Nine Jewish students from major universities, including Harvard, Penn, MIT, and Columbia, told Congress they feel unsafe on campus due to rising antisemitism following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. At a bipartisan roundtable hosted by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, they described being harassed or marginalized while university administrations failed to act meaningfully.

Students accused their schools of ignoring their concerns while allowing aggressive protests to escalate. Noah Rubin from the University of Pennsylvania emphasized that administrators repeatedly promised action but did nothing.

The roundtable, led by Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, included 20 bipartisan members of Congress. The students were selected primarily by the Republican majority, focusing on schools where high-profile antisemitic incidents had occurred.

Jewish groups backed the event, although some critics viewed it as part of a conservative-led culture war targeting liberal institutions. The discussion followed a controversial December 5 hearing in which university presidents failed to clearly denounce calls for genocide against Jews, prompting major backlash and resignations of two leaders.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/us/antisemitism-campus-jewish-students.html