Democrats use campus antisemitism to trap GOP on funding as Republicans divide on free speech

Congressional Democrats see a silver lining in a spike in reported antisemitism on American college campuses following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel: a political cudgel against Republicans already reeling from disastrous state election returns this week.

Their GOP colleagues, meanwhile, cannot settle on whether campus celebration of Hamas attacks, in which 1,400 Israeli civilians were killed, is an opportunity to expand probes of shadowy funding in higher education or a Trojan horse to further restrict conservative speech.

Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing on campus free speech, its first in six years, and threats against Jewish students almost didn't give members a chance to soapbox.

Much like a campus event, pro-Palestinian protesters successively stood up, yelled slogans including "stop silencing Palestinian students" and "Palestinian students should not be censored," and were carried out one by one by congressional security. 

They interrupted the first four witnesses including Jewish student Amanda Silberstein at Cornell University, which was recently terrorized by a student who allegedly pledged to "shoot up" a kosher dining hall. 

Silberstein said Patrick Dai, charged in connection with the threats, also called for the "gang rape all Jew pig women on campus," though Just the News could not find the phrase in Dai's criminal complaint or screenshots of his alleged posts.

Cornell President Martha Pollak's first response to the Hamas attacks "essentially conflated" the murder of Jews with "various natural disasters," Silberstein said, which she called "baffling, tone deaf and insensitive."

Asked whether she saw a pattern of campus Jews hiding their identity, Silberstein told Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., "I do think twice" about using her Hebrew keyboard in class.

"The masks are down," Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus testified, referring to campus jubilation over the "mass murder of civilians," as another protester popped up and got dragged away. Marcus served as director of the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) under President Trump.

Many Jewish students embrace Zionism as an "integral part of their identity" and face "exclusion as Jews" when they are marginalized for their Zionism, Marcus said. His group's clients at Tufts and the University of Southern California faced removal from the student government, and other clients from a sexual assault survivors group at the State University of New York New Paltz.

Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said he's working on legislation with the committee's top Democrat, Jerry Nadler, to "protect the freedom of expression" in the context of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) claim that American antisemitism incidents jumped 388% between Oct. 7 and 23. 

Jordan's office didn't respond to questions about the legislation, but the hearing made clear that's where the potential bipartisanship ended.

Nadler, a New York lawmaker, accused the GOP of a "disconnect" on antisemitism because of Trump's "very fine people" remark about the Charlottesville, Va., "Unite the Right" rally and lawmakers inviting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to testify after the Democratic presidential candidate shared a "laughable conspiracy": Cleveland Clinic research on SARS-CoV-2 affecting some Jews differently.

Democrats tried to shame Republicans into approving President Biden's proposed 27% budget increase for OCR, which has angered the GOP since the Obama administration by coercing colleges to tilt sexual misconduct proceedings against accused students – overwhelmingly male.

An ongoing regulatory rulemaking under OCR Director Catherine Lhamon, who held the same position under President Obama and barely squeaked through confirmation in 2021, would largely reinstate the nonbinding guidance the Trump administration replaced with binding regulations requiring due process in Title IX proceedings. 

Lhamon's critics warned in January that the proposed rules could "make it impossible for legal activists to challenge procedures and practices that discriminate against men." Among the most prolific third-party complainants is retired University of Michigan economist Mark Perry.

Nadler said ADL and the Brandeis Center set up a "helpline" for students to report antisemitic incidents to OCR, which had an "enormous amount of work to do" to investigate antisemitic incidents even before the Hamas attacks.

"We have to put aside the political stunts and academic debates" and fulfill Biden's budget request, he said.

Last year OCR broke its 2016 record for submitted complaints, which spiked again after the Hamas attacks, but it will take "a very long time to work through" them with current staff levels, former ADL vice president Stacy Burdett testified, calling for more funding.

OCR will "need more support than ever before," American University Jewish Studies Director Pamela Nadell agreed.

Republicans tied campus harassment of Jews to funding from Iran. Antisemitic movements get "massive amounts of dollars and support" from "the very country that paid for" thousands of rockets that fell on Israel, Issa said. (He wasn't among more than 100 House Republicans cosponsoring an Iran sanctions bill Thursday, however.)

Marcus said he's seeing "lethal hatred which may be supported" by funds from abroad. Colleges must follow their legal obligations to disclose foreign funds so Congress can evaluate their impact on personnel and decision-making, he also said.

But he distinguished the Iran issue from Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes, which are in retreat in the U.S. amid growing scrutiny. 

The House Homeland Security Committee advanced legislation Wednesday to block Department of Homeland Security funds from universities that host Confucius Institutes or "Chinese Entities of Concern," defined as Chinese universities involved in military, security, defense, police or intelligence activities.

American student groups who are part of the Hamas "movement" may be providing "material support for terrorism" under federal law by promoting the terrorist group's ideas, Marcus told Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. While antisemitic speech by itself is protected by the First Amendment, "where you see intense anti-Jewish hate speech" there's usually unprotected conduct, he argued.

Other Republicans pushed back. In what may be a first for a congressional hearing, Florida's Matt Gaetz quoted from an "Austin Powers" movie to question Marcus's consistency on speech: "There are only two things I can't stand in this world: People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch."

The former regulator responded that "giving a big talk" praising Hamas may be protected, but saying "their mission is my mission" or doing "PR activity" can constitute "material support for terrorism." Gaetz shot back "that sounds a lot like people talking." 

The lawmaker also pushed back on Nadell's claim that negative references to progressive megadonor George Soros and "globalists" now serve as "code words to disguise antisemitism," with Soros in particular replacing "Rothschild."

Gaetz often criticizes the United Nations for globalism because it deprives sovereignty to states including Israel, he retorted, calling Nadell's claim a "reverse trope."

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, said he used to represent nongovernmental institutions at multilateral institutions, and "there is no other organization I know that is so openly antisemitic" as the U.N.

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., called the hearing "ironic" because "MAGA Republicans and others" censured the only Palestinian American in the House, Minnesota Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, for "stat[ing] a view." Tlaib defended the genocidal slogan "from the river to the sea," which refers to the erasure of Israel, as an "aspirational call for freedom."

Johnson ordered Republicans to "stop playing political games with Jewish lives" and give OCR more money. Biggs said jokingly that "22 MAGA Democrats also voted for the censure."