WASHINGTON (TND) — Dozens of federal lawmakers, led by Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., sent a letter Friday to the members of the governing boards at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology calling for them to immediately dismiss their school presidents.
The letter follows a turbulent week for the leaders after their testimony on campus antisemitism before Congress Tuesday. The presidents sparked outrage on social media for appearing too lenient on how calls for Jewish genocide are addressed on their campuses.
Many Harvard alumni soon began calling for school president Claudine Gay to resign. A member of the Harvard University Antisemitism Advisory Group also announced his resignation in the wake of what he referred to as Gay’s “painfully inadequate” testimony before Congress.
In a letter to the three schools, 74 congressional politicians said the three presidents are unfit for their jobs.
The university presidents’ responses to questions aimed at addressing the growing trend of antisemitism on college and university campuses were abhorrent,” the lawmakers wrote. “When pushed on whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates university policies on bully and harassment, Presidents Gay (Harvard), Kornbluth (MIT), and Magill (Penn) were vasive and dismissive, failing to simply condemn such action. This should be an easy and resounding ‘yes.’”
Given their testimony, the presidents should be dismissed or face having their schools labeled as endorsers of Jewish genocide, the lawmakers wrote.
“Given this moment of crisis, we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, teachers and faculty are safe on your campuses,” the lawmakers wrote. “Anything less than these steps will be seen as your endorsement of what Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth said to Congress and an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture.”
The letter follows an announcement by Rep. Stefanik that the House Committee on Education & the Workforce would launch a probe into the three schools. Harvard and UPenn are also currently under investigated by the U.S. Department of Education over allegations the schools created a hostile environment for Jewish students.
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Media affairs personnel from each of the three schools did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The National Desk Friday.
