Nexus Project response to GOP House Committee report on campus antisemitism
Jonathan Jacoby, Director of the Nexus Project
Kevin Rachlin, Washington Director of the Nexus Leadership Project
On behalf of the Nexus Project, which aims to combat antisemitism by pushing back against its polarization and
weaponization and by supporting the US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, we would like to thank the
Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania for giving us the opportunity to address the recently released
Republican written House Committee on Education and Workforce report on campus antisemitism.
It saddens us immensely to see an effort more focused on scoring political points than with the safety and well-being of
Jewish students
The report does document a number of deeply concerning incidents. There is no question that there are cases of
grotesque antisemitism on university campuses. Unfortunately, it conflates genuine antisemitism with a wide
range of campus situations and university actions that are more nuanced. For example, the report spends roughly
five pages on the finding that Northwestern University “entertained demands to hire an anti-Zionist rabbi.” One
can believe that a university should hire an anti-Zionist rabbi or not, but whether entertaining a demand for
Jewish students is antisemitic is surely an open question — one that shouldn’t be equated with, say, failing to
protect the physical safety of Jewish students. Beyond that, we are uncomfortable with the idea that Congress
should have a say over the ideology of the rabbis universities hire to serve Jewish students, and that their having
such a say is somehow fighting antisemitism.
It is unfortunate that the report unhelpfully sensationalizes, oversimplifies, and weaponizes many such incidents.
As unfortunate is the report’s real agenda: using the powers of the federal government to limit open debate,
attack higher education, and undermine academic freedom. It is education, after all, that is one of our most
powerful tools in fighting back against antisemitism. The Nexus Campus Guide to Identifying Antisemitism in
a Time of Perplexity exists to help academics, administrators, and students think through what is and isn’t
antisemitism and encourages nuance and learning, not blunt instruments or attacks on federal funding for higher
education. We need more, not less, knowledge in this fight.
We would also note that this is the same House Education Committee that has failed to fund Department of
Education investigations into antisemitism, suggesting that its members true priority is not, in fact, the safety
and well-being of Jewish students.
Very simply: The fight against antisemitism is too important to be sacrificed to the political ambitions of
members of Congress searching for the spotlight. The Committee’s Republican members include Rep. Elise
Stefanik, who has pushed great replacement theory and other conspiracy theories on George Soros, and Rep.
Mary Miller, who had to apologize for saying “Hitler was right” about controlling the youth to control the future
on Jan. 6, 2021. It is perhaps, then, as unsurprising as it is disappointing that they are exploiting the very real
danger of antisemitism to drive their own hyper-partisan agenda to suppress free speech instead of doing
