Malliotakis Touts Bill That Prevents Federal Funding From Going To Schools That Promote Antisemitism

4 months ago

At a House Ways & Means Committee hearing earlier this month, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) spoke about antisemitism on college campuses.

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Transcript

00:00Well thank you Mr. Chairman. We all believe it's unfortunate that we need to

00:04be here and nobody thought in 2024 we would be dealing with this immense spike

00:09in anti-semitism in our country but it is so critical that we are here together

00:14as Republicans and Democrats trying to find the best solutions to stop this. I

00:19would like to thank our witnesses for being here, certainly Ms. Talia Jor, thank

00:24you. You're a student in New York State, I represent New York State, so I want to

00:27thank you for being here not not only once but twice because that takes

00:31tremendous amount of courage for you to come here and I congratulate you on your

00:35graduation and I'm sorry that you had to miss the the ceremony. Since the horrific

00:41attacks on October 7th of last year by Hamas on Israel, the ugly face of

00:47anti-semitism has showed on college campuses across the country. Instead of

00:53preparing our young people for life and getting them ready to be productive

00:56members of a civilized society, campuses have turned into indoctrination centers

01:02of hate. It seems to be getting worse to me, maybe it's because I'm in New York

01:06City and in the news sadly we've seen anti-semites boldly flying the flags of

01:12Hamas, of Hezbollah, terrorist organizations in my city. We've also seen

01:18a terrible display of a sign saying long live October 7th at a memorial that was

01:26dedicated to the victims of the Nova music festival. We've seen vandalism of

01:31homes of the Jewish board members of the Brooklyn Museum and we've also seen, as

01:36you mentioned Mr. Deutsch, the bullying of Zionists or pro-Israel individuals on

01:42the subway system. Completely unacceptable. It starts with education,

01:47starts with the classroom. I think we need to work together but I have

01:53introduced two bills I just want to mention briefly. I'd have HR 7231 which

01:56is the Campus Act and this legislation would prohibit universities that have

01:59been found to promote anti-semitic activities or allow them or that are

02:05protecting anti-semitic faculty from receiving federal funding. I think it's

02:10a good bill. I think it's something that would really maybe make a difference in

02:13pushing these university presidents to hold faculty or these student

02:17organizations accountable. Professor, I know you're also from New York City. I

02:21would love to hear your view if you support a measure like that and if you

02:24think it would be effective. Well, to be honest, being a professor, I cannot

02:30comment on something I don't know all the details of but as a fellow New Yorker

02:36we have to remember anti-Jewish crime is the number one hate crime in New York

02:43City for the past seven years in a row. This is a spike but this is not new and

02:50this has been under the current Mayor Eric Adams administration and it has

02:55been under the previous administrations. The biggest Jewish population of the U.S.

03:03is in New York City and nothing has been done. It's getting worse.

03:08Unfortunately, hopefully this will stop it. Doctor, I would like to ask you, I

03:14have another bill, H.R. 7232, No Visas for Anti-Semitic Students Act that would

03:20revoke the visa of foreign students in the United States who are members of

03:24these organizations and participating in this activity. What are your thoughts on

03:27that? Our view is that there are four grounds of inadmissibility that have

03:32been triggered in some cases. So DHS already has this authority to look at

03:36these protests and try to understand which of the students have espoused

03:41support or given support for terrorism, which of the students have committed

03:44crimes involving moral turpitude, any who lied in their visa application. And

03:49so I applaud your leadership from Congress but I think the administration

03:53could take these actions itself if it wanted to. Okay, well perhaps this

03:57legislation would give them a little more teeth to do it. And Ms. Dror, would

04:01you agree with something like that? You think that we should be stripping visas

04:04from, whether it's my bill or whether it's the administration doing it, should

04:07we be stripping visas from foreign students who are committing anti-Semitic

04:10activity on our campuses? Absolutely. The leader of the Coalition for Mutual

04:15Liberation, Cornell's program or Cornell's organization, is on a student

04:20visa. He should get that student visa revoked yesterday. It's a perfect example

04:24doctor. It's obviously not happening at the administration level. Hopefully we

04:27can push them with with new legislation. Mr. Deutsch, you're obviously a subject

04:33matter expert on these issues as a member of Congress formally. We'd love to

04:38talk to you about education. What can we do more to educate young people about

04:42the Holocaust, about the history of Israel? We have a Jewish student here who

04:47was called a Nazi by a fellow student. It's outrageous, simply because she

04:50supports Israel. Social media disinformation. You know, these students

04:56that are doing this, they're actually proud to have the endorsement of Hamas

04:59and Iran. What what can we do to educate young people both at the state level and

05:04the national level? I can answer that in 10 seconds. It's good to see you again,

05:11Congresswoman. Look, you touched on each of the key pieces. One, on social

05:17media, it is absolutely true that the majority of young people now get

05:24their news in 10-second, 6-second videos on TikTok and on Instagram. We have to

05:31make sure that the social media companies, that these platforms, uphold

05:35their own rules, and then Congress is taking a hard look at that as well to

05:39make sure that they are in other steps that can be taken. In the K-12 space,

05:43we've got to be sure that as we see the the explosion in some parts of the

05:48country of curricula that not only don't accurately teach history, but specifically

05:53try to exclude Jews and the teaching of of anti-Semitism in the Holocaust, that

05:58we go the other way, that we make sure it's not just the Holocaust that we're

06:01studying, but the contributions of Jewish Americans to our country, that

06:05Jewish American Heritage Month is actually observed around the country

06:08within our businesses and in our local governments and every place where we

06:12have an opportunity to help educate people. That's another way. And on college

06:16campuses, we have an obligation to make sure that everyone on a college

06:22campus, including the residential advisors, including the members of the

06:28administration, not just the administration and his or her team, but

06:32everyone in the university has a chance to learn, again, yes, about the Holocaust,

06:37but also about the history of anti-Semitism, the history of the Jewish

06:41people. And frankly, it's important for everyone to understand the history of

06:44Israel so that these outrageous claims about Israel being a white settler

06:48colonialist enterprise, instead they'll actually learn that Israel is the

06:53homeland for the Jewish people with 3,000 years of history of Jews being

06:57connected to that land, that the state of Israel not only is not a white

07:02settler colonialist enterprise, but that the majority of Israelis are actually

07:06people of color. There's an enormous amount of education that's required. AJC,

07:10other groups play a role there. Our educators play a key role there. It's, and

07:14I applaud you for raising it, it is the most important thing that we can do

07:18long-term to make sure that people understand the facts and so we can all

07:22push back against the kind of anti-Jewish hatred that we've seen.

07:25May I just add that the majority of US states do not require schools to teach

07:31about the Holocaust. Only 20 states have rules that you must teach about the

07:37Holocaust, three more have recommendations, and the rest nothing. So

07:41when, as a professor, at the point when I get my students to come to class, many of

07:48them, maybe a majority of them, have never taken a class about the Holocaust. So

07:53they go to TikTok. Thank you for your insight and ideas.

Malliotakis Touts Bill That Prevents Federal Funding From Going To Schools That Promote Antisemitism

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