Republicans have launched an inquiry into anti-Semitism at top US universities

Outraged Republicans have launched a formal inquiry into Harvard, MIT and Pennsylvania universities after their presidents failed to condemn antisemitism in congressional testimony

Liz Magill, president of University of Pennsylvania, testifies before the House of Representatives education and workforce committee in Washington this week. Picture: Getty Images

The US House of Representatives has launched an inquiry into three of America’s top universities over “rampant anti-Semitism” after their presidents failed to condemn calls by pro-Palestine protesters for genocide against Jews, as ­donors threaten to withhold hundreds of millions in funding.

Congressional testimony by Claudine Gay of Harvard University, Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania and Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the three top education bureaucrats said calls for genocide did not necessarily contravene university policy, have prompted a public outcry.

“After this week’s pathetic and morally bankrupt testimony by university presidents when answering my questions, the education and workforce committee is launching an official congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power into Penn, MIT, & Harvard and others,” Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik said overnight on Thursday.

“It is unacceptable that presidents of esteemed institutions like Harvard, MIT, and Penn, have not firmly condemned this hatred. Their failure to do so warrants their immediate dismissal from their positions”.

Amid rising tension in campuses throughout the US following the Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, the university presidents went into damage control after their appearance before congress on Tuesday, where each stated that calls for genocide only violated university policies “if the speech turns into conduct”.

“It is a context-dependent decision,” said Ms Magill, who released a subsequent video statement that sought to walk back her earlier comments and mollify critics, including high-profile wealthy donors.

“I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human ­beings can perpetrate,” she said in her subsequent video.

Ross Stevens, founder and chief executive of Stone Ridge Holdings Group and Penn alumni, threatened to cancel $US100m donation to the university, according to a letter sent by his lawyers to the school.

Mr Stevens said via his lawyers said he was “appalled” by Ms ­Magill’s comments and in effect demanded her replacement.

“Its permissive approach to hate speech calling for violence against Jews and laissez faire attitude toward harassment and discrimination against Jewish students would violate any policies of rules that prohibit harassment and discrimination based on religion, including those of Stone Ridge,” the letter read.

Separately, rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School, announced his exit from Harvard’s anti-Semitism ­advisory committee on Thursday.

“Without rehashing all of the obvious reasons that have been endlessly adumbrated online … the short explanation is that both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped,” he said.

The university leaders, who have been quick to denounce “hate speech” against other minority groups and punish academics for other protected speech, also came under fire from White House spokesman Andrew Bates.

“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” he said.

House committee chairwoman Republican Virginia Fox said the investigation would “include substantial document requests”, warning other US universities they would be included too.