During a Senate Health Committee hearing on Antisemitic Disruptions On Campus on Thursday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) asked witnesses about the effect schools and faculty may have on 'anti-Israel protests' on college campus.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Well, clearly anti-Semitic.
00:02Okay, thank you very much.
00:03Senator Collins.
00:06Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:08Mr. Chairman, first let me thank you for holding this important hearing
00:14and also for convening the roundtable last year
00:18where we were able to hear such distressing testimony directly
00:25from Jewish students about what they were encountering on college campuses,
00:32particularly after the October 7th attacks in Israel.
00:40Mr. Stern, I'm going to start my questioning with you.
00:45We agree that every student should feel safe on campus
00:51and I'm interested to learn about your book, Conflict Over Conflict.
00:57I agree that colleges and universities are often the best places
01:02to have tough conversations and robust debate,
01:06but how is it allowable for a faculty member to give extra credit to students
01:16to participate in anti-Israel protests?
01:22Do you think that's right?
01:24Senator, I think that there are questions of bad teaching
01:28that go across the board with all this.
01:31In that situation, it may well be,
01:33but the point is that on a campus,
01:36the idea is that students should be not singled out,
01:40not discriminated against, but should hear things differently.
01:43If the professor says,
01:45I want everybody to go and report back,
01:46I don't care what you say about it,
01:48but I want you to, because it's happening,
01:49to tell me what you think,
01:51that's something different than saying,
01:52I'm going to give you extra credit for supporting something.
01:54So do you agree that it is wrong for a student
01:59to be given extra credit for attending an anti-Israel debate?
02:05It depends.
02:08If I had a student and that debate was happening on the campus,
02:11I might want them to come back and say,
02:12tell me the different sides.
02:14On the other hand, if they're saying,
02:15I want you to go because this is the correct way,
02:18that is a wrong thing to do.
02:20So this reminds me of a conversation
02:24that I had with a college president in Maine
02:27whom I deeply respect,
02:29who told me that in his experience,
02:33these anti-Semitic protests
02:36are not being generated by students.
02:40They're being inspired by faculty members,
02:44graduate assistants, and outside groups.
02:48This isn't spontaneous.
02:51And I remember one of those students at the round table
02:55telling us that when she went up to a student and said,
02:58do you know what you're saying when you say,
03:02from the river to the sea, Palestine should be free?
03:06And they had no idea what that meant.
03:10Ms. Gamal, I want to ask you a question.
03:15Last year, I questioned the former Secretary of Education Cardona
03:21at a Senate appropriations hearing
03:23about his enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,
03:29which is intended to protect all students from discrimination.
03:35At the time, the secretary had no one on the ground
03:41at colleges and universities
03:43where investigations into anti-Semitism were occurring.
03:50He could not give me a timeline
03:53for resolving these investigations.
03:56He acknowledged only that they had a large backlog.
04:01He could not answer any of my questions
04:04about the penalties for schools that were found to be in violation,
04:11if they were found to be in violation.
04:14To me, that was an appalling demonstration of a very lax,
04:21even indifferent approach to what had been
04:26more than a 300% increase in anti-Semitic incidents
04:34across this country,
04:37including and primarily at our college campuses.
04:42So I want to follow up on the question
04:45that I asked you about the chairman.
04:48Are you seeing a difference now
04:52in the implementation of Title VI?
04:58Thank you, Senator.
04:59We are beginning to.
05:01We are encouraged by what we are seeing.
05:03I believe that you're absolutely correct
05:05that there need to be actual investigators,
05:07as there now are on these campuses.
05:10I also believe, though, that it is crucial
05:12that the institutions themselves be held accountable
05:16for being the first line of addressing these problems.
05:19This is not an issue that the federal government
05:21should have to come in and police.
05:23And again, I go back to there are often not people
05:26who are well qualified and equipped
05:28to address these things on the campuses themselves.
05:30It should start there.
05:31But yes, I am encouraged by what we are seeing
05:33in terms of enforcement.
05:34I'll say that I was discouraged to see at the end of last year
05:37when institutions came out of the woodwork,
05:40begging OCR to resolve open complaints for obvious reasons.
05:46And there was capitulation to that.
05:47There's too much capitulation going on,
05:49not enough enforcement.
05:50So I'm very encouraged to see what we're seeing now.
05:52And that is why we need to make sure
05:54that office continues to be adequately resourced.