House GOP pushes new oversight agenda on campus antisemitism with slew of hearings

House Republicans are making antisemitism on college campuses a new oversight priority amid a reported increase of antisemitic activity on college campuses that has included at least one terrorist threat.

This week alone, two separate House committees will hold hearings on the issue of campus antisemitism, a week after House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) led a hearing on “Free Speech on College Campuses” that featured a heavy emphasis on rising antisemitism on the campus quad. The hearings come a month after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel motivated a series of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses that have included calls for the elimination of Israel.

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On Tuesday, the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development will hold a hearing on “Confronting the Scourge of Antisemitism on Campus.”

The subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT), said the hearing is part of the committee’s “commitment to take action and ensure that students are afforded a safe learning environment.”

“A wave of unabashed antisemitism at colleges and universities is leading to harassment and violence against the Jewish community, and it must be met with swift condemnation,” Owens said, before adding that “we must reclaim our nation’s crumbling postsecondary education system from the illiberalism and radical ideologies that are destroying it from within.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that the committee is “tackling this issue from all sides” during a time when antisemitism is rising and endangering the well-being of students and staff.

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“Our hearing will be broad, addressing concerns in our jurisdiction related to the First Amendment, student safety, and institutions’ legal obligations to respond to antisemitism,” she said. “We will not stand idly by as radical ideology on campuses continues to put students and staff in harm’s way.”

The higher education subcommittee’s hearing will be followed by another hearing on Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee that will focus on the increase of pro-Hamas and antisemitic activity on college campuses, as well as on any possible ties between terrorist groups and U.S.-based organizations.