Dems Silent as House Republicans Urge Education Department to Protect Jews on Campus By Zach Kessel
A group of 44 House Republicans sent a letter to Department of Education secretary Miguel Cardona urging the federal agency to protect Jewish college students in light of Thursday’s “national day of resistance,” organized by the national leadership of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
“We encourage the Department to engage immediately with colleges and universities on their obligations to take prompt and appropriate action to respond to harassment that creates a hostile environment for Jewish students,” reads the letter, which was led by Representative Tim Walberg (R., Mich.).
The letter was distributed to all House members Wednesday afternoon but had not been signed by any House Democrats as of Thursday afternoon. National Review contacted Democratic members of Walberg’s Michigan delegation, and only the office of Representative Debbie Dingell (D., Mich.) responded, saying “Rep. Dingell wants every student to be safe.”Walberg’s office, for its part, has “not heard from anyone.”
“There is nothing partisan about the issue or letter text,” a Walberg spokesman told NR when asked about the lack of reaction across the aisle.
The SJP — whose campus chapters are behind many of the pro-Hamas statements coming out of American universities over the past few days — is planning a nationwide day of protest on October 12.
After the Hamas attack that has left more than 1,000 Israeli civilians dead, as well as numerous Americans, SJP celebrated the violence in a letter announcing the “Day of Resistance.”
“Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: across land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity, taking with it the facade of an impenetrable settler colony and reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near. As the Palestinian student movement, we have an unshakable responsibility to join the call for mass mobilization,” the SJP wrote.
“National liberation is near— glory to our resistance, to our martyrs, and to our steadfast people,” the letter continues.
SJP’s leaders go on to claim that: “settlers are not ‘civilians,’” that “responsibility for every single death falls solely on the zionist entity,” and that the terrorism Israel has faced is “legitimate, and all of it is necessary.”
In their letter to the Department of Education, Walberg and his co-signers write that “schools have a legal obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide all students, including Jewish students, a school environment free from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.”
The Michigan congressman goes on to write that “as demonstrated by the rhetoric and recent actions of students across the country, antisemitic beliefs on college campuses are rampant and must not go unchallenged.”
The Hamas attack has already led to violence on college campuses. A Jewish student at Columbia University’s School of General Studies was allegedly assaulted Wednesday after putting up posters with photos and names of Israeli civilians who have been taken hostage.
The letter mentions the Department of Education’s Antisemitism Awareness Campaign, which the Biden administration launched in May and which holds that “schools must take immediate and appropriate action to respond to harassment that creates a hostile environment.” However, Walberg contends, the department has not exercised the full scope of its authority to fulfill its duty, urging Cardona to place “those universities that have instances of student support for terrorism at the top of the list of universities to visit” in combating those hostile environments.
“Please immediately inform us of any actions that have been a part of the Antisemitism Awareness Campaign, including any prior or planned campus visits,” the congressman writes.
Comments are closed.
