The House passed a resolution on Nov. 2 condemning support at colleges and universities for Iran-backed terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as campus antisemitism.
It passed 396-23. Twenty-two Democrats and one Republican voted against it.
It called on colleges and universities “to condemn all forms of antisemitism on college campuses; to ensure Jewish faculty, students, and guests can exercise the same Free Speech rights as are guaranteed to all other faculty, students, and guests without intimidation; and ”urges enforcement of Federal civil rights laws to protect Jewish students from antisemitism.”
The resolution slams higher education institutions for not speaking unequivocally about—or taking adequate action to combat— antisemitism on campus.
This resolution comes amid an uptick in antisemitism on college and university campuses amid the conflict.
A student at Cornell University was arrested this week over allegedly threatening to kill Jewish students.
Students at George Washington University recently projected anti-Semitic messages onto the school’s library, the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, named for a Jewish couple.
The messages, which eventually were shut down by the police, included: “Free Palestine From the River to the Sea,” which is a call to annihilate Israel; “Glory to Our Martyrs,” which is a celebration of terrorist groups such as Hamas; and university “President [Ellen] Granberg is Complicit in Genocide in Gaza.”
Harvard University student groups released a statement shortly after the latest Hamas-Israel conflict began on Oct. 7, blaming Israel for the latest terrorism by Hamas.
Around that time, Ryna Workman, then-president of New York University School of Law’s Student Bar Association, wrote a newsletter to fellow students “to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination.
“Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
Video footage has been released of Ms. Workman vandalizing posters of missing Israelis.
On Oct. 22, Brandeis University’s student government rejected a resolution condemning Hamas and calling for the release of hostages.
Three days later, Jewish students were trapped inside the library at Cooper Union in New York as pro-Palestinian and antisemitic protesters were banging on the doors in an apparent attempt to intimidate.
There was a 388 percent spike in antisemitic incidents in the United States between Oct. 7 and Oct. 23, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
