The heads of three universities are testifying in Congress over allegations of antisemitism on college campuses, with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce calling the leaders from the City University of New York, Georgetown University, and the University of California, Berkeley to speak.
The GOP-led hearings, opening Tuesday morning, mark the latest testimony in a series of hearings that began months after the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war sparked pro-Palestinian protests on the nation's campuses, reported The New York Times.
Committee Chair Tim Walberg, R-Mich., has blamed campus antisemitism on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, foreign funding, faculty, and Middle East studies centers, among other factors.
"The DEI ideology embraced by so many university bureaucrats categorizes Jews as white oppressors and therefore, excuses, or even justifies, antisemitic harassment," Walberg has said, in comments echoing those made by President Donald Trump, whose campaign focused on punishing universities that he claimed did not do enough to stop antisemitism.
The administration has pulled away billions of dollars from top universities, particularly Harvard, but critics of the Republicans' efforts say the congressional hearings are designed to quell anti-Israel speech, not protect the schools' Jewish students.
On Tuesday, Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., called the hearing a "kangaroo court," adding that Jewish students are not being helped by the administration's "scorched earth warfare."
At the University of California, Berkeley, pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied a building and put up tents around the campus. A student activist group, Students for Justice in Palestine, was founded there in the early 1990s.
CUNY, one of the largest public universities in the country, is well-known for outspoken pro-Palestinian activists among its law school graduates. Protests at the New York campuses in 2024 brought mass arrests, and the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights said last year the school has mishandled complaints of antisemitism and other forms of bias since 2019.
Georgetown University, meanwhile, has opposed Trump's moves against colleges and in March, the U.S. attorney for the D.C. district threatened to ban Georgetown graduates from getting federal jobs because of the school's DEI programming. The law school's dean called that threat unconstitutional.
The law school dean, in a strongly worded response, called the threat unconstitutional.
On Tuesday, Georgetown President Robert Groves testified. When questioned about faculty and staff who made statements on social media appearing to support the Hamas attack on Israel, he said there have been personnel dismissed for antisemitic behavior.
However, he said there are First Amendment protections for faculty members.
Walberg, meanwhile, focused his questions on CUNY, asking the school chancellor, Félix Matos Rodriguez, if the school has a problem with antisemitism.
"We are not immune from antisemitism, Rodriguez replied, noting that in 2024, 68 complaints of antisemitism were recorded, but in 2025, 16 were recorded.
In addition, he said, over the last two years, 18 students have been disciplined at CUNY for antisemitic conduct, with 25 for inappropriate conduct during demonstrations.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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