Gaza and Charities at War: Ways and Means Chair Makes New Demands on Universities
From a press release, Thursday March 21, 2024:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of an investigation into college and university responses to antisemitism targeting Jewish students on campuses that enjoy generous benefits through the U.S. tax code, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) demanded Cornell University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Pennsylvania detail what disciplinary action they have taken against students, administrators, faculty, or student organizations whose antisemitic activity violated campus policy.
“The focus of the Committee’s inquiry and questions is to understand what universities like yours are doing, if anything, to change course drastically and address what has gone unaddressed for years,” wrote Chairman Smith. “Doing so is essential to justifying the generous tax-exempt status that the American people have provided institutions like yours for decades. Why is antisemitism so deeply rooted in campus culture, including among student bodies, faculty members, and administrators? Why do purveyors of antisemitism feel so emboldened to spew hate and even engage in violence against their Jewish classmates? Why have there been so few consequences for conduct that clearly violates campus policies and sometimes even violates the law? This pervasive culture has created a hostile environment for Jews on campus. Public statements, slaps on the wrist, and symbolic gestures, while good and proper, are not sufficient to reverse what is clearly a systemic issue. Antisemitism not only exists on campus, but also thrives and puts Jewish students at risk. The moment calls for serious institutional change. That is what this Committee expects and that is what the American people expect from institutions that were designed to prepare and educate the next generation of leaders.”
In addition to details regarding disciplinary action taken against individuals and organizations on campus, the letters demand the four universities detail why they believe antisemitism has been allowed to flourish on their campuses, provide any drafts or final versions of statements concerning unprotected speech or violence, and disclose any donations or funding received from foreign sovereignties or governments.
These letters are the latest step in the Ways and Means Committee’s investigation into whether these universities have taken sufficient action to protect Jewish students on their campuses following the October 7th attack on Israel. In a letter to the same universities in January, Chairman Smith underlined the importance of protecting free speech while also stressing that once speech on campus crosses into unprotected threats and calls for violence, American universities’ failure to act calls into question whether they are fulfilling the educational purpose required of them to receive 501(c)3 tax-exempt status.
I don’t like the Republicans on Ways and Means much. But I had to set aside my disdain for them so I might understand their questions. The letter discusses harrowing things visited on Jews and asks detailed questions. Only when I set aside my disdain for the author’s hypocrisy am I able to see that the questions are very legitimate, even if the implicit threat to tax exemption is patently ridiculous. Nobody is going to yank Harvard’s tax exemption, c’mon. Still the questions demand answers even if its Beavis Butthead asking. And I don’t have to discount Jewish students’ real fears to acknowledge legitimate questions or the real fears felt by Palestinian students. I can do both and I don’t have to compare or equate them. I think one group has more reasons to fear than the other, though your broken bone caused by several reasons doesn’t make my broken bone caused by just one feel any better. Fear is fear and hurt is hurt.
But its true and relevant to my disdain that Jewish students have more objects of fear than Palestinian students. Let’s stipulate that Jewish students fear Palestinians students and Palestinian students fear Jewish students. But Jewish students must also fear our home grown Nazi Replacement Theorizers who don’t care about Palestinians but are using the Israeli Hamas conflict for their own Jew-hating purposes. Why not, everybody will blame that on Palestinian students anyway.
So what I hate about the Ways and Means Maga types portraying themselves as latter day defenders of Jewish people is that they condemn University responses to fears they [the Ways and Means Maga-types] are themselves generating. They implicitly, if not explicitly support the home grown groups who hate Jewish people whether there is a war going on or not. The House Republicans threatening to yank tax exemption for anti-Semitism are the same group that told a bunch of Jew- and everybody-else hating Nazis to “stand down and stand by.” These guys aren’t worried about justice for anybody except themselves. They are incumbents waging a reelection campaign. They help generate the fear, the existence of which they use against colleges and universities. Stop me when I’m lying. House Ways and Means Maga-types are asking pressing and legitimate questions, the answers to which they could not care less about.
darryll k. jones