Dive Transient:
- Home Republicans intend to ramp up their oversight of faculties in an effort to “maintain these universities accountable for his or her failure to guard Jewish college students,” Speaker Mike Johnson introduced Tuesday.
- Johnson mentioned a coalition of six Home committees will lead the scrutiny of universities’ federal funding and tax advantages. His workplace mentioned in a information launch that the committees will probe the worldwide pupil visa program, claiming with out proof that it has let college students “sympathetic to terrorist teams” attend U.S. schools.
- The inquiry comes amid rising pro-Palestinian protests calling on schools to divest from corporations with hyperlinks to Israel in response to the nation’s warfare with Hamas and bombardment of Gaza. School administrations have diverged on how one can tackle protest encampments, with some reaching agreements with the activists and others bringing in police to have them arrested.
Dive Perception:
Tuesday’s announcement heightens the stakes schools face when trying to guard free speech whereas curbing harassment on campus.
The coalition will embody management from the Home Training and Workforce; Methods and Means; Power and Commerce; Judiciary; Oversight; and Science, House and Expertise committees.
“Almost each committee right here has a job to play in these efforts to cease the insanity that has ensued,” Johnson mentioned in an announcement. “The federal authorities performs a essential position in greater training, and we’ll use all of the instruments accessible to us to deal with this scourge.”
A number of presidents of distinguished universities have just lately testified to Congress on how they’re dealing with antisemitism on campus — however their responses did not fulfill some lawmakers. In response, Republican legislators launched probes into the universities’ insurance policies, even earlier than this newest salvo from Johnson.
In December, the Republican-led Home training committee introduced it could examine disciplinary insurance policies at Harvard College, the College of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise after their leaders testified earlier than lawmakers on campus antisemitism. The committee later expanded the investigation to different schools.
In January, the Home Methods and Means Committee launched one other probe into the identical three establishments, together with Cornell College, over their responses to antisemitism on their campuses.
Rep. Jason Smith, Methods and Means chair, mentioned Tuesday that his committee has known as on the establishments to share what disciplinary motion they’ve taken in opposition to antisemitic exercise and to reveal funding obtained from international governments.
“Our investigation has already produced greater than 1,500 pages of paperwork that we are actually actively reviewing,” he mentioned in an announcement.
Johnson final week visited Columbia College, an epicenter for the protests, and known as for Minouche Shafik, the establishment’s president, to resign. He was met with boos and pro-Palestian chants whereas talking in entrance of the campus library.
Columbia known as legislation enforcement onto its campus to filter out encampments Tuesday. Police arrested a whole bunch of protesters there and on the public Metropolis School of New York a mile northeast.
The Home coalition is important, Johnson mentioned, as a result of schools and “woke college presidents” have did not sufficiently cease the unfold of antisemitism.
Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the training committee, mentioned the investigation will give everybody affiliated with federally funded universities “a wholesome dose of actuality.”
“School will not be a park for play performing juveniles or a battleground for radical activists,” Foxx mentioned in an announcement.
Some critics of the scholar protests have alleged they’ve been spurred by people unaffiliated with the universities the place they happen.
Turmoil in Congress might impede Johnson’s priorities, together with this coalition, as he might face a vote subsequent week in search of to take away him as Home Speaker.
