The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on campus and urging the presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to resign, after the university leaders testified at a hearing on the subject and provided answers that the resolution described as “evasive and dismissive.”
Key Facts
The resolution passed with a majority of 303-126, with 125 Democrats and one Republican voting against it. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned last week, and the leaders of Harvard University and MIT also faced pressure after a hearing in which Magill made a statement saying that whether calls for genocide against Jews constitute a violation of university conduct rules depends on the context. The resolution states that Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth – who made similar statements – should follow Magill and resign, arguing that the testimonies of the three leaders did not clearly establish that calls for genocide against Jews constitute harassment and violate the conduct rules of their institutions.
Background
The three presidents spoke before members of the House Education and Labor Committee last week to discuss the fraught student protests that have swept campuses since Hamas’s attack on Israel and Gaza on October 7. Some members of Congress and donors criticized administrators at universities like Harvard for how they responded to the controversial rhetoric criticizing Israel from some student activists. In a statement issued by Harvard last month, Gay condemned anti-Semitism and criticized some of the slogans chanted by activists, stating that “combating anti-Semitism and promoting free expression are goals that are aligned together.”
Surprising Fact
Since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education has opened investigations into at least 14 schools and school districts for violations of “shared ancestry” under civil rights law. The law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including discrimination based on shared ancestry and racial or ethnic characteristics, or residing in a country “with a predominant religion or distinct religious identity.”
Source: Forbes
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