesses.
    And Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Mr. Kildee.
    Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much 
to the witnesses for being here. Your testimony is very 
helpful, and I think comes at a critical moment.
    Congratulations to Ms. Dror. It is good to see you again. 
Congratulations on your graduation.
    It is particularly good to see my friend, our former 
colleague, Congressman Ted Deutch, a fellow University of 
Michigan alum.
    I will note thanks for the great work you are doing.
    Look, I think it is clear antisemitism has no place in our 
communities, and absolutely has no place on college campuses or 
universities all across the nation. We are seeing acts of 
antisemitism on the rise. The Anti-Defamation League has 
reported large upticks in these threats, verbal and written 
harassment, and antisemitic acts.
    And let's be crystal clear: we are not talking about the 
right to protest, we are not talking about the right to 
disagree, we are not even talking about acts of civil 
disobedience as we know them to be important elements of public 
disagreement in this country. What we are talking about is hate 
speech that has a consequence, instills fear in people, leads 
to acts of violence.
    Just two weeks ago, as a matter--as an example, I mentioned 
the University of Michigan. A good friend of mine, a regent, an 
elected regent at the University of Michigan, Jordan Acker, who 
happens to be Jewish, had his law office vandalized with 
antisemitic graffiti. Acts like this are completely 
unacceptable, and can't become normalized. That is why hearings 
like this are important, to put it on the record, to make it 
clear that the right to disagree cannot be conflated with hate 
speech that has a consequence and degrades the quality of our 
society.
    So I am happy to see some action. I am happy that the Biden 
Administration are taking actions to address much of this 
ongoing engagement with Homeland Security, Department of 
Justice, state and local law enforcement. That is important.
    But speaking out on antisemitism is not and should never 
become a political or partisan issue. And there are some who 
will try to take this moment to weaponize it for political 
purposes. Like most Americans, we can't tolerate that.
    We all struggle to try to make sense of the acts that we 
have seen take place, starting with a horrific attack by Hamas 
on Israel on October 7, the fact that hostages continue to be 
held, and for some, obviously--myself included--the thousands 
and thousands of innocent lives that have been lost in the 
course of this war. As an elected official, as a citizen, as a 
father, as a human being, we have to mourn all of those losses. 
But we can't allow that pain to translate to more pain and more 
hate.
    So let me ask Congressman Deutch if you might, from your 
perspective--obviously, we see antisemitism as a serious 
threat. Where in our society--I mean, we are talking a lot 
about campuses, but where are we seeing the largest rise in 
this sort of antisemitism, where in our society?
    Mr. DEUTCH. Well, we are seeing--this gets exactly to the 
comments you just made, Congressman Kildee. There is a refusal 
to understand, to acknowledge the facts that we are dealing 
with at this moment, the fact that there are 120 hostages still 
remaining, the fact that, yes, we mourn the loss of every 
civilian life as human beings, of course we do that. But there 
is a refusal to acknowledge that the reason that those lives 
are at risk is because Hamas will not return the hostages and 
lay down its arms, that Israel is defending itself after the 
worst terror attack--the worst attack against the Jewish 
community since the Holocaust.
    And where are you seeing this dramatic increase? You saw it 
on the streets of New York. You saw it in the streets of 
Washington just last weekend. You see it by those who are not 
protesting the policies of an Israeli Government. They are 
celebrating the atrocities of a terror organization. They show 
up wearing Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad headbands. They 
talk about killing Zionists more--1,000 more, 10,000 more 
October sevens. That is where we are seeing this dangerous 
spike. It is why universities--why this hearing is so 
important. It is why universities need to be clear about what 
they are going to do to hold people accountable when the 
students come back in the fall. This is not a partisan issue, 
and I appreciate your saying that.
    And just finally, one other way to get at this, the other 
piece of legislation that was referenced earlier, the Combating 
Antisemitism Act, is a bipartisan bill, an equal number of 
Democrats and Republicans on it, cosponsored by the--introduced 
by the co-chairs of the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat 
Antisemitism, and would specifically address all of this 
antisemitism by having an ongoing effort in the White House and 
at the Department of Education.
    I really encourage, again, in the true spirit of 
bipartisanship, which is on such full display here, which is so 
gratifying for me in my new role running a fiercely non-
partisan organization, I would encourage members to take a look 
at that, as well. And I thank you very much, my friend.
    Mr. KILDEE. Thank you so much.
    Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much.
    Mr. KILDEE. Jason, you look different. [Laughter.]
    VOICE. She looks good in the chair.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. The chair recognizes Representative Estes 
for five minutes.
    Mr. ESTES. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for 
all the witnesses for being here today.
    And Congressman Deutch, thank you. Good seeing you again, 
coming back.
    You know, the antisemitic activities that have occurred on 
college campuses are absolutely appalling. Our institutions of 
higher education should be beacons of hope in this country, 
where students seek reason, truth, and an education to help 
them with their life, and whether it is a career or personal 
life.
    Instead, we see disruption and unruly students, faculty, 
administration, and, in some cases, outside provocateurs siding 
with a terrorist organization and chanting, Death to Israel, 
while forcing Jewish students to fear and hide, unable to fully 
benefit from the college education they are paying for.
    When you think about the atrocities committed by Hamas on 
October 7, it is really unfathomable that anyone in the country 
would stand up and carry the flag of terror and hate openly 
onto a college campus and face no repercussions.
    Unfortunately, this didn't happen overnight. While the 
horrendous attacks on October 7 may have brought this to the 
forefront, antisemitic activity has been a growing problem as 
foreign bad actors have been funneling money onto our non-
profit colleges and universities to shape and influence these 
institutions to promote a distorted worldview that is downright 
anti-American.
    Today we are seeing the effects of the millions of foreign 
dollars from anti-Israel and anti-American countries and 
organizations that have been pumped into our institutions, and 
it is a horrible consequence that we are viewing now. Our tax 
code and its treatment of college endowments shouldn't help 
foster these kinds of antisemitic activities that have ravaged 
college campuses across the country.
    Mr. Pidluzny, you know, Ways and Means Republicans have 
sought to hold America's so-called elite universities 
accountable for permitting and promoting antisemitic behavior 
on our campuses while allowing Jewish students to be 
threatened, harassed, and assaulted. One mechanism in the 
committee's jurisdiction is the endowment tax, first 
established under the Trump tax cuts in 2017. Do you think that 
that structure of the endowment tax should be revised in light 
of the antisemitic activity on certain college campuses?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. Absolutely. The universities need new 
accountability structures because the existing structures have 
proven inadequate.
    If you just look at private universities with endowments 
above $100,000 per student, the value of those endowments is 
over a half-trillion dollars. If you look at the 12 largest 
private endowments, 11 of those schools are the schools that we 
have seen in the news. The only thing that will change the 
behavior of our so-called elite universities is financial 
penalties for tolerating this.
    Mr. ESTES. You know, as you mentioned both in your prepared 
remarks and in just the comments just now, as well, you know, 
that, you know, the current endowment tax, as is set up, 
affects private colleges and the institutions that have an 
endowment value over $500,000. And it applies to roughly 35 
schools in any given year. And as you mentioned, 11 of the 12 
top universities were very prevalent in having disruptions and/
or protests and attacks. Do you think it is a coincidence that 
there is a relationship between the amount of money that they 
have and their tax status?
    And what is the connection, and how can we address that?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. I think the connection between the money and 
the grotesque antisemitism is that universities that are this 
wealthy can waste a lot. And administrators, they are used to 
giving into the radical DEI left. And as we have discussed in 
this hearing, the DEI that we are concerned about is the DEI 
that teaches students to make snap judgments based on identity 
characteristics.
    And the only way that they can account for the success of 
Jews in America and the State of Israel is to turn the State of 
Israel into the oppressor. And that makes, of course, the--
Hamas the virtuous victim, right? So I do think there is a 
relationship, right? The wealth allows for these institutions 
to waste money building up these DEI apparatuses.
    Mr. ESTES. Yes. Well, you know, thank you. It is a critical 
conversation that we need to continue having, and to kind of 
seek out the root of, you might call it a plague or a disease 
that is affecting so many of our college campuses, and make 
sure that we maintain their status as good institutions for 
higher learning for the students that go there and the money 
that is spent by the students, by their parents, by taxpayers, 
in terms of supporting them. So I appreciate your time for this 
hearing.
    And with that I will yield back, Madam Chairman.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes 
Representative Tenney for five minutes.
    Ms. TENNEY. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to this 
really all-star panel and all that so many of you have done on 
this really horrific issue.
    I just--there are so many places to go, and I am not sure 
where to start, but I wanted to just say that in nearby Cornell 
University--my dad is a graduate of Cornell Law School back in 
the 1950s. It was certainly not like it is today. He went on to 
serve as a trial lawyer and a judge, one of the longest serving 
Supreme Court justices in New York. He would be absolutely 
horrified at what is happening at Cornell University.
    And I want to--I just--I keep hearing--I see these 
protesters, as we all do as Members of Congress--and thank you 
also to former Congressman Deutch for being here and being a 
leader on this issue, as well.
    You know, we are confronted with people at our doors and, 
you know, we need to get the truth out. And I think the truth 
is what, really, these universities are about. Almost every one 
of these colleges has Veritas somewhere in their motto, 
including my own university, Colgate University in upstate New 
York.
    But my concern is how do we get this truth out? And I think 
I would like--first I would like to ask Ms. Dror--and 
congratulations, and thank you for being in the breach during 
this really difficult time on campuses. Tell us a little bit 
about what happened to you as a college student on a campus 
where we had a professor just days after this horrific attack--
Professor Rickford actually described the acts of Hamas as 
exhilarating and inspiring to Cornell students. And I watched 
the GoPro video that we were all allowed to see, as Members of 
Congress, that were on Hamas terrorists' heads and their 
videos, and I--it was about a 45-minute montage. I could get 
through about 20 minutes.
    I almost--it is--I don't like bad movies or anything, but 
this was the worst thing I think I have ever seen in my entire 
life. It was horrible. And we have protesters and people coming 
to our office telling us that this is not true. And I want to 
just get your view, as a college student, and what you 
witnessed on the college campus.
    I immediately called right after October 7 for the 
dismissal of Mr. Rickford. I did get a response from the 
president, President Pollack at the time. They did put him on 
leave, but I am sure he is still making money on paid leave. I 
know it is not his full salary.
    But when I get done with you I want to ask Mr. Pidluzny 
about your discussion about the endowments, and the money, and 
the exemptions that these college campuses--so if you could 
tell briefly, just your experience and what is being done at 
Cornell to try to bring us back to the truth, and to try to 
keep, you know, the honesty in our college campuses.
    Ms. DROR. Thank you for bringing that up. Actually, 
Professor Rickford will be teaching again next semester, after 
his paid leave is over.
    But I think you alluded to something very important, and if 
you will indulge me I do want to tell a quick story. The 
foreign funding entering our universities are incredibly 
concerning. Cornell gets 1.8 billion--capital B, billion--
dollars from Qatar, an adversary of the United States. In 
December I was able to have a meeting with Cornell's CFO in 
which I asked him, Cornell gets $1.8 billion from Qatar. There 
must be strings attached, because there is no such thing as a 
free lunch. So what is the string attached to your money? He 
didn't give me a really direct answer.
    But then I asked him, Mr. Cowen, what should I be telling 
my community right now? The Jewish community on campus is 
hurting. It was a month after we had received the blatant death 
threats. I said, ``What should I tell my community?''
    He said, ``You should tell your community that that girl 
that testified in Congress, well, she is only 1 person, and we 
have 17,000 students.'' I wonder if he knew who he was talking 
to, because the girl he was referring to was me. And I wonder 
if he knew that seven months later I would say his name into 
the microphone, and show that that first question that Chairman 
Smith asked in his most recent letter to administrators of 
whether or not they believe antisemitism is actually present on 
their campus, they might say yes, but the answer is no, because 
in that moment he invalidated my suffering as a Jewish student 
and the suffering of 22 percent of his student population. 
There might be 17,000 students, but 22 percent of them are 
Jewish, and many of them are Zionists.
    And so the administration does not understand the issue 
that is plaguing their university. It is systemic moral rot, 
and they cannot understand that.
    Ms. TENNEY. Well, thank you for that. And I think that 
Professor Rickford should be removed from teaching altogether. 
I mean, this is part of the problem.
    And then to Mr. Pidluzny, we only have a few seconds left. 
I agree with you. I think tax-exempt status, federal money 
flowing in, the endowments getting taxed at such low rates, 
money--you know, as they say in--money talks and BS walks. I 
think this is really the only way to go with these. And you can 
confirm that in the last few seconds we have, if the chairwoman 
would indulge us.
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. Absolutely. I think we need to look for new 
accountability structures, as many of them as we can. And so, 
looking at the endowment tax is one of those, tax-exempt status 
is one of those.
    But other ideas would be to start asking the question, does 
a university with a $54 billion endowment, does it really need 
to be eligible for title 4 funding? Or can it fund its own 
students?
    Similarly, we need to look at moving some of that title 4 
funding off of traditional 2 and 4-year campuses so that 
students who want to spend 15 weeks studying can also access 
their Pell Grant. We need to change the financial incentive for 
these corrupt institutions.
    Ms. TENNEY. I agree 100 percent. These institutions with 
these endowments have become about wealth, power, influence, 
and politics. We know that, and that is--I thank you so much to 
all of you. I am sorry I couldn't ask every one of you a 
question, but thank you so much for being here.
    And thank you, Ms. Dror, especially, for what you have 
suffered at Cornell. Let's hope we remedy the situation with 
Professor Rickford.
    Thank you.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much. I would remind members 
to try to keep their comments to five minutes or less.
    The chair now recognizes Representative Sanchez for five 
minutes.
    Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. I want to thank the chairman and 
the ranking member for providing this committee with another 
serious opportunity to acknowledge and confront the reality of 
rising hate in our nation.
    And I also want to specifically thank our witnesses for 
being here today and sharing your perspectives, particularly 
Ms. Dror, for being for sharing your personal experiences.
    It troubles me that across the country we are seeing a rise 
in reported hate crimes. Antisemitism is just one of the ways 
that we see groups that are targeted, but there are many other 
forms of hatred, as well, from anti-Asian sentiment, to 
Islamophobia, to anti-immigrant rhetoric. We are seeing this 
rise in very dangerous, in my opinion, speech that I think 
leads to violence. So I want to be very clear that we cannot 
allow hate to grow anywhere, but especially here in the United 
States, and especially at our nation's college campuses and 
universities.
    Universities have an obligation under the Civil Rights Act 
of 1964 to provide all students a school environment that is 
free of discrimination. But incidences of antisemitism, as we 
heard today, across college campuses are still rising. 
Universities should be places of knowledge, tolerance, and 
mutual respect, and there is simply no place for hate on 
college campuses across the country. We are a multi-cultural 
society, and we should be encouraging acceptance and tolerance 
for every group that is a part of the United--the fabric of the 
United States.
    We certainly have to prioritize student safety. 
Universities need to provide a supportive learning environment 
for all students. We know that more diverse and inclusive 
campuses and workplaces foster safer environments for learning 
and growth.
    To those that are here today and who have experienced 
antisemitism, you need to know that this committee stands with 
you, as does the Biden Administration, which has focused on 
combating antisemitism in school since releasing a related 
national strategy last May. The DoJ and the Department of 
Homeland Security have worked to strengthen coordination with 
local and campus law enforcement to respond to increasing 
incidences of hate-driven intimidation and also violence. 
President Biden's Department of Education has also made very 
clear that antisemitism, xenophobia, and racism are all 
prohibited under title 6 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
    So I want to thank the Administration for standing so 
strongly against hate in our schools and across college 
campuses, because no student should have a fear of attending 
classes or other on-campus obligations and opportunities.
    I want to begin by asking the panel about hate speech. I 
would like to know if any of you think that hate speech is sort 
of the precursor to violence, or can lead to violence. Does 
anybody disagree with that statement?
    Mr. DAVIDAI. I completely agree.
    Ms. SANCHEZ. Hate speech, if repeated often enough or 
increasing in intensity, can lead to violence. Does anybody 
disagree with that?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. I think the antidote to the hate speech is 
more speech, other perspectives calling it out for what it is.
    Ms. SANCHEZ. But the question is, does anybody here believe 
that hate speech, if repeated often enough and increasing in 
intensity, does not lead to violence?
    Okay. Just want to make sure that we have unanimity because 
we see rising hate speech in college campuses. And certain 
groups at certain times in this country have been targets of 
hate speech. And while it is easy to rush to the defense of 
your community when your community is under attack, when you 
hear hate speech that targets any group, we all have an 
obligation, I think, to stand up and, as you said, Doctor, to 
combat hate speech, to call it out for what it is, and to 
correct the record.
    So it is particularly disappointing when we see leaders, 
whether they be academics or public servants, using hate speech 
like the blood of our country is being poisoned by a particular 
group, or like one particular group of people in this country, 
they all have AIDS. That is hate speech. And if you repeat the 
lie often enough, and increase in intensity, you are creating 
the perfect tinder for the catalyst of violence.
    So again, I just want you to know the committee stands 
against antisemitism. We live in a multi-cultural society, and 
we have to all defend each other when that happens. I am sorry 
for your experiences, and I am here to work with my colleagues 
to try to help combat that to the degree that we can, and we 
will look for solutions, given the recommendations that you 
have given us today. Thank you so much for being here.
    And I yield back.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. The chair now recognizes Representative 
Miller for five minutes.
    Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Chairman Van Duyne and Ranking 
Member Schneider, and thank you all for being here today.
    I am horrified by these acts of antisemitism, and I can't 
really comprehend it. I grew up in the city of Columbus, Ohio, 
within the city of Bexley, in a very large Jewish population. I 
went to bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs growing up. There was a girl 
in my class whose mother had a tattoo on the inside of her arm. 
I cannot comprehend what is happening today. It just--it is 
mind-blowing.
    Ms. Dror, you know it is not easy to be here. You have 
already done this once, you are doing it again. It can be 
rather intimidating, but you seem like a very strong young 
woman, and I am proud of you, and I commend you for the bravery 
of standing up for yourself. And, of course, congratulations on 
your graduation. And I am sorry that you really didn't have the 
experience of enjoying your senior year, and hanging out, and 
looking forward to graduation.
    Did you have any help from the university planning ahead of 
where you were going to go with your life in your senior year? 
Did you have any of that kind of support?
    Ms. DROR. Thank you, Mrs. Miller. It is great to see you 
again, and thank you for your warm wishes. I will say I just 
graduated, and I have had a pretty busy year trying to deal 
with the hatred on my campus.
    I have sent multiple emails to my university calling out 
the hate, asking for help, asking them to do something, and I 
have been met with generic email responses saying, ``Please see 
the Office of Help and Care and Love and Hugs,'' and that 
absolutely will not do it for me.
    I have also turned to career services for help, and I 
remember particularly in one meeting I was working on my resume 
with a staff member when she told me, ``By the way, I just want 
you to know, people might not hire you because of your 
political involvement.'' My political involvement is standing 
against Jews feeling afraid to walk on their campus. If people 
aren't hiring me, we have a much, much, much bigger problem. 
That is bigotry.
    Mrs. MILLER. Yes. Thank you for that answer, and it could 
be a lot longer than that, honestly.
    Mr. Marcus, in spite of the instances of physical violence 
against Jewish students, universities pretty much have still 
held to inaction, and they are hiding behind free speech as the 
reasoning for their silence. Violence is not free speech. 
Violence is not free speech. And many colleges and universities 
have adopted a policy of what is now called institutional 
neutrality, which means that the institution won't take a 
public position on social or political issues unless it 
threatens the very mission of that school and its values.
    So I don't know what to say. Since its creation, it has 
been adopted by a number of schools across the country. Tell 
me, what do you think of this policy of institutional 
neutrality?
    Mr. MARCUS. Congresswoman Miller, when the principle of 
institutional neutrality first became popular, I thought it was 
a fine idea because too many institutions are taking the wrong 
sides of issues, and impairing the environment on their campus 
for by doing so.
    On the other hand, I noticed that there are many 
institutions that are now adopting that principle only when 
they have been asked to condemn terrorist attacks against the 
Jewish people. Then, all of a sudden, they say, oh, well, maybe 
we don't want to have to take a stand, and maybe if we adopt 
this principle we will have some sort of cover, some sort of 
excuse for why we don't do it. And I would say that, in those 
instances, it is not really about neutrality, it is about 
cowardice, and should be called out as such.
    Mrs. MILLER. You know, I grew up in the 1960s, and I 
experienced protests and the rest. Violence is against the law.
    I thank you, and I yield back my time.
    Chairman SMITH [presiding]. Mr. Fitzpatrick.
    Mr. FITZPATRICK. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding 
this hearing.
    It is deeply troubling that we are once again having a 
hearing to discuss the rise in antisemitism across our nation's 
college campuses. And since our hearing in November, we have 
seen repeated acts of violence, the development of illegal 
encampments, and a continued lack of accountability being 
upheld by so many ``elite institutions.''
    The rhetoric and actions of students, largely in support of 
Hamas and in opposition to the ideals of democracy and freedom, 
have drawn the admiring attention and support of America's 
enemies. This includes Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of 
Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. Iran has 
long funded terror groups across the Middle East, including 
Hamas and including Hezbollah. And on May 29, Khamenei tweeted, 
``Dear university students in the United States of America, you 
are standing on the right side of history.'' This example from 
the world's leader of state-sponsored terrorism underscores the 
threat we face not only from our enemies seeking to take 
advantage, but even from within our own nation.
    I want to start with Professor Davidai.
    Can you speak to the shift you have seen within our 
universities to having so many outspoken students be 
comfortable with their alignment to an autocratic leader who is 
actively desiring the downfall of these very institutions that 
they are attending, that they are protesting at, and also 
wishing physical harm to Americans?
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Thank you for this question. I am really happy 
to talk about this.
    We are focused here on antisemitism and support for 
terrorism. But at the heart of it you can see that this is 
about anti-Americanism. Just a few examples. Students for 
Justice in Palestine, the national organization, if you go on 
to their website, it does not acknowledge the United States. It 
says that they have 200--over 200 chapters across Turtle 
Island. And then in parentheses it says ``occupied North 
America, occupied United States and Canada.''
    We had a professor, Hamid Dabashi, described Israel--and I 
quote--as an ``outpost of American barbarism.'' This is a 
professor at Columbia.
    We had students celebrating the Houthis, right, the 
terrorist organization that executes gay men just for being 
gay, and who this morning shot down a merchant ship, a 
commercial merchant ship.
    So it really is an anti-American sentiment that is, like 
people--smarter people have said before me, it always starts 
with the Jews, it never ends with the Jews. And I think the 
best way to see that is where do you see American flags? When 
the pro-Israeli groups rally, you see Israeli flags and 
American flags. When you see an American flag in these pro-
Hamas protests, it is only when it is being burned.
    Mr. FITZPATRICK. Thank you, sir. I want to quickly move now 
to discuss school accountability.
    It has been very troubling to see the reports of faculty 
groups forming in the mold of Students for Justice in 
Palestine. And in some instances, these Faculty for Justice in 
Palestine groups are taking part in antisemitic efforts of 
their student counterparts. For example, at the University of 
Pennsylvania, my own backyard in Philadelphia, a chapter of SJP 
blocked the main entrance to an administrative building during 
a die-in protest, which was a violation of campus policy at 
that time.
    I want to ask both Mr. Marcus and Ms. Dror, based on your 
experiences in this space, and familiarity with these campus 
groups, what actions do you believe school administrators 
should be taking to address specifically the faculty issue?
    And Ms. Dror, in your experiences, have you seen instances 
where Cornell is not actively enforcing their stated policies?
    Ms. DROR. Absolutely. I can think of at least three 
different instances in which faculty canceled classes. So 
students paying for their tuition were denied the right to 
their education in the name of Palestinian liberation and 
supporting the encampment.
    The faculty also got together and published an article in 
Al Jazeera, Qatari-state-funded media. Our faculty--I think 
today, actually--published a large letter with about 250 
signees that endorsed terrorism, and endorsed all the protests 
on our campus.
    I think all faculty need to be terminated if they are 
promoting anti-American beliefs. Russell Rickford, the faculty 
member mentioned earlier, was hired after having written that 
he blames Israel for committing 9/11. So there need to be some 
serious, serious, serious reforms in the hiring processes of 
these faculties, as well.
    Mr. FITZPATRICK. Thank you. My time has expired. So Mr. 
Marcus, if you could submit your answer for the record, that 
would be great.
    Mr. MARCUS. Sure.
    Mr. FITZPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Mr. Schneider.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you, Chairman Smith, and I want to 
thank the chairman and the ranking member for having this 
hearing today, and our witnesses for your--sharing your 
insights, your patience. I know it has been a long day, but 
this is a critically important issue, as we have talked about 
throughout the day.
    Since October 7, a day--the worst day for the Jewish people 
since the Holocaust, a day when Hamas sent thousands of 
fighters across the border, terrorists across the border, 
barbarically murdered, tortured, raped, burned dead bodies, 
more than 1,200 killed, 250 taken hostage. Since that horrific 
day we have seen a spike of antisemitism around the world in 
the United States. But in particular, we are talking today 
about what we have seen on campuses.
    We have mentioned the spike. We have mentioned the fact--I 
think Mr. Deutch mentioned that 80 percent of Jewish students 
on campus have a sense of identity, of connection, of personal 
closeness to the Jewish state. Not surprisingly, I think the 
other statistic besides that is that approximately 80 percent 
of Jewish students report fear or reluctance or decision not to 
wear or display outward signs of their Judaism, whether it is 
wearing a kippah or a Star of David.
    What I would like to do, with the chairman's permission, is 
introduce into the record a document, the American Jewish 
Committee State of Antisemitism in America, 2023 Insights and 
Analysis.
    Chairman SMITH. Without objection.
    [The information follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you.
    Now, we talked earlier in the opening remarks. The sense 
was part of the reason for this rise in antisemitism was weak 
university leadership, the failure of universities to enforce 
their policies of university leaders, to make clear--morally 
clear statements. We have talked about the radical faculty and 
other things. And throughout this we have also touched--and I 
will add my items to the list.
    But following the money, it is not just the money that is 
funding universities, it is the money that is funding these 
groups like Students for Justice in Palestine. Earlier, when I 
was focusing on faculty, students and--Ms. Dror, you made it 
through in four years, correct?
    Ms. DROR. Three.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Three? Even better.
    Ms. DROR. Yes.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. But over the course of that, freshman 
students come in, they have to learn their way around, they 
pick their classes, they get involved with various 
organizations. Sophomore year, they start thinking about major, 
junior major, and graduate, and go on to pursue their careers.
    But there is an imbalance, as groups like SJP have people 
who are in their 13th year of their 4-year Ph.D. program not 
having completed a single class, but they are there with a 
purpose and with funding behind it. I think we need to look 
into that.
    But I also want to be careful that we don't paint with too 
broad of a brush. Dr. Pidluzny, you mentioned there are, I 
think, 70 schools where we had these protests, roughly 3,000 
people who have been arrested, but there are 4,000 colleges and 
universities across this country. Not every university has 
gotten it wrong. Not every university has been affected by what 
we have seen on some of the campuses in the news.
    We have to be careful that we don't delegitimize 
differences of opinion, which is what we should see on our 
universities, the ability to have that debate with each other. 
With the focus on hate and violence, hate begets violence. 
Violence makes our students feel unsafe and, ultimately, there 
will be consequences.
    Mr. Deutch, I want to turn to you with the minute that is 
left. But you have been here in Congress. You are at American 
Jewish Committee, seeing the challenges being faced across the 
country. Can you highlight the most important things we should 
be doing, besides talking about it and putting a spotlight on 
the hate and violence we are seeing on campus?
    What actions should we be taking that will have a real 
difference as we head to the new academic year?
    Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you. Look, I think the conversation about 
tax-exempt status is important. I think the conversation about 
foreign funding is important.
    I would add to that, by the way. Why not have every student 
group have to certify that they don't accept foreign funding, 
as well?
    There are lots of things that are part of this bigger issue 
that we have to deal with. But right now, we--there is a train 
that is barreling down the tracks. Literally, you saw it in New 
York in a subway car. When people are allowed to get on a 
subway car and say, ``Where are the Zionists? Are the Zionists 
here? No Zionists here, this is your chance to get out,'' that 
should send a chill down everyone's spine.
    What Congress can do most--and here is what I have learned 
since I left, here is my message to my former colleagues, and I 
say this with enormous respect, and not to just make you feel 
even better about the job you have--you have enormous power, 
individually, every one of you. And what can you do? You, every 
one of you--yes, the committee should act.
    And Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to you and to the Speaker 
for this whole-of-the-House approach. But every one of you can 
play a role in your community, listening to your Jewish 
students, listening to the Jewish community. If you don't have 
a large Jewish community, you can speak out in support of the 
American values that are at risk when we see what is happening 
around the country continue to take place. That is what you can 
do: expect the universities to take action now in advance of 
this coming academic year to help protect Jewish students, 
protect their environment that they operate in, our university 
system overall, and ultimately, our democracy.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for one more 
second.
    The video from that train car was horrific, as they said, 
any Zionist or any Zionist here--any Jewish person in that car 
would have been afraid to stand up, but----
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Not me.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Let me finish.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. I would have stood up.
    Mr. SCHNEIDER. Let me finish, please. But no one else stood 
up, either. It was utter silence, and those people were able to 
say what they say. We have to speak out, and that is why this 
hearing is important. We need to stand up. We need to speak out 
and say, ``I say proudly as a Jew, but I say as an American 
hate has no place in our country. We will stand up and make 
sure it is defeated.''
    I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Mrs. Fischbach.
    Mrs. FISCHBACH. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I absolutely 
agree. We have to be the ones that speak out.
    It is tragic that we have to have this hearing. It is 
absolutely tragic. It is 2024, and this should not be 
happening. And it is appalling. And so you can see, as I was 
listening to Mr. Schneider, I am getting more and more upset.
    But I did want to kind of refocus. I know that Mr. 
Fitzpatrick talked a little bit about FJP, and SJP has been 
mentioned a couple of times, and so I wanted to ask Mr. Marcus.
    I mean, you are obviously familiar with the group. Would 
you mind telling us a little bit more about the group, and 
maybe the role that it has been playing in this explosion of 
antisemitism on campuses?
    Mr. MARCUS. Congresswoman Fischbach, yes. There is no one 
single group that is responsible for this entire problem. There 
are many groups involved, and then there are many wrongdoers 
who are not part of groups. But SJP is involved far more than 
any other single individual on many, many campuses, not just in 
protest, but in various forms of hate, as well.
    On some campuses their violation of rules or undermining of 
values has led to their temporary or permanent suspension or 
expulsion. But they are still active on a large number of 
universities. They are also active as law students for Justice 
in Palestine. And now they are also faculty for Justice in 
Palestine, as well.
    These groups, in addition to having been found responsible 
for violations of university rules and for their involvement in 
issues that may create a hostile environment for Jewish 
students, the toolbook for the National SJP says, among other 
things, and I will quote, ``We, as Palestinian students in 
exile, are part of this movement,'' meaning the resistance 
movement, ``not merely in solidarity with this movement. We 
must act as part of this movement.''
    Now, the resistance movement is often understood to include 
Hamas, known also as the Islamic Resistance Movement. So when 
an organization of students who says that they are not merely 
in solidarity, but that they are part of this movement, it 
raises the question of how they, as an organization, are 
relating to a U.S. State Department-designated terrorist 
organization, and doing it actively on campuses around the 
United States.
    Mrs. FISCHBACH. Thank you very much.
    And Professor, maybe you want to add--and Ms. Dror, I am 
going to ask you, too--if the response and the evidence we have 
seen, how did the universities respond, did they take 
sufficient or proper response to those organizations?
    Mr. DAVIDAI. I can speak about a lot of universities, but 
the best one that I can is my own, Columbia. Nothing. They have 
written beautiful emails. It took the president of the 
university six months minus two days to acknowledge that Hamas 
exists.
    So I have been asking, I have been pleading for them to 
condemn Hamas. They wouldn't even use the word ``Hamas'' in any 
official email until April 5, and that was because she was 
subpoenaed to testify in front of Congress. So if it takes the 
president of a ``elite''--not elite, but expensive--university 
to even acknowledge that Hamas is responsible for this, then I 
am not surprised, and you shouldn't be surprised that she and 
her administration have done absolutely nothing.
    Mrs. FISCHBACH. Thank you.
    Ms. DROR. I think something worth noting is the double 
standard. All other groups are subject to policy enforcement, 
and Students for Justice in Palestine and hate groups on my 
campus are not. Fraternity brothers most recently received firm 
disciplinary action for drinking beer in a backyard with a 
permit. The Students for Justice in Palestine group had an 
unauthorized encampment, ruined our entire quad, the entire 
lawn needed to be redone, and did not receive any actual 
enforcement on that. In fact, they received complete immunity, 
and a thank you letter from our university.
    Mrs. FISCHBACH. Well, and I just want to say thank you all 
for being here, and thank you for standing up, because you are 
doing something courageous by being here, too. And I appreciate 
it. And I, for one, I will say I will stand with you because it 
is appalling that we are dealing with this in 2024. And I thank 
you for being here.
    And with that I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much.
    I want to submit to the record, actually, an article that 
was just brought to my attention at Columbia University. The 
title is, ``Columbia Administrators Fire Off Hostile and 
Dismissive Text Messages, Vomit Emojis During Alumni Reunion 
Panel on Jewish Life.'' The administrators that are listed in 
this include the dean of Columbia College, the vice dean and 
chief administrator officer of Columbia College, the dean of 
undergraduate student life, and the associate dean for student 
and family support.
    Without objection, I submit it to the record.
    [The information follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Mr. Chair, may I comment on that article for 
one----
    Chairman SMITH. Yes, please.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. One thing to note in that article is not just 
their ridiculing of everything that is going on, but the fact 
that, as a panel of Jewish individuals were speaking about the 
problems of antisemitism, these administrators used an 
antisemitic trope saying that this Jewish person is using this 
moment for fundraising. So it is not just cowardice, it is 
callousness.
    Chairman SMITH. It is terrible.
    Mr. Moore.
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you to all of 
our witnesses for being here.
    Much of what I have prepared and want to say has largely 
been said, so there will be some repetition in what I 
communicate in my few minutes here, and I am going to pose one 
question to all of you and, to the extent we have time, I am 
open to hear from any of you about what can we do to change 
this trajectory right now?
    I have talked to folks, particularly someone that went to a 
university that would have been tied up into this, into what I 
view as just complete lawlessness and nonsense that went on to 
our campuses, and she was telling me the story about, like, you 
know, We actually had a case study. We talked about this 
region. We understood the plight of both the Jewish state, as 
well as the Palestinian state, and the and the Palestinians. 
And I have actually been to Ramallah. I have met with folks 
that run the banking system there, and individuals, and 
Palestinians, and the difficulties they have for what their 
future looks like. I mean, and she is like, ``We went through a 
case study. It was one of the most enlightening things that I 
experienced.'' That is what our college campuses should be 
doing.
    What we saw recently with these encampments and the 
lawlessness that takes place is the exact opposite of what we 
need to experience on our college campuses. So my question to 
you all is, what can we do to actually, you know, change the 
trajectory of the way our universities are going when difficult 
things come up?
    There has been probably very, very few things that have 
been as emotional for me in my time in Congress than to be--and 
I am not saying--we are nowhere near close to it, but seeing 
what took place on October 7 is probably one of the most 
emotional things that has happened that I have--to me. There 
was a father of four, he jumped on a grenade to save his boys. 
I have four boys about that same age. I didn't know something 
could happen so far away, even though I have been to those 
kibbutzes where it took place.
    And then to see--to know this was ultimately the plan, this 
was Iran's plan all along. They want the public sentiment to 
change on Israel, and they want what is going on to actually 
happen. I wish students could understand the big picture. And 
how do we get back to being able to communicate it?
    I will mention one thing, and especially now that my 
colleague, Mr. Schneider, is here. I have never been--as 
emotional as that was, I have never been more proud of any work 
that we have done that, in the aftermath of that, Mr. Schneider 
and my colleague, Mr. Panetta, and I have led numerous efforts 
to make sure that we support and find ways--for the conflict 
that is going to be going on in Gaza, to find ways out, and to 
help the humanitarian effort, hosting the State Department. The 
three of us have done yeomen's work on figuring this out.
    And so we are all trying to deal with it. It is a difficult 
situation. It is tragic. Let me pose that question. Mr. Marcus, 
I would love to start with you. Just like, what can we do? Do 
university presidents have to really crack down, or what can we 
be doing to improve the way we communicate our dialogue and be 
able to get our dialogue out there, so people actually learn, 
instead of there being just chaos?
    Mr. MARCUS. Congressman Moore, over this summer, the best 
of our college administrators are working around the clock to 
tighten up their policies on conduct, protest, and the like, 
while the worst of our administrators are ignoring this and 
allowing things to worsen. Frankly, they will all likely fail 
if they only look at policies and don't look more deeply at 
what is leading to this cultural problem.
    Why is it that universities that should be a source of 
light and tolerance have become the opposite? That is systemic, 
and it goes beyond policies and to how they build their 
faculty, their curriculum, their student body, et cetera.
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. Doctor, I would welcome you.
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. So on this particular issue I think we have 
to acknowledge that there has been a concerted effort to change 
the way Israel is taught about and how the region is taught 
about, going back to the 1970s. The reason for those gifts was 
to change the way elite universities teach about the region. 
``The New York Times,'' if you read ``The New York Times'' from 
the 1970s and the 1980s, there are a lot of stories about 
alarm, about the money coming in.
    And so I think the money needs to be shut off, and I think 
we need to bring viewpoint diversity to our public affairs 
disciplines.
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. Excellent.
    Professor.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Five things that I think every university 
should do.
    One, permanently ban every pro-terrorist student 
organization. Suspensions are a slap on the wrist that does 
nothing.
    Two, expel the leaders. They know who the leaders of these 
organizations are. Most of the students protesting are good 
people, but the leaders need to be held accountable.
    Three, every one of these organizations has a faculty 
advisor. Those faculty advisors should be sanctioned and may be 
fired.
    Four, every faculty that supports terrorism, that openly 
celebrates Hamas, Islamic Jihad, should not be allowed to 
interact with undergraduates, graduates, any student. They can 
still have their job, but they are not allowed to be with any 
students.
    And five, every university should adopt the IHRA definition 
of antisemitism. If it is good enough for the U.S. Congress, if 
it is good enough for the President of the United States, it 
should be good enough for the president of Colombia.
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. Thank you, all.
    Thank you, Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Mr. Panetta.
    Mr. PANETTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all the 
witnesses.
    And of course, Mr. Deutch, it is always good to see you. As 
I told you prior to your leaving, you are one of those members 
that we miss. So thank you for being here today in this 
capacity, especially.
    I think we can all agree that all students deserve a safe 
place to learn, free from hate speech and discrimination. And I 
think we understand that free speech and protest, though, are 
part of university life. However, when protests turn violent, 
demonstrators break the law, and our debates devolve into hate 
speech, actions need to be taken.
    What I think is an issue, though, is that when it comes to 
policies to govern protests and speech on campuses, there are 
just different standards and difficult standards to meet. When 
it comes to the First Amendment, there are different policies 
for public universities which are bound by the First Amendment, 
and private universities, which are not.
    Two, also we know that, to receive Federal funds, colleges 
must adhere to the Civil Rights Act, but that bar to prove 
discrimination in court is very high.
    And another issue is that universities have enforced their 
rules unevenly, as many of you have discussed today. We have 
seen college administrators curtail speech in certain areas to 
accommodate students, even for some microaggressions. Yet the 
same administrators appear unmoved by the distress of Jewish 
students. Ensure all colleges have limits on time, place, and 
manner of protest so students can attend class, but they are 
implemented differently.
    We know that there are examples of universities getting 
this right by addressing antisemitic actions, while shutting 
down protests that endanger the campus community. I saw that in 
my district at a local university, and it was even written 
about by a student who wanted to get to class, and appreciated 
the university's actions to clear the protest.
    Now, unfortunately, though, some of these positive examples 
are overshadowed by the missteps of others. When university 
administrators have taken action against demonstrations they 
have been accused for going too far, as well. Moreover, heavy-
handed policing can galvanize protesters and prove 
counterproductive. Despite that, though, we should ensure that 
the positive examples are followed, and that we have mechanisms 
in place to support Jewish students and address and prevent 
antisemitic incidents on campus.
    Look, we can agree that colleges should protect the rights 
of students to raise their hands in class, in which they can 
make claims about the Jewish state or even express misguided 
support for a terrorist organization, because the airing of bad 
ideas is an important part not just of college life, but of 
American life. But letting protesters yell, ``Intifada,'' and 
intimidating Jewish students trying to get to class is not 
consistent with free speech, nor is there a free speech right 
to occupy parts of a university.
    And yes, we support freedom of assembly as part of the 
First Amendment, but that does not mean that protesters have a 
right to assemble anywhere if it means that it prevents other 
people from using public spaces. And, of course, damaging 
property and defacing statues is a crime, whether you are on 
campus or in a public park. So if there are lawbreakers that 
are practicing civil disobedience, they need to do it in a way, 
as Martin Luther King, Jr. said: ``Do it openly, do it 
lovingly, but do it with the willingness to accept the 
penalty.''
    Now, look, all of you have expressed disappointment in your 
testimony about the responses from colleges on this issue. We 
can condemn antisemitic speech from students. However, it is 
ultimately up to the university leaders to protect students on 
campus.
    Now, Mr. Deutch, you talked with my colleague's questions 
about what Congress can do. What should universities be doing 
to address some of these issues that I talked about so that we 
can prepare for the coming school year to ensure that 
basically, yes, we protect free speech, but we also crack down 
on hate speech?
    Mr. DEUTCH. Well in order--first of all, it is good to see 
you, Congressman, and thank you for your very thoughtful 
comments.
    It starts with acknowledging that universities have the 
primary responsibility here, that as they are looking ahead to 
the fall, they are taking action like we have seen at other 
universities where, number one, they are speaking out with 
moral clarity about what is and isn't acceptable; about, as 
Professor Davidai points out, there can be no tolerance for the 
support of terrorism on campus.
    This has been a really interesting conversation. In real 
life on college campuses, there are students who are actively 
speaking out in support of the terrorists who committed the 10/
7 atrocity. They should be speaking with more clarity. They 
should be making sure that the code of student conduct on 
every--on their campus has been updated to reflect the moment.
    It should be clear what the repercussions are if it is 
violated. They should make every student acknowledge what those 
repercussions are--we have heard this earlier--so that it is 
clear what will happen, and then they need to actually follow 
through if the code of student conduct is violated.
    Those are all important steps that they should be putting 
in place right now, before a single student comes back to 
campus, to set a tone for what is and isn't acceptable to 
create the kind of university community that every university 
president claims that they want.
    Mr. PANETTA. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Ms. Van Duyne.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I request 
a unanimous consent to insert for the record a campus-wide 
email that Cornell President Martha Pollack sent on May 14, 
2024.
    Chairman Smith. Without objection.
    [The information follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you, and I would like to read a short 
excerpt from it.
    ``Dear Cornellians, last evening the Coalition for Mutual 
Liberation voluntarily took down their encampment on the Arts 
Quad. While I do not condone the encampment, which was in clear 
violation of university policies, I want to acknowledge and 
express gratitude that, in contrast to what has taken place at 
some other universities, that participants here remained a 
peaceful and non-violent throughout, and, for the most part, 
they tried to minimize the disruption caused. With this in 
mind, and provided no further violations of university policy 
occur, we are able to pause on issuing additional suspensions 
and disciplinary referrals. The participants in the encampment 
shared that members of our Jewish community who have criticized 
Israel have been targeted with slurs, which not only is deeply 
offensive, but also trivializes the memory of the Holocaust. 
Other students involved in the encampment shared experiences of 
being called terrorists over the past few months in an 
expression of anti-Arab discrimination and hatred. No matter 
one's political beliefs, using such rhetoric, which questions 
the basis of someone's religious, cultural, ancestral, or any 
form of identity is unacceptable, and I implore everyone in our 
community to think carefully about their words.''
    It is disappointing that, after the chaos and the distress 
that were caused by mobs of students who set up illegal 
encampments that raged with antisemitism across the country--
and Ms. Dror, you described this as anything but peaceful and 
non-disruptive--but it is disappointing that one of President 
Martha Pollack's last acts as the president of Cornell 
University is to express concern that a single student in the 
encampment says that they were called a slur after Jewish 
students on Cornell's campus feared for their lives after 
numerous death threats and harassment that raged for months 
without end.
    Ms. Dror, I want to thank you again for taking the time to 
testify before this committee. Can you please share with us how 
you felt when you received this email?
    And how did you feel when you read that the president of 
your university said that the encampment participants here 
remained peaceful and non-violent?
    Ms. DROR. Congresswoman, it is great to see you, and I 
really appreciate this question, because this email was 
actually the moment I decided not to attend my graduation.
    This is laughable. I have spent the past eight months being 
called a Nazi because I believe in the existence of the State 
of Israel. And for her to protect students falsely 
mischaracterizing Israel defending itself as a genocide in the 
name of trivializing the Holocaust is laughable and shameful.
    I also want to bring up a point that you mentioned in that 
email. She said, ``A Jewish student that criticized Israel.'' 
No, these students called for the complete elimination of the 
Jewish State, and every single Jew inside of it. They are 
calling for a Jewish genocide.
    Also she mentioned that these students have been referred 
to on campus as terrorists. These students are openly 
supporting the PFLP, Hamas, and Hezbollah. They are also 
regularly terrorizing Jewish students on campus by threatening 
them and intimidating them.
    It is no surprise that Martha Pollack protects the students 
behind the encampment when $1.8 billion are funneled into 
Cornell by United States'' adversaries.
    Ms. VAN DUYNE. I appreciate your comments.
    We have had a lot of discussion now about some of the lack 
of actions that were taken against not just the students, but 
of the faculty. And you mentioned specifically Professor 
Russell Rickford. I understand that he was on paid leave. I 
also understand that he is coming back to campus to teach next 
semester. Your comments on how to handle that is quite clear.
    And I think, as a committee, looking at universities and 
whether or not they are teaching anti-American hate, where they 
are teaching things that are specifically aimed at creating 
distrust, division, violent outbursts that are being promoted 
by their own professors, their own administration, I think that 
is something that we have to take seriously--whether or not 
that is on campus or off campus, if they are putting out 
stories, if they are putting out articles--yes, while that may 
not have been written on campus, it does say a lot, and it does 
reflect a lot on the university and whether or not these 
universities are actually upholding a pro-America position. And 
yet they are getting taxpayer-funded dollars, and they are also 
getting tax-exempt status.
    And I know that this is something that the chairman takes 
seriously, has spent a lot of time looking into, and that, as a 
committee, we are going to continue to look into. So again, 
thank you very much.
    And I yield back my time.
    Ms. DROR. Thank you.
    Chairman SMITH. Mr. Feenstra.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I want to congratulate you, Ms. Dror, on graduating. I had 
three kids that graduated this year. So it is awesome, it is 
awesome, and I wish you the best as you move forward in your 
life.
    I was on the faculty at Dordt University, one of my local 
universities near my hometown. And being on the faculty meant 
that I was responsible for the students there, that I was 
responsible for their safety. I was responsible for what they 
learned. And we could debate, we could argue. But at the end of 
the day, it was we do it in a safe environment. And that is 
what is so disappointing about this, is that we have a failure 
by tax-exempt universities to provide and enforce discipline on 
students that are found to violate the basic rules of their 
institution. So as a committee, as the Committee on Ways and 
Means, we must look at our responsibility, right?
    We can always talk about the universities. I get it. 
Universities have a tremendous amount of responsibility. Their 
board of trustees got to do things. We just talked all about 
that. But we have the obligation to decide whether an 
organization is tax-exempt or not. Bottom line, that is our 
job.
    And when you start looking at Title VI of the Civil Rights 
Act, okay, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, if a complaint is 
investigated--and we can talk about this shortly, Mr. Marcus, 
because I want to know about this--but if a violation is made, 
to me there has got to be a solution that it never happens 
again. And the solution, to me, is losing your tax-exempt 
status.
    I mean, frankly, this happens in business. In business, if 
you violate a certain status or if you are tax-exempt, you are 
a non-profit, right, you get your tax-exempt pulled away. That 
is the same thing that should happen here. So I want to ask 
each one of you.
    Ms. Dror, what do you think about this? I mean, do you 
think the federal government should act in this purpose? 
Because, to me, if you pull away their tax-exempt status, 
things change very quickly. Trust me, they will change. What do 
you think about that?
    Ms. DROR. Absolutely. And as I mentioned before, Chairman 
Smith's investigation into these universities have finally 
gotten them to act. That is the only thing that is pushing them 
to act.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes, yes.
    Professor, what do you think?
    Mr. DAVIDAI. I completely agree with your assessment. The 
only thing that I would say is there is no difference between 
college campuses and the House committee because they are 
training your future colleagues. So if you don't act now, your 
future colleagues will not let you act when they get to 
Congress.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Well said. I 100 percent agree.
    Doctor.
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. So the Department of Education should issue 
findings that these universities are not doing anything to 
ensure that Jewish students have access to the education that 
title 6 guarantees them. And at that point, if--it should make 
real demands, right? It should say audit your your foreign 
gifts, audit your academic programs for anti-Israel bias, 
enforce your policies. Take a hard look at how you are 
socializing international students to the norms and 
expectations of the campus.
    And if the universities do not comply with those 
expectations, then it is time to begin an administrative 
proceeding to end their access to title 4 aid. I also think it 
is time to start talking very seriously about raising endowment 
taxes and about ending the tax-exempt status.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. And you sit on the OCR, you have.
    Mr. MARCUS. Yes.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. So I would love to hear what you have to say 
on this.
    Mr. MARCUS. So Congressman Feenstra, it is rare that a 
university is adjudicated liable for violations----
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Now, why is that?
    Mr. MARCUS. It is difficult and expensive to get to that 
point.
    It is also rare that OCR has formal findings of a violation 
against a university. If universities knew that a formal 
finding or adjudication under title 6 could jeopardize their 
tax funds, you would see them respond much more forcefully to 
credible allegations.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes, thank you.
    Finally, the----
    Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Congressman. Look, I want to just 
use this as an opportunity to thank you and urge the committee 
to keep at this in a bipartisan way. This is not a partisan 
issue.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. No.
    Mr. DEUTCH. You are--we should be looking at every possible 
way to get universities to ensure that they are living up to 
their own ideals. And if this is a way to start that 
conversation and get them there----
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes.
    Mr. DEUTCH [continuing]. Then we ought to be having that 
conversation.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. You know what? When you affect the 
pocketbook, it makes a difference. Then people respond. And it 
is a tragedy that that is what it takes, but it is. And these 
boards of trustees, the only way they are going to learn is you 
take away their tax-exempt status. And it starts with Title VI 
in the Civil Rights Act. And it starts with using the Office of 
Civil Rights to start fining these schools and what they are 
doing, and go after them.
    So thank you for--each one of you, for being witnesses.
    Thank you, I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
    Mr. Beyer.
    Mr. BEYER. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thank you all for 
hanging in for more than three hours for this as we come and 
go. I am very concerned about it. I think all of us here in a 
bipartisan way are concerned about it.
    I am--I was disappointed that not a single Republican 
joined Senator--Congressman Casten's appropriations letter to 
ensure that the Department of Education's Office of Civil 
Rights had the funding it needed to pursue actual antisemitic 
crimes on college campuses.
    You know, we have been working on this in Congress for a 
long time. The current rise in hate crimes are deeply 
disappointing. According to the most recent hate crime 
statistical data from the FBI, race-based crimes reached the 
highest level ever recorded in 2021 and 2022. But--and 
antisemitic hate crimes rose a whopping 36 percent from 2021 to 
2022.
    One of the key things we know about hate crimes is that 
they are also dramatically, drastically underreported, so that 
we know that, even from this limited data, we are not getting 
the full picture.
    Mr. Olson, Mr. Upton, Mr. Buchanan, all three Republicans, 
and I partnered with Judy Chu to successfully pass the Jabara-
Heyer NO HATE Act, and that was to better support law 
enforcement to report and respond to hate crimes and set up 
state hate crime hotlines so that people who didn't feel 
comfortable going to the police station could call them in. And 
while that bill is meaningful, we are very proud of it, it got 
signed into law, and yet the reporting of the incidents has 
gotten worse. It has not improved at all. And at a time when 
reporting has gotten worse, FBI Director Wray was here in the 
fall to tell us that crimes towards Jews are reaching historic 
levels.
    I introduced a bill recently with Don Bacon, a Republican 
from Nebraska, the Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act, and 
I would love to have all my Republicans join me on this. It set 
up a process where DoJ evaluates jurisdictions with over 
100,000 citizens to make certain that they are credibly 
reporting hate crimes. The goal is to ensure that we have a 
better handle on where these antisemitic incidents are 
occurring, how we can better track and address and prevent 
them.
    And Honorable Mr. Deutch, welcome back. Can you speak about 
how a bill like this would be an asset in addressing the 
antisemitic crimes?
    Mr. DEUTCH. There is, as we have talked about over the 
course of this hearing, it is important for us to be able to 
really tackle antisemitism, for us to follow through and hold 
people accountable and hold universities accountable. We need 
more funding for the Office of Civil Rights so that they could 
do it.
    Likewise, the problem--the reason that the Jabara-Heyer NO 
HATE Act was so important--and I applaud your leadership on 
that, Mr. Beyer--is because we want to be able to be sure that 
we are identifying the hate crimes, particularly as we see this 
spike in antisemitism, and especially when we know that 
antisemitic hate crimes are often underreported. And the way to 
do that is to ensure that there is adequate funding to help get 
us there.
    So I applaud your efforts continuing to focus on that. I 
think it is an important way for us to move forward.
    Mr. BEYER. Okay, great. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chair at this late hour I yield back.
    Chairman SMITH. In Missouri this is still very early.
    Ms. Malliotakis.
    Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    We all believe it is unfortunate that we need to be here, 
and nobody thought in 2024 we would be dealing with this 
immense spike in antisemitism in our country. But it is so 
critical that we are here together, as Republicans and 
Democrats, trying to find the best solutions to stop this.
    I would like to thank our witnesses for being here. 
Certainly, Ms. Talia Dror, thank you. You are a student in New 
York state. I represent New York state, so I want to thank you 
for being here not only once, but twice, because that takes a 
tremendous amount of courage for you to come here. And I 
congratulate you on your graduation. And I am sorry that you 
had to miss the ceremony.
    Since the horrific attacks on October 7 of last year by 
Hamas on Israel, the ugly face of antisemitism has showed on 
college campuses across the country. Instead of preparing our 
young people for life, and getting them ready to be productive 
members of a civilized society, campuses have turned into 
indoctrination centers of hate. It seems to be getting worse, 
to me. Maybe it is because I am in New York City.
    And in the news, sadly, we have seen antisemites boldly 
flying the flags of Hamas, of Hezbollah, terrorist 
organizations in my city. We have also seen a terrible display 
of a sign saying, Long live October 7 at a memorial that was 
dedicated to the victims of the Nova Music Festival. We have 
seen vandalism of homes of the Jewish board members of the 
Brooklyn Museum.
    And we have also seen, as you mentioned, Mr. Deutch, the 
bullying of Zionists or pro-Israel individuals on the subway 
system. Completely unacceptable. It starts with education. It 
starts with the classroom. I think we need to work together.
    But I have introduced two bills I just want to mention 
briefly. I have H.R. 7231, which is the Campus Act, and this 
legislation would prohibit universities that have been found to 
promote antisemitic activities or that are protecting 
antisemitic faculty from receiving federal funding. I think it 
is a good bill. I think it is something that would really make 
a difference in pushing these university presidents to hold 
faculty or these student organizations accountable.
    Professor, I know you are also from New York City. I would 
love to hear your view, if you support a measure like that, and 
if you think it would be effective.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Well, to be honest, being a professor, I 
cannot comment on something I don't know all the details of.
    But as a fellow New Yorker, we have to remember anti-Jewish 
crime is the number-one hate crime in New York City for the 
past seven years in a row. This is a spike, but this is not 
new. And this has been under the current mayor, Eric Adams's 
Administration, and it has been under the previous 
administrations. The biggest Jewish population of the U.S. is 
in New York City, and nothing has been done.
    Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. It is getting worse. It is getting worse, 
and----
    Mr. DAVIDAI. Unfortunately. Hopefully, this will stop it, 
but yes.
    Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Doctor, I would like to ask you. I have 
another bill, H.R. 7232, No Visas for Antisemitic Students Act, 
that would revoke the visa of foreign students in the United 
States who are members of these organizations and participating 
in this activity. What are your thoughts on that?
    Mr. PIDLUZNY. Yes, our view is that there are four grounds 
of inadmissibility that have been triggered in some cases, 
right? So DHS already has this authority to look at these 
protests, and try to understand which of the students have 
espoused support or given support for terrorism, which of the 
students have committed crimes involving moral turpitude, any 
who lied in their visa application.
    And so I applaud your leadership from Congress, but I think 
the Administration could take these actions itself if it wanted 
to.
    Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Okay. Well, perhaps this legislation would 
give them a little more teeth to do it.
    And Ms. Dror, would you agree with something like that? Do 
you think that we should be stripping visas from--whether it is 
my bill or whether it is the Administration doing it--should we 
be stripping visas from foreign students who are committing 
antisemitic activity on our campuses?
    Ms. DROR. Absolutely. The leader of the Coalition for 
Mutual Liberation, Cornell's program, or Cornell's 
organization, is on a student visa. He should get that student 
visa revoked yesterday.
    Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. That is a perfect example, Doctor. It is 
obviously not happening at the Administration level. Hopefully, 
we can push them with new legislation.
    Mr. Deutch, you are obviously a subject matter expert on 
these issues, as a Member of Congress formerly. We would love 
to talk to you about education. What can we do more to educate 
young people about the Holocaust, about the history of Israel? 
We have a Jewish student here who was called a Nazi by a fellow 
student. It is outrageous, simply because she supports Israel.
    Social media misinformation. You know, these students that 
are doing this, they are actually proud to have the endorsement 
of Hamas and Iran. What can we do to educate young people both 
at the state level and the national level?
    Mr. DEUTCH. I can answer that in 10 seconds. It is good to 
see you again, Congresswoman.
    Look, the--you touched on each of the key pieces. One, on 
social media, there are--it is absolutely true that the 
majority of young people now get their news in 10-second, 6-
second videos on TikTok and on Instagram. We have to make sure 
that the social media companies--that these platforms uphold 
their own rules, and that Congress is taking a hard look at 
that, as well, to make sure that they are, and other steps that 
can be taken.
    In the K-12 space, we have got to be sure that, as we see 
the explosion in some parts of the country of curricula that 
not only don't accurately teach history, but specifically try 
to exclude Jews and the teaching of antisemitism and the 
Holocaust, that we go the other way, that we make sure it is 
not just the Holocaust that we are studying, but the 
contributions of Jewish Americans to our country, that Jewish 
American Heritage Month is actually observed around the 
country, in our businesses and in our local governments, in 
every place where we have an opportunity to help educate 
people. That is another way.
    And on college campuses, our--we have an obligation to make 
sure that everyone on a college campus, including the 
residential advisors, including the members of the 
administration--not just the administration and his or her 
team, but everyone in the university--has a chance to learn 
again, yes, about the Holocaust, but also about the history of 
antisemitism, the history of the Jewish people.
    And frankly, it is important for everyone to understand the 
history of Israel so that these outrageous claims about Israel 
being a White settler colonialist enterprise, that instead they 
will actually learn that Israel is the homeland for the Jewish 
people. With 3,000 years of history of Jews being connected to 
that land, that the State of Israel not only is not a White 
settler colonialist enterprise, but that the majority of 
Israelis are actually people of color.
    There is an enormous amount of education that is required. 
AJC, other groups play a role there. Our educators play a key 
role there. It is--and I applaud you for raising it--it is the 
most important thing that we can do long term to make sure that 
people understand the facts so that we can all push back 
against the kind of anti-Jewish hatred that we have seen.
    Mr. DAVIDAI. May I just add that the majority of U.S. 
states do not require schools to teach about the Holocaust? 
Only 20 states have rules that you must teach about the 
Holocaust. Three more have recommendations, and the rest 
nothing. So when, as a professor, at the point when I get my 
students to come to class, many of them, maybe a majority of 
them, have never taken a class about the Holocaust, so they go 
to TikTok.
    Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Thank you for your insight and ideas.
    Chairman SMITH. Thank you. I want to thank each and every 
one of you all for taking the four hours to be in this hearing, 
and for your words. You can count on us not stopping and 
rooting out this evil problem.
    Please be advised that members have two weeks to submit 
written questions to be answered later in writing. Those 
questions and your answers will be made part of the formal 
hearing record today.
    With that, the committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 2:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

      

                    MEMBER QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

=======================================================================

      
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]   
      

                   PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

=======================================================================

      
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
   
                                    [all]