A muted reaction seen in Michigan to spasm of antisemitic vandalism
On the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the home of University of Michigan President Santa Ono and several locations — with ties to either Jewish individuals or organizations with connections to Israel — became the latest targets in a spate of antisemitic vandalism that have plagued the state throughout the year.
Even as the attacks have been aimed against high-profile victims or leading Jewish institutions, one prominent Jewish leader in the state is calling out the state’s political leadership for muted reactions in their condemnation of the vandalism and other recent incidents, noting that few have used the power of their office to speak out against a spasm of antisemitism affecting the state.
Following the spate of antisemitic incidents in Michigan, which is a key battleground state in next month’s election, local Jewish community leaders remain divided about how the response is being handled.
“I’d definitely like to see more of a crackdown” from elected officials, Rabbi Asher Lopatin, director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, told Jewish Insider.
On the morning of Oct. 7, Ono’s home, the home of University of Michigan chief investment officer, Erik Lundberg, and the offices of the Michigan Israel Business Accelerator and the Jewish Federation of Detroit were spray-painted with words including “intifada” and “coward.” The group that took responsibility for the four acts of vandalism, Unity of Fields, formerly known as Palestine Action U.S., wrote that it targeted “businesses to universities.”
“We reject all financial support for the Israeli regime,” the group said in a statement on Telegram.
“There are a lot of incidents and it’s hard for [politicians] to even understand where they are all coming from,” Carolyn Normandin, regional director of Anti-Defamation League Michigan, told JI. Normandin emphasized that law enforcement, on the other hand, has responded promptly and worked closely with the ADL to investigate incidents.
In a statement to JI, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said that “the antisemitic graffiti on the headquarters of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, homes of university leaders, and places of business around the state is cruel and abhorrent.”
Whitmer, a Democrat, continued, “On the one year anniversary of the October 7th attack, we must continue rising above actions that aim to divide us and instill fear in our communities.” Whitmer’s office did not immediately issue a press release about the incident.
Last month, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt criticized Whitmer for not speaking up more aggressively against antisemitism — after Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) insinuated in an interview that the state’s Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel was only prosecuting anti-Israel protesters who broke the law because she was Jewish.
“Governor Whitmer, when your attorney general prosecutes people for violating the law, harassing Jews, and attacking police officers, it’s in the interest of public safety. When a congresswoman accuses the attorney general of prosecuting protestors simply because she’s Jewish, it’s bias,” Greenblatt said on X.
Lopatin added that it was “very disappointing that when Nessel courageously said the state would prosecute people who violate the law, she did not [initially] get support from Whitmer and some elected officials.”
“She did get support from most of the congressional delegation and that was helpful,” Lopatin continued.
(A Whitmer spokesperson later issued a follow-up statement offering a clearer defense of Nessel, without specifically defending the Michigan attorney general’s prosecution of the anti-Israel protesters. The statement did not mention Tlaib.)
“Whichever side you’re on, everyone respects decisiveness and being forthright in saying what is right and wrong,” Lopatin said. “This kind of weak response to people violating the law and intimidating others— I don’t think that this weak response gains anybody’s respect on any side of the political spectrum.”
“Politicians would do themselves a favor if they took a strong stand against illegal actions, whether against Jews or anyone else,” Lopatin said. “I think everyone – including in the Arab American community – are picking up on the weakness. If society condemns something, that means all of the politicians and leaders, then it diminishes.”
Michigan has been an epicenter of antisemitic activity in recent months. Earlier this month, more than 100 households across close to a dozen Detroit suburbs received antisemitic flyers. The flier drops are “done by a cowardly group who operates – most of the time – just within the law,” Normadin said. “These are deceitful bad actors whose only goal is to sow hatred toward the Jews… I hope police find some of the people responsible and that they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Last month, a Jewish student at the University of Michigan was attacked — resulting in minor injuries — in what the Ann Arbor Police Department described as “a bias-motivated assault.”
Meanwhile, in June, the exterior of University of Michigan Board of Regents member Jordan Acker’s law office was vandalized overnight with the phrases “FREE PALESTINE,” “DIVEST NOW,” “F***YOU ACKER” and “UM KILLS” scrawled on the walls, walkway and front window. Acker, who is Jewish, was also targeted by masked anti-Israel demonstrators one month earlier outside of his home as Acker, his wife and three daughters were asleep.
In the spring, the University of Michigan campus was host to an anti-Israel protest encampment that lasted for nearly four weeks and was ultimately broken up by police. Ono said that this year, the university will have “zero tolerance” for any efforts to reestablish encampments.
While “more needs to be done to set boundaries” to prevent these types of incidents around the state, Lopatin said, at the University of Michigan, “there’s been an improvement,” compared to last year when the school was a hotbed of anti-Israel activity. Lopatin is the father of two University of Michigan students who were recognized in March at an Honors Convocation that was disrupted by anti-Zionist demonstrators.
“I’m happy to see President Ono speaking out much faster and more forcefully,” Lopatin said. “I think he has done a good job with not allowing protesters to intimidate Jewish people.”
Ann Arbor police, University of Michigan probing suspected ‘bias-motivated assault’ of Jewish student
A Jewish student at the University of Michigan was attacked early Sunday morning in what the Ann Arbor Police Department described as “a bias-motivated assault.”
The 19-year-old student, who has requested that his identity not be disclosed, was walking near campus and in proximity to the Jewish Resource Center on Hill Street, at approximately 12:45 a.m. when a group of unknown males approached from behind and asked if he was Jewish, according to a police report. When the victim replied yes, the suspects reportedly proceeded to assault him. The suspects then fled the area on foot. The victim suffered minor injuries and did not require hospitalization.
The Anti-Defamation League announced it will offer a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects. “ADL is horrified to learn of an alleged antisemitic assault on a Jewish UMich student,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, tweeted.
Rabbi Davey Rosen, CEO of the University of Michigan Hillel, told Jewish Insider that Hillel staff met on Monday morning with detectives from the Ann Arbor Police Department (AAPD) and is convening a joint meeting Monday afternoon with AAPD, the University of Michigan Police Department and additional Jewish organizations on campus and in Ann Arbor.
“These meetings follow recent antisemitic incidents that have targeted Jewish students and the Hillel community,” Rosen said.
Based on the rise of antisemitic incidents last year around Michigan’s campus, Michigan Hillel increased its security presence at its facility before the new academic year began. The added security measures, Rosen said, include “organizing walking groups and ride shares for students who do not feel safe traveling alone” and “encouraging students to reach out to the Hillel team for support and to report any concerns or incidents to the University Dean of Students office.”
“We take bias-motivated crimes very seriously and have assigned this incident to our hate crimes detective,” the AAPD said in a statement, adding that the department is asking for tips as there is currently “limited information on the suspects.”
AAPD Chief Andre Anderson said in a statement that the department has talked to the University of Michigan police staff, “and our goal is to discuss safety over the next few weeks.”
“There is absolutely no place for hate or ethnic intimidation in the City of Ann Arbor,” Anderson said. “We are committed to vigorously investigating this and other hate-motivated incidents and will work with the County Prosecutor’s office to aggressively prosecute those who are responsible.”
In a campus-wide letter on Monday, the university’s president, Santa Ono, condemned the incident. “Antisemitism is in direct conflict with the university’s deeply held values of safety, respect and inclusion and has no place within our community,” Ono said.
Antisemitism and anti-Israel activity has roiled the University of Michigan campus repeatedly since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In June, the exterior of the university’s Board of Regents member Jordan Acker’s law office was vandalized overnight with the phrases “FREE PALESTINE,” “DIVEST NOW,” “FUCK YOU ACKER” and “UM KILLS” scrawled on the walls, walkway and front window. The incident was the second time since Oct. 7 that Acker, who is Jewish, has been targeted by anti-Israel demonstrators.
Last week, nine anti-Israel demonstrators and two counter protesters were charged for their involvement in incidents relating to anti-Israel protest encampments that sprung up on the university in the spring.
Dept. of Education finds Michigan, CUNY didn’t adequately investigate campus antisemitism, Islamophobia
Administrators at the University of Michigan and the City of University of New York failed to adequately investigate students’ reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia, the U.S. Department of Education announced on Monday.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights, known as OCR, released the findings of its investigations into how both Michigan and CUNY handled antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents dating back to 2020, culminating in resolutions reached with both universities to end the investigations in exchange for the administrations promising to do more to take students’ complaints seriously.
The agreements were the first to resolve investigations related to discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry — including antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Israel discrimination and anti-Palestinian racism — on college campuses since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel sparked a wave of antisemitism and ushered in a slew of more than 100 new investigations into potential civil rights violations.
“There’s no question that this is a challenging moment for school communities across the country. The recent commitments made by the University of Michigan and CUNY mark a positive step forward,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights continues to hold schools accountable for compliance with civil rights standards, including by investigating allegations of discrimination or harassment based on shared Jewish ancestry and shared Palestinian or Muslim ancestry.”
Jewish community advocates praised the department for resolving the complaints. In recent months, Jewish leaders have called on Congress to increase funding for OCR, which has been unable to hire additional attorneys to handle an immense increase in its caseloads since Oct. 7. More than twice as many shared ancestry investigations have been opened since Oct. 7 than in the previous seven years combined.
“The findings are sobering, but not surprising. Both schools must take their obligations to protect students seriously,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a post on X.
Investigators found that at Michigan, there was “no evidence” that the university complied with federal civil rights requirements mandating that the school assess whether 75 incidents of shared ancestry discrimination reported from late 2022 to early 2024 created a hostile environment for students. Because the university failed to determine whether Jewish and Muslim students faced a hostile environment, investigators also raised concerns that the university did not act “to end the hostile environment, remedy its effects and prevent its recurrence.”
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon, who oversees OCR, said she was “grateful to the University of Michigan for its speedy commitment to course correct following the volatile campus conditions since October 2023.” The university pledged to review each report of discrimination from the 2023-2024 school year and to report on its progress assessing harassment over the next two years, as well as to better train employees to comply with federal civil rights guidelines.
In a statement, Michigan President Santa Ono said the university “condemns all forms of discrimination, racism and bias in the strongest possible terms.” The agreement, Ono added, “reflects the university’s commitment to ensuring it has the tools needed to determine whether an individual’s acts or speech creates a hostile environment, and taking the affirmative measures necessary to provide a safe and supportive educational environment for all.”
The resolution reached between CUNY and the Education Department combined nine open investigations alleging antisemitism and Islamophobia or anti-Arab discrimination at several CUNY campuses, including Hunter College, Brooklyn College and Queens College. The department specifically criticized the university for failing to investigate and address an alleged antisemitic incident that occurred in a 2021 class at Hunter College, and called on CUNY to reopen investigations into antisemitic or Islamophobic harassment.
“The good news is that they are finally issuing resolution agreements for universities to make changes to address discrimination against Jewish students,” Ken Marcus, chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which helps students file civil rights complaints against universities, said of the agreements. Adding a note of caution, Marcus, who headed OCR in the Trump administration, said he had hoped for “more specificity and detail” in the agreements. “Instead, the Education Department has kicked the can down the road, requiring [CUNY] to make some vaguely described changes to its policies.”
In a statement, William C. Thompson Jr., the CUNY board of trustees chairman, promised the university would work closely with the Education Department. “We look forward to working with the Office of Civil Rights to ensure that all members of our community feel safe and included in the CUNY mission of equal access and opportunity,” said Thompson.
That both agreements included mentions of both antisemitism and Islamophobia — even though the two OCR complaints against Michigan only referred to antisemitism — reflects a common Biden administration practice of linking the two forms of hatred, even when the incidents are not connected.
“We all want universities to provide equal protection for all of their students, including Jewish and non-Jewish students alike. But it’s unusual for the agency to address claims by one group by insisting that multiple groups be treated in a different way,” said Marcus. “When women come forward and say that an institution is discriminating against women, the agency doesn’t come up with an order saying that both women and men need to be treated better in the future.”
UMich Jewish regent targeted for second time
The exterior of University of Michigan Board of Regents member Jordan Acker’s law office was vandalized overnight on Monday with the phrases “FREE PALESTINE,” “DIVEST NOW,” “FUCK YOU ACKER” and “UM KILLS” scrawled on the walls, walkway and front window. The incident is the second time during the Israel-Hamas war that Acker, who is Jewish, has been targeted by anti-Israel demonstrators.
“It’s a disgusting escalation and pure antisemitism,” Acker, who is a former Obama administration official and has sat on the school’s Board of Regents since 2018, told Jewish Insider. “This has nothing to do with Palestine. I am one of eight [regents] and I was the only person targeted. I believe that’s because I’m Jewish. I believe this was a message to be sent to the Jewish community.”
According to video footage obtained by the Goodman Acker personal injury law firm, which is located in a heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Southfield — about 30 minutes away from the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor — the incident occurred at approximately 2 a.m. when four masked individuals splattered the front walkway, the sign over the door and the building’s walls with red and black spray paint and the antisemitic and anti-Israel messages.
Southfield police told local newspaper Deadline Detroit that the department responded to a 911 call Monday morning and is investigating the matter. “The investigation is in its infancy,” Lt. Mo Bzeih said. “We want to gather the preliminary facts before we put out a statement. We’re canvassing the area.”
“The vandalism that occurred at Regent Jordan Acker’s place of business is shocking and unacceptable,” University of Michigan’s president, Santa Ono, said in a statement. “Singling out this dedicated public servant and defacing his workplace in the middle of the night is an act of antisemitic cowardice that Southfield police have indicated is being investigated as a hate crime. Such harassment and attempts to intimidate have no place in a civil society and certainly no place in our university community.”
Many Michigan lawmakers and candidates for office expressed support for Acker and condemned the incident. Republican Senate candidate and former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) tagged the incident as antisemitic, while his Democratic opponent, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) called it “intimidation related to the Middle East conflict.”
“We have yet another instance of the use of intimidation related to the Middle East conflict. If your ‘protest’ tactics include vandalism and violent language, you’re not protesting — you’re breaking the law and discrediting your cause at the same time,” Slotkin said in a statement. “And anyone carrying that out should be held legally accountable.”
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) said in a statement to JI, “Vandalism and acts of violence and hate against anyone for any reason are completely unacceptable. I condemn these actions in the strongest terms. Hate is being normalized in too many communities, and we must stand up to hate wherever and whenever we see it.”
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) wrote on X, “Jordan Acker and the Goodman Acker law firm have my love and support… so many drive by his place of work every day and it’s painful to see this attack on a place of business. Today and everyday, I denounce Jewish hate with every fiber in my being.”
Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) told JI in a statement, “I condemn today’s antisemitic attack on University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker’s Office in Southfield. While everyone has a right to express their views, there is absolutely no place for vandalism or violent rhetoric of any kind of in our state. It’s up to all of us to call out these attacks targeting Michiganders for who they are or their religion.”
Last month, as Acker, his wife and three daughters were asleep, his doorbell app obtained footage of a stranger wearing a red keffiyeh over his face walking up to the family’s front door. He stood there for several moments, placed papers on the door and took photographs before leaving. The incident occurred in the wake of University of Michigan police breaking up an anti-Israel illegal encampment on the Diag, the main quad, that engulfed the campus for nearly a month. One of the papers, a list of demands for the leadership of the University of Michigan, was signed: “In liberation, the UMich Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
Jewish Insider congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs and senior national correspondent Gabby Deutch contributed reporting.
Masked anti-Israel protester shows up at UMich Regent’s home in middle of night
When Jordan Acker woke up at 6 a.m. on Wednesday in his home in Huntington Woods, a heavily Jewish suburb of Detroit, he saw several alarming notifications on his iPhone. Photos and videos from his doorbell app showed a disturbance outside his front door around 4:40 a.m., while he, his wife and their three daughters were asleep.
A stranger wearing a red keffiyeh over his face walked up to Acker’s front door and stood there for several moments. He placed papers on the doors and took photographs before leaving. The document, a list of demands for the leadership of the University of Michigan, was signed: “In liberation, the UMich Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
Acker, an attorney and former Obama administration official, sits on the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, a statewide position to which he was elected in 2018. He ran for the seat as a way to promote a safe campus environment and protect students from sexual misconduct. A Jewish Michigan alumnus, Acker knew Israel issues might come up — the school has been dealing with staunchly anti-Israel activists for years — but he never expected anything like the uproar of the last seven months. The disturbance at his home escalated things to a new level.
“It’s not a way that we handle disputes in this country, by trying to scare elected officials. I think that is something that is enormously undemocratic,” Acker told Jewish Insider on Wednesday afternoon. “I found it extremely disturbing and very menacing in thinking that someone would dress like that to come to my house at 4:40 a.m. It’s really surreal, and it’s very, very scary.”
He compared the incident to something that happened in December 2020, when two dozen protesters showed up at night outside the home of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to protest the results of the 2020 election.
“Whether you agree with the cause or not, there is no reason to show up at my home in the middle of the night with a mask on, just like there’s no reason to show up at Jocelyn Benson’s house,” Acker said. “These tactics are fundamentally — whether they’re from the far right or far left — incredibly illiberal. They try to use fear as a tactic to get what they want, when they can’t get what they want at the ballot box. And that cannot be acceptable.”
According to a statement from the university, more than 30 protesters showed up at the homes of several university regents Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. In some cases, they chanted and sang; in at least one instance, they placed fake corpses wrapped in bloodstained sheets on the lawn. The groups that spearheaded the campus’ anti-Israel encampment, which disbanded a couple weeks ago, claimed responsibility via social media posts: Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) and the Transparency, Accountability, Humanity, Reparations, Investment, Resistance (TAHRIR) Coalition. (TAHRIR retweeted a post on the social media network X that accused Acker of “incitement” for complaining about the intruder online.)
“The tactics used today represent a significant and dangerous escalation in the protests that have been occurring on campus. Going to an individual’s private residence is intimidating behavior and, in this instance, illegal trespassing. This kind of conduct is not protected speech; it’s dangerous and unacceptable,” the university said in the statement. (Acker and a university spokesperson declined to say if the police have gotten involved.)
In the letter pasted to Acker’s door, the encampment protesters demanded a meeting with Michigan’s Board of Regents, the university’s governing board. They also demanded involvement in university investment decisions, university divestment “from Israeli apartheid and genocide,” a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and the full abolition of the campus police department. The protesters also seek adoption of “essential preconditions” before any meeting even takes place — including a commitment to “full amnesty” for protesters who faced disciplinary action for their role in the protests and a demand that Michigan “stop using dubious accusations of antisemitism to vilify students protesting for basic human rights and liberation.”
The letter and the middle-of-the-night visit do not make Acker more likely to meet with the group. He has said in the past that divestment is “not really a negotiable one” for him.
“I am not interested in meeting with a group led by someone who has posted that anyone who supports the Zionist state should die,” Acker said, referring to a social media post by the president of SAFE, the anti-Israel group that led the encampment.
“My feelings on Israel and Palestine and Gaza are complicated, like a lot of Jews, by the way. And I don’t know if they’re targeting me because of that,” said Acker. “But I will say that the last six months, and certainly the last six weeks have really instilled in me a new appreciation for my own liberal Zionism and the importance of a State of Israel, and why that’s there. The level of antisemitism has become enormously scary.”
The biggest concern for Acker is not the students whose style of activism has become increasingly extreme, even though he views that as a problem, too.
“I’m much more concerned with the faculty, with the small group of faculty who seem to be egging on some of the worst behaviors of our students. And that, to me, is a much harder problem, because I deeply believe in academic freedom,” Acker said.
“But I also think that with academic freedom comes a responsibility,” Acker continued, “and that responsibility requires these faculty members to do well by their students, to not put them in harm’s way, to teach them that even when they are angry, or in grief, or dealing with the complex emotions that come from seeing this conflict in Gaza, that they they channel their behaviors into ones that are not dangerous, that won’t lead to them having long-term consequences.”
Acker called for Michigan to adopt a position of institutional neutrality, like the University of Chicago (although Chicago also struggled with how to address its recent Gaza encampment). He wants to see that position extended to the classroom, so that students are free to express their views — including students who support Israel.
“You have to be proactively protecting free speech and academic freedom, and that includes, by the way, the academic freedom of students to learn without being punished for their political views, which is actually something that is most concerning, more than any of the potential violence or the encampments or anything,” said Acker. “The one thing that I’ve heard most from Jewish students is that they are deeply concerned that if they don’t take a particular position on Israel or Palestine, they may be punished academically in their classes.”
Professors at Michigan shouldn’t be forcing students to adopt their own perspectives, Acker argued. “You’re representing the institution. It’s your job to be facilitating people’s First Amendment rights, not enforcing your own political views,” he said. “It’s become a big problem.”
House Republicans to ramp up efforts to combat campus antisemitism
Congressional Republicans are vowing action to address antisemitism on college campuses nationwide, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) launching “a House-wide effort” this week to crack down on universities unable to control anti-Israel protests that on some occasions have grown violent.
Johnson said at a press conference on Tuesday that House Republicans would expand the ongoing efforts to tackle antisemitism beyond the House Education and Workforce Committee, which has investigations into six universities underway.
The chairs of the House Energy and Commerce; Oversight; Judiciary; Ways and Means; and Science, Space, and Technology Committees will separately investigate “the billions of federal taxpayer dollars that go to these universities,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said at the press conference.
“Antisemitism is a virus and because the administration and woke university presidents aren’t stepping in, we’re seeing it spread,” Johnson said. “We must act, and House Republicans will speak to this fateful moment with moral clarity. We really wish those in the White House would do the same. We will not allow antisemitism to thrive on campus and we will hold these universities accountable for their failure to protect Jewish students on campus.”
“That’s why today we’re here to announce a House-wide effort to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses,” he continued. “Nearly every committee here has a role to play in these efforts to stop the madness that has ensued. The federal government plays a critical role in higher education, and we will use all the tools available to us to address this scourge.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who chairs the Education and Workforce Committee, revealed that in addition to her ongoing probes, she will have the presidents of three other schools testify next month on their responses to protests and instances of antisemitism on their campuses. The presidents of the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Michigan; and Yale University will be brought in to testify before Foxx’s committee on May 23.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, noted that her panel “oversees agencies that dole out massive amounts of taxpayer funded research grants… We will be increasing our oversight of institutions that have received public funding and cracking down on those who are in violation of the Civil Rights Act.”
“Imagine being a Jewish American, knowing that part of your hard-earned paycheck is going to fund an antisemitic professor’s research, while they threaten students and actively indoctrinate and radicalize the next generation,” McMorris Rodgers said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) said that his panel was reaching out to the State Department and Homeland Security Department to find out “how many students on a visa have engaged in the radical activity we’ve seen now day after day on college campuses.”
“The overriding question is real simple: Are individuals advocating for the destruction of our dearest and closest ally, the State of Israel, and engaged in this antisemitic behavior, is that a national security threat? We think it is,” Jordan said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) hasn’t directly addressed the expanded GOP investigations, but is pushing for the House to consider a bipartisan antisemitism bill in response to the campus incidents.
Jeffries said Wednesday he has no current plans to visit colleges that have been plagued by unrest and anti-Israel encampments. He said he also hasn’t looked at proposals for cutting funding to colleges that are not cracking down on antisemitism, but slammed Republicans for pushing to cut funding to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which investigates antisemitism accusations on campuses.
“Ultimately, it was House Democrats led by [Rep.] Rosa DeLauro [D-CT], that were able to restore the proposed extreme MAGA Republican cut that would have adversely impacted the ability of the Department of Education to combat antisemitism and all other forms of hatred on college campuses,” Jeffries said. “We don’t need rhetoric from some of my Republican colleagues, we need real action.”
The New York congressman expressed support for Columbia University and the New York Police Department’s response to anti-Israel demonstrators who broke into and took over an administrative building on campus.
“As far as I can tell, the efforts by the NYPD were thorough, professional, and they exercised a degree of calm in a very tense situation that should be commended,” he said during a press conference, adding that he did not see any incidents of excessive force.
The Democratic leader said that peaceful protest and civil disobedience are “an important part of the fabric of America” but that protests that threaten others or engage in antisemitism or other bigotry are unacceptable.
He said he had no comment on Democratic lawmakers who have visited the encampments at Columbia to offer support. He also declined to comment on remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) accusing some Jewish students of being “pro-genocide,” noting that he hadn’t spoken to Omar directly.
On the Senate side, where Democrats are in the majority, Republicans have been largely unified in calling for consequences for schools that cannot get their campuses under control, but otherwise lack the power to force any action.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) organized a press conference on Wednesday for a group of GOP senators to condemn the encampments, which he referred to as “Little Gazas.”
“These ‘Little Gazas’ are disgusting cesspools of antisemitic hate full of pro-Hamas sympathizers, fanatics, and freaks,” Cotton said. “President Biden needs to denounce Hamas’s campus sympathizers without equivocating about Israelis fighting a righteous war of survival.”
“The State Department needs to yank the visas of foreign students in these ‘Little Gazas’ and DHS needs to deport them,” he added. “The Justice Department should investigate the funding sources behind these ‘Little Gazas,’ and the Department of Education needs to withhold funding for colleges that won’t protect the civil rights of their Jewish students.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the No. 3 Senate Republican, similarly called for revoking federal support for universities that fail to uphold civil rights laws.
“We have laws in this country to protect against violence, to protect students. Students have a right to be protected. Jewish students, all students on campus, from harassment, from discrimination,” Barrasso said at the weekly leadership press conference. “If not, those colleges should lose their federal funding.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered two floor speeches on the matter within two days. His Tuesday speech likened Columbia protesters to ‘student Nazis of Weimar Germany’ in a call to restore order on the university’s campus, while his Wednesday remarks urged the Biden administration to not focus “on virtue-signaling and political theater to appease the leftist agitators of their base.”
While Republicans have generally been more vocal about their concerns on the matter, there have been some bipartisan calls for action in the upper chamber.
Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) have asked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to hold a hearing on antisemitism on college campuses in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the top Republican on the committee, has requested the same.
Asked by JI in the Capitol on Wednesday about organizing a hearing about antisemitism on college campuses, Sanders replied, “Well, the issue of bigotry on campus is something that we are concerned about,” before abruptly entering a senators-only elevator.
Cassidy told JI in November that Sanders had declined to call a hearing on campus antisemitism. Sanders delivered a Senate floor speech on Wednesday largely expressing support for anti-Israel protests on college campuses and rejecting many of the accusations of antisemitism leveled at anti-Israel demonstrators.
Sanders’s office did not respond to JI’s subsequent request for comment on the matter, nor did a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
