The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued six subpoenas to Columbia University officials on Wednesday for documents related to the committee’s investigation into campus antisemitism.

This is the second round of subpoenas issued by the committee in its antisemitism investigation, coming just days before Columbia begins classes for its fall semester, and as the campus prepares for renewed anti-Israel protests.

The committee chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), threatened such a move on Aug. 1, accusing the school of failing to provide documents the committee had requested in spite of repeated warnings.

The subpoena demands that Columbia provide, by noon on Sept. 4, all communications between the school’s leaders about antisemitism and the anti-Israel encampment since Oct. 7, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since April 17, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since Oct. 7 relating to antisemitism or Israel and any documents relating to allegations of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus since Oct. 7.

In a letter to Dr. Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, Foxx said the subpoenas were issued because “Columbia has failed to produce numerous priority items requested by the Committee, despite having months to comply and receiving repeated follow-up requests by the Committee.”

Foxx’s letter also instructs Columbia to preserve all documents created or held by former Columbia President Minouche Shafik, who abruptly resigned last week, that relate to the antisemitism investigation.

A recent report by the committee, based on some documents provided by Columbia, revealed that most students involved in the occupation of Hamilton Hall in late April had not been disciplined, despite Columbia’s public threats of expulsion.

“Columbia should be a partner in our efforts to ensure Jewish students have a safe learning environment on its campus, but instead, university administrators have slow rolled the investigation, repeatedly failing to turn over necessary documents,” Foxx said in a statement. “The information we have obtained points to a continued pattern of negligence towards antisemitism and a refusal to stand up to the radical students and faculty responsible for it.”

The committee has, to date, not publicly taken action to implement or enforce its first subpoena, to Harvard University.

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation on Wednesday, days before the start of the school year — and months after the end of a chaotic school year that saw her testify before Congress about antisemitism and navigate the unruly fallout of the first anti-Israel encampment in the nation. 

Dr. Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia’s Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president, a university spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider. A source familiar said Armstrong has already been in touch with Hillel leadership at Columbia. 

News of Shafik’s resignation was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon’s Eliana Johnson. Shafik is the fourth Ivy League president to step down in the last year amid rising anti-Israel activism on campuses, following the University of Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Magill, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Cornell University’s Martha Pollack.

“I have had the honor and privilege to lead this incredible institution, and I believe that — working together — we have made progress in a number of important areas,” Shafik, who only started in the role in July 2023, wrote in an email to the Columbia community. 

“However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community. This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead,” she wrote.

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Columbia, like other American universities, saw an uptick in antisemitism and targeting of Zionist students. But in an April hearing before the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Shafik avoided the kind of viral moment that dogged her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

But when she went back to Manhattan, she faced the first anti-Israel encampment at an American university. Her decision to call in the police to break up the demonstration set off a wave of anger among many students and faculty members on campus and sparked dozens of other solidarity encampments at other universities. 

From there, her leadership was under a microscope. Following a number of antisemitic incidents related to the encampment, several members of Congress from both parties went to Columbia to speak to Jewish students and show solidarity.

In a statement, the Anti-Defamation League said it is “saddened that the leadership of another flagship university has crumbled under the weight of antisemitism on its campus,” calling on the school to move quickly to fill the leadership vacancy before the fall semester.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), in a statement first shared with JI, cheered Shafik’s decision to step aside: “As a result of President Shafik’s refusal to protect Jewish students and maintain order on campus, Columbia University became the epicenter for virulent antisemitism that has plagued many American university campuses since Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel last fall.” 

“I stood in President Shafik’s office in April and told her to resign, and while it is long overdue, we welcome today’s news. Jewish students at Columbia beginning this school year should breathe a sigh of relief…We hope that President Shafik’s resignation serves as an example to university administrators across the country that tolerating or protecting antisemites is unacceptable and will have consequences,” Johnson added.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said that, under Shafik’s leadership “a disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and disorder engulfed Columbia university’s campus” and students were allowed to break the law with impunity.

“Columbia’s next leader must take bold action to address the pervasive antisemitism, support for terrorism, and contempt for the university’s rules that have been allowed to flourish on its campus,” Foxx continued, 

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a prominent member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, crowed, “THREE DOWN, so many to go,” adding that her “failed presidency was untenable and that it was only a matter of time before her forced resignation.”

She added, “We will continue to demand moral clarity, condemnation of antisemitism, protection of Jewish students and faculty, and stronger leadership from American higher education institutions.”

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told JI that the resignation was “long overdue.”

“I have been calling for President Shafik to be ousted or resign ever since her abysmal failure to condemn Columbia’s antisemitic outbursts or ensure the safety of Jewish students on her campus,” Lawler said. “Let this be a lesson to all who waver in the face of evil.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said that “when President Shafik failed to enforce the code of conduct and protect Jewish students just trying to walk to class safely, she failed at her job and allowed a hostile, antisemitic environment to escalate.”

He asserted that similar treatment of any other minority group would have been quickly stopped by school administrators and that signs reading “go back to Poland” displayed just outside Columbia’s gates when he visited the campus have stuck with him.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called Columbia “ground zero for campus antisemitism in NYC,” urging the new leadership to “summon the moral clarity and the moral courage to confront the deep rot of antisemitism at Columbia’s core.”

But Columbia’s problems didn’t stop with the encampment. In late April, student protesters occupied a campus administrative building, leading to hundreds of arrests by police. (The charges have since been dropped against most student protesters.) 

Two days later, President Joe Biden condemned unlawful protests at U.S. universities. “Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation — none of this is a peaceful protest,” he said in a White House address in May. “It’s against the law.”

In May, the faculty of arts and sciences — which was mostly supportive of the anti-Israel encampment — approved a vote of no confidence in Shafik. 

Columbia made news earlier this month when three deans who had been placed on leave over exchanging antisemitic text messages resigned. 

And as recently as this week, lawmakers demanded that the school reimburse the New York Police Department for costs incurred in clearing the encampment on the Columbia campus.

Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, declined to comment on Shafik’s departure but praised Armstrong’s appointment as interim president. 

“I think very highly of Dr. Armstrong and I know many colleagues feel the same way,” Cohen told JI. “She is a strong leader — when there were issues that needed to be addressed at the Medical Center, Dr. Armstrong was quick to respond and to address the issues.”

Jewish Insider Congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed to this report.

Jewish student leaders at Columbia University were flummoxed on Monday following a “confusing” and “intentionally ambiguous” announcement by President Minouche Shafik that three administrators had been removed from their posts for text messages that veered into antisemitism during a May panel on Jewish life at the university.

The statement from Shafik and Provost Angela Olinto referenced the “permanent removal” of the three — Susan Chang-Kim, vice dean and chief administrative officer; Cristen Kromm, dean of undergraduate student life; and Matthew Patashnick, associate dean for student and family support — but added that they “remain on leave.”

Eliana Goldin, a rising fourth-year political science major pursuing a dual degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary, told Jewish Insider that the wording “was intentionally left ambiguous so that students would think some sort of concrete action was being taken by the university.”

“This mirrors the lack of equivocal condemnation of the antisemitic condemnation of the antisemitic administrators,” Goldin, co-chair of Aryeh, a pro-Israel club associated with Hillel on campus, continued. “In reality, the university is trying to skirt responsibility and using bureaucratic measures to avoid taking real responsibility.”

A Columbia University spokesperson told CNN that the three officials are still employed by the university.

The controversial texts occurred during a May 31 panel titled “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future,” and in the exchange the administrators seemed to belittle the concerns of Jewish students amid a sharp rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment on campus. 

The text messages, which have since been published by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which has opened an investigation into the incident and demanded a full transcript of the texts, included a message from Chang-Kim at 1:46 p.m. reading, “Comes from such a place of privilege… hard to hear the woe is me, we need to huddle at the Kraft center. Huh??” At 2:06 p.m., Kromm wrote, “Amazing what $$$$ can do” during a speech about an October 2023 Columbia Spectator op-ed by a campus rabbi.

A fourth administrator, Dean of Columbia College Josef Sorett, also participated in the exchange but to a lesser extent. Shafik said that disciplinary action would not be taken against Sorett, as “he has apologized and taken full responsibility, committing to the work and collaboration necessary to heal the community and learn from this moment, and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.” The other three administrators were placed on leave on June 20 and were under university investigation for their participation in the exchange. 

A spokesperson for Columbia University declined to elaborate to JI on the wording of Shafik’s statement. 

“This incident revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” Shafik wrote on Monday. “Whether intended as such or not, these sentiments are unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community that is antithetical to our University’s values and the standards we must uphold in our community.”

Shafik also wrote that the university “will launch a vigorous program of antisemitism and anti discrimination training for faculty and staff this fall, with related training for students under the auspices of University Life.” The university will release more information about the training throughout the summer, Olinto wrote. 

“I am encouraged that President Shafik removed the deans, but I am confused by the wording,” Noah Lederman, a rising sophomore studying philosophy and pre-law who was part of the delegation of Jewish students who attended a Congressional hearing on antisemitism at Columbia in the spring, told JI. 

In February, Lederman was heading back to his dorm from a pro-Israel demonstration, wearing a shirt with an Israeli flag, when he was “physically assaulted by a masked individual right outside of the Northwest Corner Building on Broadway and 120th Street,” he told JI at the time. 

Lederman, who is the student president of Columbia’s Meor chapter, which runs campus social events tied to study of traditional Jewish texts, added of Monday’s announcement, “This reads to me as every other email has; very performative. It sounds like this was phrased in a way to make people believe the administrators were being fired… the ambiguity is unprofessional. Be forthright about what’s going on.” 

A spokesperson for Virginia Foxx, (R-NC) who oversaw the House Committee on Education and the Workforce investigation into the texts, told the Columbia Spectator on Monday that the removals are “not enough” and that Columbia is “far from off the hook.” 

Columbia University administrators mocked concerns in the Jewish community about antisemitism and anti-Israel activity on campus, as well as accused the community of using the issue for financial and other gain, in private text messages released on Tuesday by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Some of the text messages, exchanged between administrators during a panel on Jewish life on campus, were revealed last month in a Washington Free Beacon report, which included images of the text chat captured by an onlooker. The full text chat, requested by the committee, reveals a further level of vitriol.

Speakers on the panel included former Columbia Law School Dean David Schizer, who leads the school’s antisemitism task force; Brian Cohen, the executive director of Columbia’s Kraft Center for Jewish Life; Ian Rottenberg, the school’s dean of religious life; and Rebecca Massel, a journalist with the Columbia Daily Spectator. 

The exact context of some of the messages, many of which appear to be in response to specific comments made by members of the panel, is not clear.

Susan Chang-Kim, the chief administrator of Columbia College; Cristen Kromm, dean of undergraduate student life; and Matthew Patashnick, associate dean of student and family support, have all been placed on leave following the Free Beacon’s original report regarding the messages. The texts from the officials appeared to downplay and denigrate the concerns expressed by the Jewish campus leaders and students. Josef Sorett, the dean of Columbia College, was also involved in the chain, and remains in his post.

“Comes from such a place of privilege… hard to hear the woe is me, we need to huddle at the Kraft center. Huh??” Chang texted the group.

Kromm agreed, emphasizing the needs and interests of anti-Zionist Jews. “Yup. Blind to the idea that non-Israel supporting Jews have no space to come together.”

Chang responded that she was “trying to be open minded to understand but the doors are closing.”

At the end of the panel, Kromm sent two vomiting emojis into the chat, to which Chang-Kim responded, “I’m going to throw up.”

Kromm added, “amazing what $$$$ can do.”

Kromm and Patashnick mocked at least one of the speakers for, they suggested, trying to portray himself as a “hero,” a notion that Sorett laughed at.

The administrators also dismissed the concerns raised by Columbia Hillel’s Cohen as disingenuous or a ploy for other interests.

“He knows exactly what he’s doing and how to take full advantage of this moment. Huge fundraising potential,” Patashnick said, a sentiment that was endorsed by Chang-Kim and Kromm.

“He is such a problem!!!” Chang-Kim said of one of the speakers. “Painting our students as dangerous.”

Patashnick also complained that speakers were “laying the case to expand physical space!” adding, “they will have their own dorm soon.”

Kromm lamented, “if only every identity community had these resources and support.”

The officials also dismissed the notion that Jewish students were expelled from clubs for their identities, and largely brushed off accusations that some Columbia students had expressed support for Hamas.

Chang-Kim called the panel “difficult to listen to,” with which Sorett agreed, while Kromm called one of the speakers “strategic” in his portrayal of events on campus.

Chang-Kim also appeared to question why the issue was a subject of discussion for Columbia’s board of trustees.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the House committee, condemned the officials in a statement.

“Jewish students deserve better than to have harassment and threats against them dismissed as ‘privilege,’ and Jewish faculty members deserve better than to be mocked by their colleagues,” said Foxx. “These text messages once again confirm the need for serious accountability across Columbia’s campus.”

In a scathing new letter to the leadership of Northwestern University on Friday, House Education and Workforce Committee chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) threatened to subpoena the school. Foxx also accused President Michael Schill of providing false testimony in a committee hearing last month.

Foxx’s letter alleges that, “rather than being cooperative and transparent, Northwestern has obstructed the Committee’s investigation of” antisemitism and Schill “refused to answer questions,” “made statements at odds with the public record” and “demonstrated an overall attitude of contempt” for the committee.

The letter accuses Northwestern of failing to comply with a previous request for documents on the school’s handling of antisemitism and anti-Israel demonstrations. Foxx said in the letter that she’s prepared to subpoena the school for documents and testimony, and that the committee will hold the school’s full Board of Trustees responsible for following her requests.

“Northwestern’s capitulation to its antisemitic encampment and its impeding of the Committee’s oversight are unbecoming of a leading university,” Foxx said. “It is inappropriate to expect taxpayers to continue providing federal funding while Northwestern appears to be in violation of its obligations to its Jewish students, faculty, and staff under Title VI and defies the Committee’s oversight.”

The letter accuses Schill of obstructing the committee by refusing to answer specific questions about specific students and faculty and their conduct. It also said that he provided testimony that contradicts the text of the agreement he struck with anti-Israel demonstrators.

According to the letter, Northwestern produced just 13 pages of non-public documents pertaining to its top-priority requests, all of which were general records of Board of Trustees meetings without specific details. 

Overall, Foxx alleged that 78% of the provided documents were not relevant to its requests and that 46% were already public, as well as that Northwestern provided no non-public communications about the anti-Israel encampment.

Foxx said that Northwestern’s lawyers also had pointed to Schill’s “purported willingness to answer questions as an ostensible excuse” for not providing requested documents or a briefing by Northwestern administrators on the encampment agreement.

The letter gave Northwestern 10 days, until June 17, to provide a series of documents and communications relating to the encampment, antisemitism, Board meetings, antisemitism advisory committee meetings and donations from Qatar, or face a subpoena.

The committee previously subpoenaed Harvard University for documents, and has accused Harvard of defying that subpoena, but has not taken further public action to enforce the subpoena or impose penalties.

The letter comes days after Foxx and the leaders of the House Ways and Means; Energy and Commerce; Judiciary; Oversight; and Science, Space and Technology committees wrote to the leaders of Northwestern, Barnard, Columbia, University of California, Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers and Cornell as part of a House-wide campus antisemitism investigation.

In the letters, the committee leaders vowed to conduct oversight of the use of federal funds on each campus, and outlined the various specific areas of federal law and funding that each committee is examining.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said she has low expectations, even after a series of high-profile hearings with university presidents on antisemitism on college campuses, that university leaders will make significant changes to their responses to antisemitism on campus.

Asked what might happen on college campuses if the executive branch changes hands after the November election, Foxx, who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, largely predicted that the status quo will continue.

“I’m a little skeptical of whether the presidents of many of these institutions will take any different kinds of action than what they’re taking now,” she said, speaking on Monday at the American Enterprise Institute. “I think they’ll rant and rave, I think they’ll scream things like ‘academic freedom,’ I think they’ll say, ‘But look over here at these other kinds of things.’”

“I’d like to believe that as a result of what we’ve done already, you’re going to see major changes on campus,” Foxx continued. “I’d like to see that happen. Maybe there’ll be some changes in the schools we’ve highlighted. But even there, I don’t expect a lot.”

Foxx said one of the “most frustrating” revelations from the hearings was that there is an unclear structure of accountability and responsibility within campus administrations for responding to incidents of antisemitism.

But she said she’s hopeful that at the very least, schools will work to implement better conduct codes, as Northwestern University’s president said his school would at a recent hearing. She said she wants to see clearer “lines of responsibility” and punishments for faculty, staff and students involved in antisemitic activity. 

She said that the issue of tax-exempt status for colleges is largely outside of her committee’s jurisdiction but that it’s being examined by Congress.

She said she’s also had discussions with former President Donald Trump during which they’ve shared the belief that the federal government should not be involved in education “at all.”

It’s not clear what that approach might mean for federal enforcement of anti-discrimination provisions in education.

The Education Committee chair dismissed calls from Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and House Democrats for additional funding for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, arguing that, particularly in the case of Harvard, the committee had already done the department’s work for it.

“This should have been at the top of their list, they should have gotten to it immediately,” Foxx said, referring to enforcement action by the department against Harvard.

According to Cardona, each investigator in the office has been handling 50 cases, given the surge in discrimination complaints since Oct. 7.

Foxx, highlighting the committee’s report on Harvard’s antisemitism task force, largely decried such advisory boards as lacking substance, claiming schools rarely actually respond to such committees’ recommendations.

Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans penned a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) on Thursday to request that he hold a hearing on how the uptick in antisemitism on college campuses is violating the civil rights of Jewish students. 

The letter was led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the top Republican on the committee, and signed by every Republican who serves on the panel, including Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Josh Hawley (R-MO), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). They urged Durbin, who chairs the committee, to convene a hearing “on the civil rights violations of Jewish students” and “the proliferation of terrorist ideology — two issues that fall squarely within this Committee’s purview.”

“With this current state of inaction, it is incumbent upon this Committee to shed light on these civil rights violations,” the group wrote. “This Committee owes it to Jewish students, and all students who attend universities with modest hope of having a safe learning environment, to examine these civil rights violations.”

“Our committee should examine why more is not being done to protect the civil rights of innocent students across America,” they added. “We must also examine the threat to national security posed by the proliferation of radical Islamist ideology in the academy. These pressing issues demand our immediate attention.”

A spokesperson for Durbin did not immediately respond to JI’s request for comment on the letter, which came the same day as a missive from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) requesting a similar hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. 

Cassidy, the top Republican on the Senate HELP Committee, sent a letter to Sanders on Thursday urging him to convene a hearing in his capacity as committee chairman on the uptick in antisemitism on college campuses. 

Cassidy’s letter, first obtained by Jewish Insider, marks the second time in six months that the Louisiana senator has written to Sanders requesting that he allow for a full committee hearing “on ensuring safe learning environments for Jewish students, as required by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Cassidy released a statement last week re-upping his call for a hearing, though he told JI that effort got no response.

“It is our duty to ensure federal officials are doing everything in their power to uphold the law and ensure students are not excluded from participation, denied the benefits of, or subject to discrimination at school based on race, color, or national origin,” Cassidy wrote to Sanders. “In the six months since my last letter requesting a hearing, the situation has only gotten worse.”

While Republicans have generally been more vocal about their concerns on the issue of antisemitism on college campuses, there have been bipartisan calls for action in the upper chamber. 

Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) have also asked Sanders to hold a hearing on antisemitism on college campuses in his capacity as HELP chairman. Similar to Cassidy, they have also not heard back from the Vermont senator. 

Separately, Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) requested a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser’s response to protests at The George Washington University’s campus this week. 

The duo penned a letter on Thursday to Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), who chairs the committee, requesting he bring in Bowser and D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith to testify on their respective responses to university requests to bring DCMP onto campus to clear out an anti-Israel encampment, requests Bowser denied. 

On the House side, where Republicans are in the majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) launched a chamber-wide effort to address all elements of the campus unrest. 

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.”

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.”

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).

The House Education and Workforce Committee on Wednesday requested documents from Rutgers University on its handling of antisemitism on its campuses, the sixth school and the second public college targeted under the committee’s antisemitism probe.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the committee’s chair, wrote on Wednesday to Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway, Board of Governors Chair William E. Best and the chancellors of Rutgers’ Newark, Camden and New Brunswick campuses about antisemitic incidents across the university system.

“Rutgers stands out for the intensity and pervasiveness of antisemitism on its campuses,” Foxx said. “Rutgers senior administrators, faculty, staff, academic departments and centers, and student organizations have contributed to the development of a pervasive climate of antisemitism.”

The letter highlights concerns about the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), which Foxx described as “notorious as a hotbed of radical antisemitic, anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-terrorist activity,” pointing to statements by the center, its leadership and its affiliates, as well as events and speakers it has sponsored.

She also pointed to antisemitic and anti-Israel activity by other Rutgers faculty, staff and institutions, and Rutgers Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as other incidents of vandalism.

The letter accuses Rutgers SJP of “a history of violation of university rules,” and notes that the group has received significant support from the student government and was only briefly suspended on the New Brunswick campus.

The letter further blasts then-Rutgers New Brunswick Chancellor Christopher Malloy for apologizing for a statement condemning antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, and notes that Rutgers Newark’s Jewish population falls well below the state’s overall Jewish population.

Foxx requested, by April 10, documents relating to antisemitism and anti-Israel activity on Rutgers’ campuses and its responses to it; internal communications and meeting minutes from Board of Governors meetings; all documents relating to the CSRR; documents on funding for Rutgers SJP; documents relating to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions efforts at Rutgers; documents on the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion offices and programs; and information on foreign donations, particularly from Qatar.

“Rutgers takes claims of antisemitism, and all forms of bias and intolerance, very seriously. The university received the committee’s letter and will respond directly to the chairwoman,” Rutgers said in a statement.

Rutgers, and the CSRR in particular, have also come under scrutiny from Republicans of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Local Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) has also raised concerns about events on Rutgers’ campuses.

This story was updated on March 27 at 4:40 p.m. to include a statement from Rutgers.

The University of California, Berkeley, on Tuesday became the fifth target of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s expanding investigation of antisemitism on college campuses.

In a letter to Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, University of California President Michael Drake and University of California Board of Regents Chair Richard Leib, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) requested documents relating to the school’s handling of incidents and reports of antisemitism, and internal communications and meeting notes relating to antisemitism and Israel. 

It also requests documentation relating to the school’s equity and inclusion office and related programs, as well as foreign donations to the school.

The letter highlights a number of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents on Berkeley’s campus, including a riot targeting Jewish students that shut down a recent speaking event; multiple incidents of assault, harassment, vandalism and robbery; an ongoing blockade of a campus gate that the school has declined to break up; an incident when students were offered extra credit for attending a pro-Palestinian protest; a public statement by a pro-Palestinian student group praising the Oct. 7 attack; anti-Israel and antisemitic comments by faculty; and the college’s own response to Oct. 7.

It also notes that in August of 2022 — months before the Oct. 7 attacks — nine Berkeley Law School student groups adopted bylaws committing to boycotting speakers who support Zionism or Israel.

“An environment of pervasive antisemitism has been documented at UC Berkeley dating back to well before the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack,” Foxx wrote. She also referenced several instances of internal criticism from students and faculty, as well as condemnation from the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.

Foxx gave the school until April 2 to respond to the request.

A UC Berkeley student spoke to a committee roundtable on antisemitism last month; five of the nine schools whose students appeared at the event have now been hit with document requests. UC Berkeley is the first public university to become part of the investigation.

Dan Mogulof, a UC Berkeley spokesperson, said that the school would “provide a comprehensive response to the committee’s questions and concerns,” adding that “UC Berkeley has long been committed to confronting antisemitism, and to supporting the needs and interests of its Jewish students, faculty, and staff” and “has an unwavering commitment to ensuring every student feels safe and welcome, at all times, in all places, regardless of who they are, or what they believe in.”

He also noted that the speaker whose event was called off due to the riot in February spoke on Monday without incident.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Friday requested documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the fourth school to be drawn into the committee’s investigation of campus antisemitism.

In a letter to MIT President Sally Kornbluth and MIT Corporation Chair Mark Gorenberg, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the committee chair, said the committee has “grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of MIT’s response to antisemitism on its campus.”

She referenced testimony by Kornbluth in December that “further called into question the Institute’s willingness to address antisemitism seriously” and raised concerns about the MIT Corporation’s continued endorsement of Kornbluth following that hearing.

Kornbluth is the only one of the three college presidents who testified at that December hearing who remains in her position.

The committee chair highlighted numerous incidents on MIT’s campus since Oct. 7, including disruptions of classes and campus events, blockades of buildings, harassment and assault of Jewish students and chants endorsing violence. She accused MIT of failing to enforce its suspension of a campus pro-Palestinian group that was punished for violating school rules.

Foxx’s letter also includes excerpts from a statement to the committee by MIT Israel Alliance President Talia Khan, who said that MIT’s lack of action “must not be regarded simply as inaction, but rather as a feckless, cowardly, hypocritical, entirely deliberate choice to remain silent.”

The letter requests documents relating to MIT’s responses to antisemitic incidents, disciplinary procedures, internal communications and meeting minutes and foreign donations that the school has received.

The committee previously requested similar documents from Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania. Accusing Harvard of non-compliance, it issued a subpoena to the school, and declared this week that the university had still failed to properly cooperate.

It’s unclear yet whether Foxx plans to pursue subpoenas of other school leaders, or how it will respond to Harvard.

For two hours on Wednesday, lawmakers heard from a parade of Jewish students, each delivering the same message: They do not feel safe on their college campuses.

Speaking to a roundtable organized by the House Committee on Education & the Workforce, Jewish students from Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia, Rutgers, Stanford, Tulane, Cooper Union and University of California, Berkeley spoke about about the harassment, threats and violence they’ve faced on their campuses since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The students’ accounts were all remarkably similar, despite coming from a range of locations and school types, including openly antisemitic taunts and harassment, angry mobs rampaging through campus and overtaking campus buildings, vandalism and in some cases threats of or actual incidents of violence, all going largely or completely unaddressed by university administrators and campus police, despite repeated and sustained pleas from the students for help and support. 

In some cases, the students said professors and administrators were complicit or actively involved in the antisemitic activity. Students said that they feared for their safety and even their lives.

The students, saying they felt abandoned by their universities and had no faith in them to act to protect them, pleaded for action from Congress. They said that they hoped their testimony could serve as a wakeup call to both Congress and the American public.

“As my friends from Harvard and UPenn can tell you, it doesn’t end simply because presidents are replaced. Systemic change is needed,” Kevin Feigelis, a Stanford student, said. “Universities have proven they have no intention of fixing themselves. It must be you, and it must be now.”

Shabbos Kestenbaum — a Harvard student who said he’d contacted the school’s antisemitism task force more than 40 times without a response and had been threatened in a video with a machete by a still-employed Harvard staff member — called Congress and the courts the students’ “last hope.”

Multiple students and lawmakers said that the current events on campus carry echoes of 1930s Germany or the pogroms in Russia.

Some suggested potential courses of action that Congress and other federal branches could take, including leveraging U.S. taxpayer funding or the schools’ tax-exempt statuses, placing third-party monitors on campus and enforcing diversity requirements in Middle East studies departments requiring them to include pro-Israel views.

Students from Harvard, Penn and MIT all said that little has changed on their campuses since last year’s blockbuster congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, which prompted the ouster of Harvard and Penn’s presidents.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the committee’s chair, vowed that she and her colleagues would not stop their efforts to tackle antisemitism on campus.

“I was very emotional,” Foxx told Jewish Insider, “I’m a mother and a grandmother. I have one grandchild who went to college and I’m not sure what I would have done if he had come home to say he felt threatened on his campus like these students feel threatened. No student on a college campus, in this country, in the year 2024, should feel threatened.”

Foxx said that the committee’s antisemitism investigation is proceeding deliberately, but that the schools will be held to account. The committee has already requested documents from Harvard, Penn and Columbia and has now subpoenaed Harvard. Foxx suggested that other schools whose students had appeared Thursday could be next.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued subpoenas to Harvard’s leaders on Friday morning, seeking documents related to the committee’s investigation into campus antisemitism that the university allegedly withheld.

The subpoena is a historic step — the first time, according to the committee, that it has issued a subpoena to a university. It comes after two months of exchanges of letters and documents between the committee and Harvard following a disastrous hearing that contributed to former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation.

The subpoenas, issued by Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC), specifically target Penny Pritzker, Harvard Corporation’s senior fellow; interim President Alan Garber; and N.P. Narvekar, Harvard Management Company chief executive officer.

Foxx said in a statement that at least 40% of the 2,516 pages of documents Harvard had provided to the committee were already publicly available, and that the university had failed to address some of the priority requests she made in a letter last week, in which she threatened subpoenas.

“Harvard’s continued failure to satisfy the Committee’s requests is unacceptable,” Foxx said. “I will not tolerate delay and defiance of our investigation while Harvard’s Jewish students continue to endure the firestorm of antisemitism that has engulfed its campus. If Harvard is truly committed to combating antisemitism, it has had every opportunity to demonstrate its commitment with actions, not words.”

In cover letters to the three Harvard officials, Foxx accused the school of failing to treat the probe “with appropriate seriousness,” suggesting that “the school is obstructing this investigation and is willing to tolerate the proliferation of antisemitism on its campus.” Foxx set a deadline for document production of March 4.

The documents requested across the three subpoenas include Harvard leadership’s internal communications, records of reports of antisemitism and actions taken in response, records from the school’s antisemitism task force and advisory group and any documents relating to anti-Israel protests on Harvard’s campus.

The committee chairwoman described the documents in her letters as “essential to inform the Committee’s consideration of potential legislation to address antisemitism in postsecondary education.”

Columbia University on Monday became the latest target of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s investigation into antisemitism on U.S. college and university campuses.

Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) sent a letter to Columbia’s leadership requesting documents relating to the school’s handling of antisemitism, following similar requests sent to Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.

Foxx, in her letter, traces Columbia’s “environment of pervasive antisemitism” back to 2004, in addition to numerous alleged incidents — detailed over more than eight pages — of antisemitic and anti-Israel comments and assault, harassment and vandalism targeting Jewish students on Columbia’s campus since Oct. 7. 

The chairwoman also noted that events by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace have continued “with apparent impunity” on Columbia’s campus even though both groups have been officially suspended.

“Columbia’s failure to enforce its policies and uphold its commitments on antisemitism is a clear abdication of the university’s obligation to protect its Jewish students,” Foxx wrote.

She requested a slew of documents including those relating to reports of and responses to antisemitism on Columbia’s campus, funding from Qatari and other foreign donors to Columbia and funding for pro-Palestine and anti-Israel groups on campus.

Foxx gave the school until Feb. 26 to respond to the document request.

Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, had been invited to participate in a disastrous December hearing on campus antisemitism — which has led, in part, to the resignations of two of the three presidents who testified — but declined to attend due to a scheduling conflict.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, is threatening to subpoena Harvard for documents related to its handling of antisemitism on its campus.

Foxx and the committee had requested documents from Harvard as part of the committee’s investigation into antisemitism on campuses, but said the documents the university produced were incomplete and nonresponsive to the request. Foxx on Wednesday gave Harvard’s leadership a week to provide further documents or face a subpoena.

“Somehow, almost two months after the Committee first informed Harvard of its intent to request production of specific documents, and a month after the Committee provided particularized requests, Harvard provided only a single meaningful document to the Committee in its antisemitism investigation,” she said. “Harvard’s failure to produce documents requested by the Committee in a timely manner is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

Foxx demanded all minutes from all meetings of the Harvard Corporation, Board of Overseers and Harvard Management Company; all communications involving the Corporation and Overseers regarding antisemitism since 2021; documents relating to disciplinary processes for incidents of antisemitism; all documents and communications relating the President’s Task Force on Antisemitism; and extensive documents relating to the findings of the Antisemitism Advisory Group and responses to those recommendations.

Foxx further slammed Harvard for redacting documents that are already available publicly in its production to the committee, and for providing what she described as highly abbreviated or redacted meeting minutes about Harvard leadership’s discussions of antisemitism issues on campus. 

Separately, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) led nine Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on letters seeking information about the funders behind the Rutgers University Center for Security, Race and Rights. 

The lawmakers said the center has provided a platform for supporters of terrorism, including guest speaker Sami Al-Arian, who was convicted of providing material support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The center’s director reposted denialism of the Oct. 7 attack, and the center has hosted individuals who have celebrated the attack or sought to blame it on Israel. 

“The work of the Center, its promotion of terrorist sympathizers, and its platforming of radical ideologues is troubling to us as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee,” the senators wrote. “The Committee has a long history of working on legislation meant to root out support for terrorism, and to compensate its victims.”

The lawmakers questioned whether the center has received federal funds, New Jersey taxpayer funds or funding from foreign governments. They wrote a separate letter to the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler about its sponsorship of a law fellowship through the center.

Also this week, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Don Bacon (R-NE) wrote to the Treasury Department asking it to investigate U.S. colleges and universities that failed to disclose information on $13 billion in contributions from foreign regimes, questioning whether such donations have helped to fund “antisemitic protest groups” on U.S. college campuses. 

Gottheimer questioned Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the issue at a hearing this week.

Even as Harvard continues to stand behind its embattled president, Claudine Gay, amid mounting backlash over her handling of campus antisemitism and new accusations of plagiarism, Penny Pritzker, who helms the university’s highest governing body, has so far remained conspicuously silent, drawing fresh scrutiny to her role atop the administration. 

Pritzker, the billionaire Chicago hotel scion and former Obama administration official, was elected senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation last year, months after she had donated $100 million to the university. In her new position, she personally led the search committee that named Gay as president last December, praising her in an announcement at the time as “a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s academic excellence.”

Notwithstanding her initial enthusiasm, Pritzker has in recent weeks avoided personally defending the newly installed president, who has faced calls to resign, instead joining a statement signed by the 11 members of Harvard’s top board, which has been criticized for a lack of transparency.

In their unanimous decision to back Gay last week, the board members affirmed their “confidence” in the university president, dismissing the plagiarism charges and accepting her apology for widely criticized comments at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism earlier this month, where she equivocated on whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate Harvard’s code of conduct.

Before the Harvard Corporation had released its statement, however, Pritzker had dodged repeated questions from a reporter for the school’s student newspaper on whether she would ask the president to step down, even as Gay had claimed to have her support.

A spokesperson for Harvard said in an email to Jewish Insider on Thursday afternoon that she “is not available for an interview at this time and we have no further comment to provide.” Pritzker did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Pritzker’s limited public engagement has fueled skepticism of whether she performed due diligence in the vetting process that led to Gay’s appointment, which detractors now see as flawed, citing a snowballing plagiarism scandal as well as top donors who have continued to join a growing revolt over the president’s response to rising antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war.

“This is a full-blown corporate governance crisis for Harvard University and the fellows of the Harvard Corporation,” Benjamin Badejo, an MBA candidate at Tel Aviv University who studied at Harvard Law School and is a vocal critic of Gay and Pritzker, said in a recent email to JI, “and raises questions about the fellows’ ability to carry out their professional responsibilities.”

Despite mounting pressure for Pritzker to address the controversy now embroiling Gay’s brief tenure, close watchers of the administration allege that she has continued to keep a low profile because she has nearly as much at stake in the ongoing ordeal as the president she herself recruited. “What I hear is she has no intention of going down with the ship,” one Harvard insider, speaking anonymously to discuss a sensitive topic, said of Pritzker’s motivations for remaining silent.

Behind the scenes, meanwhile, Pritzker, 64, had reportedly voiced misgivings over the university’s delay in responding to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, which had fueled an outcry from leading donors who felt the university should firmly rebuke a letter signed by a coalition of student groups that blamed Israel for the massacre.

In a private phone call with the billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin days after the attack, Pritzker expressed agreement with his demand that Harvard release a statement standing with Israel, according to an interview he gave to The New York Times two months ago. (A source familiar with the call told JI that the Times anecdote was “broadly accurate.”)

The university’s initial efforts to address the violence, however, were ultimately derided by donors, alumni and students who felt that Gay’s statements had equivocated over the attacks.

To some observers, Pritzker’s silence amid the fallout has been particularly glaring because she has long been regarded as a staunch supporter of Israel. The 64-year-old Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist from Chicago, whose brother, J.B., is the governor of Illinois, was one of Barack Obama’s earliest and most important financial backers, and has been credited with persuading Jewish and pro-Israel donors to support his first presidential campaign, despite skepticism over his approach to Middle East policy.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Obama, a Harvard graduate, had privately lobbied on Gay’s behalf as she faced pressure to resign in the wake of her disastrous appearance before the congressional hearing on antisemitism. “It sounded like people were being asked to close ranks to keep the broader administration stable — including its composition,” the source, who was informed of Obama’s outreach and asked to speak anonymously to discuss a confidential matter, told JI on Tuesday.

Obama’s office did not respond to a request for comment from JI.

It is unclear if Pritzker, who served as Obama’s commerce secretary in his second term, spoke with the former president as the Harvard Corporation was deliberating over its decision to support Gay.

The former Obama official has been outspoken against Jewish persecution, recalling her family’s escape from Russian pogroms to the United States, where the Pritzkers eventually created the Hyatt hotel chain. In September, she was appointed by President Joe Biden to serve as the U.S. special representative for Ukraine’s economic recovery.

But as Gay has come under scrutiny in recent months, Pritzker has found herself in an increasingly uncomfortable position, albeit one familiar to many Jews in positions of power, said Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, the founder and president of Harvard Chabad, who has been publicly critical of Gay’s remarks to the House committee.

While Zarchi clarified that he had not spoken with Pritzker, he speculated that she has been cautious in recent weeks because of what he described as a preemptively defensive posture he has observed among other Jewish leaders at Harvard. “Jews in power go to an extreme degree to show that they’re neutral, lest they be accused of showing favoritism,” he told JI last week. “It’s another reflection of the toxic culture in the academy that people can’t speak their conscience.”

Still, critics see other calculations at play. In his email to JI, Badejo, the Harvard Law School alumnus, claimed that Pritzker and her fellow board members on the Harvard Corporation “arguably have conflicts of interest regarding Gay’s continued tenure as president, as managing the public’s awareness of their potential failures to do proper diligence” could potentially “impact their own continued tenures.”

The Harvard Corporation has continued to back Gay, the school’s first Black president, even amid mounting accusations of plagiarism that have cast doubt on the integrity of her academic writings. The board on Wednesday acknowledged some indiscretions in Gay’s scholarship, but said the improper citations, for which she has requested corrections, fell short of research misconduct.

Meanwhile, in a letter to Pritzker on Wednesday, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, said she was launching an investigation into Harvard’s handling of what she described as “credible allegations of plagiarism” against the university’s president. 

Alan Solow, a former national co-chair of Obama’s reelection campaign, said he had not discussed the current controversy with Pritzker, whom he has known for years, but added that he had faith in her leadership at a particularly challenging moment.  

“She is a person of great integrity. She is thoughtful; she studies, asks excellent and probing questions and listens,” Solow, the former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said in a recent email to JI. “I hold her in the highest respect and have great confidence in her leadership and judgment based on my having worked on a variety of projects with her for more than 15 years.”

But a former high-profile fellow in the Harvard Institute of Politics, granted anonymity to speak candidly, questioned Pritzker’s decision to stand with Gay as misguided. “I wish I knew what motivated it because they will hemorrhage contributions,” the former fellow told JI. “She now needs to be fired and the board has to step down.”

On Thursday, Len Blavatnik, the billionaire investor whose family foundation has given at least $270 million to Harvard, reportedly became the latest major donor to pause contributions to the university over dissatisfaction with Gay’s recent handling of antisemitism.

“If Harvard has already lost a billion dollars in donations because of her testimony, her plagiarism and her unwillingness to truly back free speech,” the former fellow said, “the jury may still be out.”