● A key Democratic lawmaker is calling out the Republican-controlled House Committee on Education and Workforce for turning a blind eye toward a series of antisemitic incidents that involved Republican student groups on campus. “I want to ensure you are aware that there have been recent reports of antisemitic activity in and around U.S. colleges and universities, and that the Committee has yet to hold a hearing on them,” Rep. Bobby Scott, of Virginia, wrote in a letter sent Friday to committee chair Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan. “I write to determine if and when the Committee plans to take action related to them.”
● The letter cites several news articles about young conservative and Republican college groups making antisemitic remarks and gestures, including a Nazi salute, expressing love for Hitler and joking about putting their political opponents in gas chambers.
● The letter specifically mentions an incident involving the University of Florida, which suspended a College Republicans group after photos surfaced of members making a Nazi salute, and Florida International University, where several students involved in Republican and conservative groups on campus participated in a group chat in which slurs were repeatedly used in reference to African-Americans and Jews.
The bigger picture:
Congressman Scott’s letter comes in the wake of a series of congressional hearings on antisemitism on campus – an issue that Republicans are widely seen as using as a political wedge. The hearings have also been seen as a way for Republican lawmakers to punish college presidents that they deem as leftists and “woke” and that they accuse of caving into the “radical demands of terror-supporting mobs targeting Jewish students.”
Rep. Bobby Scott
“Each of you should be ashamed of your decisions that allowed antisemitic encampments to endanger Jewish students,” Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, said at a May 2024 Education and Workforce Committee hearing titled, “Calling For Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.” The hearing followed a wave of encampments that sprung up on college campuses nationwide in April 2024 to protest U.S. support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas war.
Scott’s letter also comes on the heels of what House Republicans referred to as a “bombshell” report on antisemitism in higher education. Among other things, the report concluded that university leaders are “still failing” to address antisemitism on campus and that student groups are “acting as ringleaders driving antisemitic harassment and hostility.”
The EDU Ledger reached out to Congressman Walberg’s office for comment on Scott’s letter but did not get a response.
