EXCLUSIVE — House Republicans are scrutinizing the tax-exempt status of four elite universities as part of a new investigation into the schools’ alleged “failure to adequately protect Jewish students from discrimination and harassment,” the Washington Examiner has learned.
The investigation, which focuses on Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell University, was launched this week by the House Ways and Means Committee. News of its existence comes as conservatives take aim at schools for seemingly being late to condemn the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorist attacks against Israel, while promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that lawmakers argue “raise questions about moral clarity,” according to a letter the GOP-led panel’s chairman, Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), sent Wednesday to the presidents of the four universities.
“As you know, your institutions are aided by the beneficial treatment provided to nonprofit, tax-exempt entities,” Smith wrote in the letter to Interim Harvard President Alan Garber, MIT President Sally Kornbluth, Cornell President Martha E. Pollack, and UPenn Interim President Larry Jameson. “Your universities also receive funding from federal grants and appropriations, support for student loan assistance, lucrative financial benefits from your tax exempt status, and the advantageous tax treatment of your institutions’ endowments.
“You may also be aware that there are certain standards your institutions must meet to receive this highly advantageous and preferential treatment,” Smith continued in the letter, which questioned whether the universities are operating “primarily for educational purposes.”
Smith’s letter to the presidents is the latest escalation of congressional pressure on universities, particularly after Kornbluth and then-presidents Claudine Gay of Harvard and Liz Magill of UPenn declined in a December 2023 hearing to say whether calls for genocide against Jews constituted harassment under school policies. Magill resigned late last year amid outcry from donors, while Gay stepped down this month after multiple reports showed she engaged in academic plagiarism over the years.
MIT spokeswoman Sarah McDonnell told the Washington Examiner that MIT and Kornbluth “reject antisemitism and all forms of hate.” Harvard, UPenn, and Cornell also have been contacted for comment for this story.
The Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, which killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, have placed schools under the national spotlight due to pro-Palestinian student demonstrations on campuses that are openly antisemitic. However, many members of Congress have grown extremely frustrated with university administrators for not taking enough disciplinary actions against students, and they have slammed universities for employing professors who were outed as justifying the attacks on social media.
The House Ways and Means Committee, in part, oversees nonprofit groups and the IRS. The Washington Examiner reported in November 2023 that the panel was investigating Hamas-linked charities and their finances.
In his letter Wednesday, Smith rebuked Gay’s comments in the December hearing equating “intifada,” also known as Palestinian terrorism against Israel, with “protected speech.” He also said in the letter that Kornbluth had “suggested that antisemitic speech on campus calling for the elimination of the Jewish people would only be investigated as harassment if it was pervasive, severe, and targeted at individuals,” and the congressman slammed Magill for “implying that such speech would only amount to illegal harassment if it turned into conduct.”
However, Smith said, the hearing in December “is not the first time we have heard of concerning responses to antisemitism on college campuses.” The House Ways and Means Committee chairman pointed to November 2023 congressional testimony from Cornell University student Talia Dror, who said, “[s]tudents, professors, and administrators at Cornell celebrated the massacre of innocent civilians,” referring to Oct. 7.
Dror co-authored an op-ed titled “What Is Happening on College Campuses Is Not Free Speech” in the New York Times in November with students from Yale University and Brown University. The op-ed described the recent targeting of Jewish students at Cornell and an example of a professor at the school apparently saying he was exhilarated by Oct. 7 — before being put on leave and apologizing. The FBI began investigating antisemitic threats at Cornell in late October, according to multiple reports. FBI complaints reportedly have been filed at other schools as well.
“The proliferation of this type of antisemitic activity on your campuses and college campuses across the country as well as the continued lack of support for Jewish students and condemnation of calls for violence against the Jewish community is extremely concerning,” Smith wrote in his letter to the university presidents. “It is also perplexing given how your institutions have had no problem condemning other behavior in the past.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Smith’s letter listed more than a dozen questions for the presidents to answer by Jan. 24. These included requests for information about how the universities are fulfilling their “educational purpose” for Jewish students and financial records on endowments, as well as on DEI programming.
In 2022, Cornell notably received over $670,000 from the Biden administration for DEI training, the Washington Examiner reported. Republicans have long held that DEI, and race-based curricula, are discriminatory and promote racism.