US university leaders challenge campus antisemitism claims in House hearing | House of Representatives
The University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor Rich Lyons questioned the US Assembly Republicans on Tuesday at the last hearing of Lyons and leaders of Georgetown University and New York City University at the last hearing in higher education.
The Committee accused schools of not being able to respond sufficiently to the allegations of prejudice or discrimination, but university leaders said that disciplinary penalties were appropriate and emphasized the importance of protecting free speech.
Lyons pushed back the proposal that antisemitism had more existing from another place in university campuses.
“If someone expresses pro -Palestinian beliefs, this is not necessarily anti -Semitic,” he said.
In his first year as a chancellor, Lyons is the first three leaders to face the Assembly committee during the Trump Presidency. In his opening words, he defended the campus’s commitment to free speech.
“As a public institution, Berkeley has a serious obligation to protect the concise American value of free speech, L Lions said. “This obligation does not prevent us, let me repeat us, does not prevent us from confronting harassment and discrimination in all forms, including anti -Semitism.”
The hearing was a series that Republicans organized to examine the university leadership after a wave of protests after Israel’s bombing of more than 60,000 people on the Gaza bombing of more than 60,000 people on October 7, 2023 on the attack of more than 60,000 people on the Gaza bombing of more than 60,000 people. In 2023, his statements made in front of the committee by the heads of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University contributed to their resignations.
At the hearing of Tuesday, the Democrats detonated the republican committee members because they focused on anti -Semitism without speaking on the dismissal of the training department in questioning anti -Semitism and other civil rights violations in schools.
California Representative Mark Takano said, “This hearing room turned into a kangaroo court, where they spent our time to help Jewish students, to give a predetermined result to give a predetermined result only to remove the public theater from legitimate pain.”
Republicans said that university leaders allow campus anti -Semitism not to be controlled.
Michigan representative and Committee President Tim Walberg said, “Universities can hire anti -Semitic faculty, welcome students with the story of anti -Semitism, to accept some foreign funds and to allow the behavior of anti -Semitic unions to be unstable,” he said. “But we’ll see it today, they do it under its responsibility.”
The hearing was periodically interrupted by protesters shouting pro -Palestinian slogans before being removed by Capitol police. A Florida representative Randy Fine brought the presidents of the college and said they were responsible for their attitudes on their campuses.
The Republicans suppressed the three university leaders about whether they were disciplined or fired for faculty members and employees for their behaviors that they said to be anti -Semitic. Elise Stefanik, the Republican Representative of New York, pressed the Cuny Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez, a law professor working on the legal defense of Mahmud Khalil, a Palestinian activist.
Stefanik pushed Matos Rodríguez to answer whether the professor would be expelled. Matos Rodríguez defended Cuny without responding directly and said that antisemitism had no place at school. Cuny said that any student or employee who violated the rules will be investigated.
University leaders also emphasized the importance of free speech for students and faculty members.
Georgetown Temporary President Richard Groves, as a University of Jesuit, said that inter -religious dialogue and understanding is an important part of the mission of the school. The official said that the university has not experienced any camp or physical violence since the Hamas attack in October 2023.
“Considering our cisuite values, we expose students to different perspectives in the Middle East,” Groves said. “In addition to the speakers in Gaza, we hosted IDF soldiers, the families of Israelis and Palestinians who lost their lives.
Lyons said that the campus was “more work de to prevent anti -Semitism.
I am the first person to say that we have more work to do. Berkeley, like our nation, was not immune to the disturbing increase in anti -Semitism. And as a state university, we have a serious obligation to protect our community from discrimination and harassment, and at the same time maintaining the right to free changes, ”he said.
