Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) grilled Trump administration nominee Charlton Allen on Wednesday at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing about a seemingly antisemitic cover and article published by a student newspaper while Allen was overseeing the publication as a college student.

Allen, the nominee to be the general counsel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which oversees federal workers’ labor issues, was the publisher of the Carolina Review when he was a student at the University of North Carolina.

Decades ago, under his leadership, the newspaper published a cover illustration depicting a Jewish student running for a student government position with devil’s horns and a pitchfork, connected to an article that, according to Gallego, highlighted the student’s Jewish faith in criticizing him for voting against funding for a campus Christian organization while supporting funding for Jewish and other groups.

Allen acknowledged at the hearing that the cover was a “mistake” but argued that it was not antisemitic and said it was being taken out of context. He claimed that the cover was intended to compare the Jewish student in question to the Blue Devils, the mascot of UNC’s rival, the Duke Blue Devils.

Allen also maintained that the student in question had discriminated against Christian student groups while supporting Jewish and other student groups.

Also during Wednesday’s hearing, Cameron Hamilton, the nominee to be the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, said that he plans to offer lawmakers recommendations on reforms and potential additional funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in his first 30 days in office, in consultation with interested community groups. 

He acknowledged calls for additional funding from religious groups, as well as for steps to ensure that funding flows quickly, though he did not definitively commit to supporting greater funding, saying he wanted to study the issue and speak to community groups first before providing a funding recommendation.

“I just want to convey to you the urgency, which I hear from my constituents, and it’s not just mine,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said. “We see the rise of antisemitism surging across this country. I visited a temple that also has a school attached to it. They are so worried about what’s going to happen, and it’s not just our Jewish community.”

He also emphasized that the needs of these communities are ongoing, not periodic.

“This is now the highest line on the budget of so many of these institutions,” Kim said.