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House committee pushes Harvard to provide more materials on antisemitism

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) hinted that she may also investigate Cornell and Columbia for these schools’ failures to counter hate.

Harvard University
Memorial Church at Harvard University. Source: 365 Focus Photography/Shutterstock

The U.S. House of Representatives could intensify efforts to discover the scope of the Harvard University administration’s actions to address students grappling with antisemitism.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who serves as chair for the House Education Committee, requested information on what measures are in place to protect Jewish students on campus and how the academic institution disciplines students engaged in hate.

Foxx called the documents that the committee received in response “woefully inadequate.”

She wrote, “Rather than answering the committee’s request in a substantive manner, Harvard has chosen to provide letters from nonprofits and student handbooks, many of which are already publicly available. … This is unacceptable.”

Foxx demanded that Harvard produce the remaining documents “in a timely manner or risk compulsory measures.”

The legislator also warned that other schools could receive the same scrutiny as Harvard, stating that the committee is going to examine “universities that fail to address antisemitism. We are quite well aware of Cornell and Columbia.”

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