Following the arrests of nine anti-Israel activists at a demonstration on Tuesday at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) contacted Jeff Ettinger, the school’s interim president.
“This week, antisemitic and pro-terror protests have escalated rapidly on college campuses across the United States, with groups agitated by professional protestors, openly supporting Hamas and instilling fear of violence against our Jewish students,” he wrote in a letter on Thursday to Ettinger. “Unfortunately, we saw these protests in the heart of the University of Minnesota’s campus and encouraged by elected officials, including U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar.”
Emmer said students had seen the demonstrations at Columbia and “replicated similar antisemitic activity.”
The letter reported that anti-Israel activists chanted “from the river to the sea,” and one person carried the flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated U.S. foreign terrorist organization. Emmer concluded with a series of seven questions about the school’s efforts to counter campus antisemitism and requested answers by May 6.
“Jewish students at the U of M deserve to know they will be safe on campus, which is why I am making sure the university is doing everything in its power to keep from turning into the next Columbia,” he told the Daily Mail.
