Rep. Beth Van Duyne, a graduate of Cornell University, said Tuesday that she no longer recognizes what's happening there after the news this weekend that Jewish students were put on a partial lockdown for their safety after threatening messages were posted on the college's discussion forum.
"It has always been a very liberal school," the Texas Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report." "If anything, it taught me to be more conservative than I thought because I had to defend myself while I was there from professors who are fairly aggressive in their liberal views, but nothing like what we're seeing right now."
In response to the messages, which promoted physical violence against Jews on the campus, students and faculty were told to stay away from 104 West on the campus, where the university's kosher and multicultural dining hall are located, and noted threats were made "more generally toward Jewish students, faculty, and staff."
Van Duyne on Tuesday urged parents not to send their children to schools where terrorist activities are being promoted and where the actions "by some kind of a radical ideology" are being justified in the Middle East.
"These students are learning this on these campuses so, parents, stop sending your kids to campuses that are teaching this," Van Duyne said. "Donors, don't give to colleges that are justifying terrorist activities, that are justifying children being burned alive, babies being beheaded, women being gang raped, innocent civilians not only being murdered but then taken to be used as human shields. Employers, when you see these students acting like this, don't hire them."
Van Duyne pointed out that it wasn't long ago that universities were threatening to expel students for not using correct pronouns and were blocking conservative voices from speaking on campuses, but now, "we're seeing the justification of what turns out to be Hamas terrorist activities."
She added that she can't believe Cornell professor Russell Rickford hasn't been fired after he declared at an Oct. 15 rally that he felt "exhilarated" after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel.
"I am thoroughly disgusted, and I can't believe that that's happening on a campus that I loved so much, that I went to for four years," Van Duyne said.
Van Duyne further noted that just last year, parents who went to school board meetings to support their children were being referred to as "domestic terrorists," and said she wants to know why instances of hate speech and crimes against Jewish people are not being investigated.
"I am very supportive of Chairman Jason Smith's efforts to take away federal funds from universities that are not upholding their end of the bargain, but teaching the next future of America [to] hate our country and to support terrorist activities whose function is to get rid of the American way of life and whose mission with Hamas is to destroy Israel and Jewish people," said Van Duyne.
"We need to look at how much money we are sending them from American taxpayer dollars and cut that federal funding if this is the same kind of crap that they're going to be teaching to our students."
She also rejected calls for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
"What we saw on Oct. 7 was the most violent attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and you would never have heard people saying after 9/11 in the U.S. after what happened that we need to have a cease-fire," said Van Duyne. "You're not going to negotiate with a head of a society that has anything other than the death of the Jewish people and the annihilation of the state of Israel [as their objective]."
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