The presidents of Haverford College, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and DePaul University will appear Wednesday on Capitol Hill to discuss their institutions’ handling of antisemitism — the first congressional grilling of higher-education leaders since President Trump returned to office and made good on threats to target colleges’ federal funding.
The selection of Haverford, Cal Poly, and DePaul suggests that Republican lawmakers are widening their scrutiny of higher education beyond the nation’s most prominent research universities. In fact, the name of the hearing is “Beyond the Ivy League: Stopping the Spread of Antisemitism on American Campuses.” Haverford, in Pennsylvania, and DePaul, in Chicago, are both private liberal-arts colleges. Cal Poly is public and a member of the California State University system.
A spokesman for the committee said it specifically picked colleges that were not under investigation by the Trump administration.
“We also wanted to make sure the schools were geographically diverse, and we focused on schools that received F’s from ADL,” the spokesman said, referring to the Anti-Defamation League’s “Campus Antisemitism Report Card.” “Bottom line, we are highlighting that this is a problem affecting schools across America, not just the Ivy League.”
Previous congressional hearings, in which Republican lawmakers have accused campus leaders of abiding hostile environments for Jewish students and letting activists shut down campus life, have reflected poorly on some presidents. In December 2023, Harvard University’s Claudine Gay and the University of Pennsylvania’s M. Elizabeth Magill faced broad criticism for saying “it depends” in response to a question about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated campus policies; both resigned within weeks. In April 2024, Columbia University’s Nemat (Minouche) Shafik told skeptical lawmakers she had no qualms about enforcing rules, but as campus unrest surged in the following months, she also resigned. A third hearing last May, featuring the leaders of Rutgers and Northwestern Universities and the University of California at Los Angeles, was less contentious.
While Haverford, Cal Poly, and DePaul might not have generated as many headlines, all three had significant pro-Palestinian protests in the spring of 2024, with students staging a die-in at Cal Poly and setting up encampments at Haverford and DePaul. Document-request letters sent by Republican committee leaders reference the protests, as well as particular alleged antisemitic incidents and the failing grades from the ADL.
At DePaul, two Jewish students displaying support for Israel were assaulted by masked attackers on campus last fall. While one of the alleged assailants has been arrested and charged with hate crimes and aggravated battery, the students have sued DePaul for negligence, citing the failure of a nearby DePaul public-safety officer to intervene. According to the House committee’s letter to DePaul, one of the students contends that he continued to be harassed by his classmates after the assault.
“DePaul’s alleged failure to confront, address, or otherwise mitigate these dangerous antisemitic incidents raise the specter that DePaul is in violation of federal civil rights laws,” the letter says.
A spokesperson for DePaul said its president, Robert Manuel, “looks forward to having the conversation with our lawmakers and describing all that DePaul has done to confront antisemitism on campus.” Those measures include the formation of a task force on antisemitism, the appointment of a presidential adviser on Jewish engagement, and the adoption of a new policy — just announced this week — requiring students and staff to identify themselves when asked by campus-safety officers. (Gaza protesters on campuses have often worn face coverings to try to shield their identities and avoid discipline.)
The committee’s letter to Cal Poly says lawmakers were alerted to a professor’s alleged verbal harassment of Jewish students outside of a classroom where a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces was giving a speech. The professor allegedly told attendees, “You are Zionists — you are part of the KKK,” while holding a Palestinian flag.
In a statement to The Chronicle, Jeffrey D. Armstrong, the president of Cal Poly, said fighting antisemitism was a high priority for Cal Poly, and that he looked forward to sharing with lawmakers what officials have done to advance campus safety.
At Haverford, according to its letter, protesters disrupted an Anti-Defamation League workshop on antisemitism. In another incident, flyers inviting people to Chabad House were taken down. And, in October, Haverford hosted a talk by a rabbi titled “Judaism Does (Not) Equal Zionism: Exploring American Jews’ Complicated Relationship to Israel/Palestine,” which some observers said promoted antisemitism.
In a message to the campus community last week, Haverford’s president, Wendy Raymond, also noted policy changes and apologized to Jewish members of the community who felt like the college had not had their back.
“In my own reflections and learning, I’ve gained clarity about the extent to which, under my leadership, we came up short in some areas,” Raymond wrote. “To anyone in the Haverford community who feels that we could have done more, or that I didn’t take a more assertive role in the face of actions running counter to our values and Honor Code — I hear you and acknowledge that we can do better, and I can do better.”
Timothy R. Cain, a professor of higher education at the University of Georgia, and Brendan Cantwell, a professor in the higher, adult, and lifelong education program at Michigan State University, said that even if the committee’s selection resembles a broadening of efforts to strike at higher education, Cal Poly, Haverford, and DePaul are still somewhat elite institutions, with social-justice cultures that Republicans might not find agreeable.
“They’re not bringing community colleges in, they’re not bringing in public regional universities, they’re not bringing in red state colleges,” Cantwell said.
Cain said these panels are not fact-finding missions, but “publicity stunts aimed at damaging higher education.”
“They are stepping into a situation where they’re likely to be trapped into either committing more than they want to, or if they hedge at all, be politically damaged,” Cain said. “I think the challenge of the hearings is they don’t allow for the nuance that difficult conversations require.”
