White House -- but not Biden -- rips university presidents over antisemitism
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A White House spokesman blasted three top university presidents Wednesday over their reluctance to penalize or condemn students, faculty and staff who joined antisemitic demonstrations following the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel — but there was no immediate comment from President Biden.
During a heated House hearing Tuesday, lawmakers grilled the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about their handling of antisemitism on campus.
Harvard president Dr. Claudine Gay drew strong criticism after she sidestepped questions about whether calls for an “intifada” breached the Ivy League school’s code of conduct.
“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” Andrew Bates, White House senior communications adviser and deputy press secretary, said in a statement.
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“Any statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting — and we should all stand firmly against them, on the side of human dignity and the most basic values that unite us as Americans.”
The White House did not immediately respond to inquiries about whether Americans would hear directly on the subject from Biden, who has repeatedly twinned condemnation of antisemitism with statements against Islamophobia since the jihadist atrocity that killed approximately 1,200 people — including 33 Americans.
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a Harvard alumna, led the questioning of Gay, who took over as the university’s president in July.
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At one point, Stefanik drilled down on whether language like “There is only one solution, intifada revolution” and “Globalize the intifada” — both heard during protests at Harvard — complied with the school’s code of conduct.
The lawmaker explained that “’intifada’ in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews.”
“That type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me,” Gay replied, repeatedly evading the question. “It is at odds with the values of Harvard.”
She then stressed that Harvard is committed to “free expression and give a wide berth to free expression, even of views that are objectionable.”
University of Pennsylvania president Liz McGill also came up short during an exchange with Stefanik when the congresswoman asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment.”
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“If it is directed and severe, pervasive, it is harassment,” McGill replied. “It is a context-dependent decision.”
When asked the same question, MIT President Sally Kornbluth responded that such language violated conduct codes only if “targeting individuals, not making public statements.”
After Kornbluth denied hearing calls for genocide on campus, Stefanik fired back: “But you’ve heard chants for intifada.”
“We have heard chants which can be antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people,” the MIT leader answered.
In response to Tuesday’s display, billionaire hedge fund manager and Harvard alum Bill Ackman demanded all three presidents “resign in disgrace” after putting forward some of the “most extraordinary testimony ever elicited in the Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide.”
““In short, they said: It ‘depends on the context’ and ‘whether the speech turns into conduct,’ that is, actually killing Jews,” Ackman wrote on X, later adding: “The world will be able to judge the relative quality of the governance at @Harvard, @Penn, and @MIT by the comparative speed by which their boards fire their respective presidents.”
Stefanik agreed when the topic came to her alma mater, tweeting: “It’s long past time for … Claudine Gay to resign. She needs to be fired.”
Prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Republicans highlighted the experiences of four Jewish students from those institutions who recounted harrowing problems on campus.
Nationally, antisemitic hate crimes have exploded since the Hamas attack, surging 214% in New York City alone during October.
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