The House on Wednesday passed a resolution condemning the testimony of three college presidents whose comments have been widely interpreted as displaying an indifferent attitude toward the rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses, as well as the rise of anti-Semitism itself.
The vote was 303-126. As noted by the Clerk of the House, 125 Democrats opposed the resolution. There were 84 Democrats supporting it, while three chose to vote “present.” (The page contains a list of all representatives voting, for those who want to see where their member of Congress stood.)
According to the official House roll call, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against the resolution. The only other Republican not voting for the measure, Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, did not vote.
Massie later posted a comment on social media platform X, writing, “Instead of berating university presidents for not censoring speech, Congress should hold them accountable for forcing students to take unnecessary experimental vaccines with known potential side effects.”
The resolution said that “when the Presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology were asked if calling for the genocide of Jews violates university policies on bullying and harassment, Presidents Elizabeth Magill, Claudine Gay, and Sally Kornbluth were evasive and dismissive, failing to simply condemn such action.
“Whereas President Magill stated, ‘It is a context-dependent decision’; Whereas President Gay insisted that it ‘depends on the context’; Whereas President Kornbluth responded it would only constitute harassment if it were ‘targeted at individuals’; Whereas President Magill has resigned … the other Presidents should follow suit,” the resolution said.
The resolution, introduced by GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, said “acts of hate, intimidation, discrimination, and violence-based on ethnicity or religion have no place in our country or in the global community.”
In a comment to the House posted on her website, Stefanik called the presidents’ testimony “pathetic, amoral, and inhumane, and by God the world heard it.”
“And as I said in the hearing, it does not depend on the context. As attacks against Jewish students have skyrocketed on campuses across America, we clearly have tremendous work ahead of us, Mr. Speaker, to address this rot of antisemitism that is now rooted in our once premier higher education institutions. And we will not be deterred by this important work. This is why I rise today in support of my bipartisan resolution condemning the rise of antisemitism on university campuses around the country and the morally bankrupt testimony of those university presidents. It is only a first step but it is an important step.”
Should these college presidents resign from their posts?
The vote illustrates a deep division on Capitol Hill that was noted by the Washington Free Beacon, which related an incident in which Republican Rep. Max Miller of Ohio was confronted by anti-Semitism in the Cannon Office Building.
Miller said he was speaking with NBC News’ Ali Vitali when a staffer with a Congressional staff member approached him.
“We’re just having a casual conversation, and out of nowhere, this guy beelines up to me visibly shaking — he’s very upset in my presence because he’s a snowflake,” Miller said.
“And he just comes right back up to me and was like, ‘Free Palestine.’ And I was like, ‘OK’ … I’m not going to give him a reaction because that’s what he wants.”
Miller said Vitali, who posted about the incident on X, was stunned.
Snapshot from the halls of the Hill: a House staffer just passed by GOP Rep. Max Miller —who is Jewish and has been supportive of sending aide to Israel— and said “free Palestine.” Pretty rare and stunning to see staff challenge members to their faces this way.
— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) December 13, 2023
“She was like, ‘Wow, that was blatant anti-Semitism from a staffer, and you’re a member of Congress,’” he said.
“And I said, ‘Ali, this happens to me every day. … And I hope that you say something about it,’” he said.
