Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., told Newsmax on Wednesday that antisemitism on college campuses is an "urgent" issue and that school presidents need to feel the pressure to counter it from many different sources.
"It is urgent, and I'm pleased that they're hearing it from everybody," Foxx, who is the House Education Committee chair, said during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Record with Greta Van Susteren." "They're hearing it not just from members of Congress, but from their donors and from students and from faculty. Many faculty are resigning as a result of things that they've said.
"At Wake Forest they had a faculty member who made very intemperate comments, and my understanding is that she resigned over the weekend. The pressure needs to be coming from lots of different directions, including from Congress. And certainly plenty of pressure is coming from us and will continue to come from us."
Foxx said that U.S. colleges and universities are "not doing enough" to combat the rising tide of antisemitism that has swamped many institutions in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that left more than 1,400 Israelis dead.
"This has been festering for a long time on the campuses, and it's broken out more after the Oct. 7 horrendous attacks by Hamas," she said. "But these colleges and universities have been in a downward spiral for a long time.
"They should be bastions of free thinking without any regard to partisan dialogue. It should be a place where students can learn from all sides and make decisions. But that's not what's happening.
"We need these presidents to speak out forcefully and to do the right thing. Antisemitism cannot be tolerated anywhere in this country and particularly on campuses."
When asked why lawmakers are not compelling higher education presidents to appear before Congress for questioning on their efforts to quell antisemitism, Foxx said that the sheer number of them presents a problem.
"The only problem is there's so many of them to invite to come up we'd be having hearings day after day after day on nothing but this issue," she said. "We're going after them. We're working on a higher ed reform bill that's going to hold these people accountable in many, many more ways than just this antisemitism issue. This is important."
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