Speaker Mike Johnson and other House Republicans are intensifying their criticism of campus protests nationally in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Johnson, speaking alongside other GOP leaders at their weekly press conference on Tuesday, condemned the latest developments at Columbia University and urged President Joe Biden to be more tough on the matter.
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“Columbia is out of control,” he said, noting overnight occurrences such as students taking a campus building and rejecting the university’s instruction to disperse.
“They’re unable to operate the university at a time when the students are prepared for their final exams,” he stated. “It’s unfair, it’s unright, it’s unsafe, and it must stop.”
Some in his own party as well as many Republicans have criticized Biden’s attitude toward the tense Israel-Hamas conflict, despite his attempts to strike a balance between support for Israel and sympathy for Palestinians dead and suffering in Gaza. Last week, Biden stated that he denounced “antisemitic protests” as well as “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
The speaker and a few of his New York Republican colleagues paid a visit to the New York City campus last week and spoke with Jewish students. Demonstrators heckled and booed Johnson as he spoke in front of them, urging Columbia University President Minouche Shafik to resign and suggesting the call for the National Guard to quell the rallies.
College protests have been mainly nonviolent, according to officials, but have escalated in recent days as a result of arrests and sanctions at several colleges. As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza intensifies, pro-Palestinian students and protesters have urged their institutions to divest from sponsoring Israeli military operations. Some Jewish students have called the demonstrations antisemitic and expressed concern for their safety.
Congressional Republicans have used the protests to politically target Democrats on the issue, while also demonstrating strong support for Israel. Many have called on the colleges involved in these protests to lose government funding.
On Tuesday, House Republicans also revealed the basis for a new congressional investigation into how university authorities handled the demonstrations. House Committee on Education and Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx announced at a press conference on Tuesday that the Education Committee has invited the presidents of Yale, UCLA, and the University of Michigan to testify on May 23.
Actor Jamie Foxx declared, “We have officially put American universities on notice that we have come to take our universities back.”
Johnson stated that Congress had “a role” to play in this matter but urged Biden to do more.
“We need the president of the United States to address the problem and say it’s wrong. “What’s happening on college campuses right now is wrong,” Johnson stated. “It’s un-American. This is not who we are.” The president appears unable or unwilling to do this.”
The White House stated on Tuesday that demonstrators “forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach.”
“This is not an example of a peaceful demonstration. And, as we’ve correctly stated, hate speech and hate symbols have no place in this country,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who told ABC News the government was “monitoring this closely.”
Kirby earlier stated that Biden acknowledged demonstrators’ rights to peaceful protest but emphasized that they “don’t want to see anybody hurt in the process.”
“The president understands that there are strong views concerning the war in Gaza. “He understands and appreciates that, and as he has stated numerous times, we absolutely support the right to peaceful protest,” Kirby said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
Kirby went on to say that the government also criticized “the antisemitism language that we’ve heard of late and certainly condemned all the hate speech and threats of violence out there.”
The House will vote on the “Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023” this week. Republicans and some Democrats support the bill, which would mandate the Department of Education to implement anti-discrimination statutes based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
However, numerous Democrats have expressed concerns about the alliance’s definition of antisemitism, as well as some of the modern cases highlighted by the group. Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, who is Jewish, said he opposed the bill because it would “thumb the scale” in favor of one definition of antisemitism and may “chill” constitutionally protected free expression.
North Carolina Democrat Kathy Manning and New Jersey Republican Chris Smith presented the bipartisan “Countering Antisemitism Act,” which House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries encouraged Johnson to support. The legislation would create a national coordinator to combat antisemitism within the White House; require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and National Counterterrorism Center to collaborate on an annual threat assessment of antisemitic violent extremism; and require the Department of Education to designate a senior official to advise on countering antisemitic discrimination in higher education.
In a letter to Johnson on Monday, Jeffries stated, “Nothing on the floor this week would accomplish the concrete, thoughtful strategies outlined by the Biden administration, set forth in the legislation, and echoed by leading Jewish organizations across the country.”
“The fight against antisemitism and bigotry in all its forms is a nonpartisan issue. We must handle this American issue in a bipartisan manner with extreme urgency right now.
