House ed panel demands answers for campus Jew-hatred from five schools

Leaders of the House Committee on Education and Workforce demanded more robust action to address campus Jew-hatred in letters to Barnard College, Bowdoin College, Northwestern University, Pomona College and Sarah Lawrence College on Thursday.

In a letter to Barnard, Reps. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), chairman of the committee, and Burgess Owens (R-Utah) asked the school to notify the panel by April 10 about what disciplinary actions it had taken against anti-Israel protesters who took over the college’s Milbank Hall on Feb. 26, causing more than $30,000 in damage.

The congressmen also requested information about disciplinary measures related to the March 5 disruption at Milstein Library, where a bomb threat forced the New York City Police Department to evacuate students.

“As you know, postsecondary institutions that receive federal funds must maintain a safe learning environment and fulfill all obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and its accompanying regulations,” the letter stated. “This includes the obligation to promptly address discrimination, harassment, and any hostile environment, wherever such circumstances may be found to exist.”

Walberg and Owens notified Bowdoin College that the committee had concerns about the school’s planned response to an anti-Israel encampment in February at its student center.

“While Bowdoin has reportedly temporarily suspended eight students and while approximately 50 students are facing discipline for their involvement in the encampment, it is unclear whether these students will ultimately receive meaningful discipline,” the congressmen stated.

That is particularly true “given that the encampment ended following what Bowdoin’s senior vice president and dean for student affairs Jim Hoppe described as an ‘understanding’ with the Bowdoin administration,” they added.

At Northwestern, the members wrote that the law school’s decision to provide free legal representation to organizers of an anti-Israel blockade of highway traffic to Chicago O’Hare International Airport is “troubling.”

One of the O’Hare blockade organizers receiving legal representation from the law school is Rifqa Falaneh, a “justice fellow” at the organization Palestine Legal, per the letter.

“Falaneh is a vocal antisemite and supporter of terrorism who has called for ‘many more Oct. 7ths until full liberation,’” the letter stated.

“This blockade resulted in the arrest of 40 participants,” they wrote. “The fact that Northwestern, a university supported by billions in federal funds, would dedicate its resources to support this illegal, antisemitic conduct raises serious questions.”

In their letter to Pomona, the members wrote they are concerned about the school’s ‘F’ grade from the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 campus antisemitism report card.

“The report card makes note of an April 2023 flyer commemorating Israel’s Independence Day that was defaced with the words, ‘have you no shame, you bloodthirsty baby killers,’ a comment that appears to reference blood libel, an ancient and false antisemitic allegation dating back to the Middle Ages,” the letter states.

At Sarah Lawrence, Walberg and Owens noted that a Students for Justice in Palestine encampment that took over the college’s main administrative building in November 2024.

“These recent events at Sarah Lawrence College are part of an unprecedented wave of campus antisemitism across the United States,” the letter states. “Further, Sarah Lawrence College acquiescence to organizers’-perpetrators’ demands is an all too familiar dynamic which only encourages such antisemitic incidents.”