\n<\/p>\n
Rich Lyons, the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, challenged US House Republicans on Tuesday as they questioned him and leaders of Georgetown University and the City University of New York (Cuny) in the latest hearing on antisemitism in higher education.<\/p>\n
The committee accused the schools of failing to respond adequately to allegations of bias or discrimination; however, the university leaders said that disciplinary action had been taken where appropriate and stressed the importance of protecting free speech.<\/p>\n
Lyons pushed back on the suggestion that antisemitism was more present on college campuses than anywhere else.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody is expressing pro-Palestinian beliefs, that\u2019s not necessarily antisemitic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lyons, who has just completed his first year as chancellor, is also the first UC leader to face the House committee during the Trump presidency. In his opening remarks, he defended the campus\u2019s commitment to free speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a public institution, Berkeley has a solemn obligation to protect the quintessential American value of free speech,\u201d Lyons said. \u201cThis obligation does not prevent us, let me repeat, does not prevent us from confronting harassment and discrimination in all its forms, including antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hearing was the ninth in a series Republicans have held to scrutinize university leadership over allegations of antisemitism on campuses after a wave of protests over Israel\u2019s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, which has killed more than 60,000 people, in retaliation to Hamas\u2019s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. Widely criticized testimony before the committee by the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University in 2023 contributed to their resignations.<\/p>\n
At Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Democrats blasted Republican committee members for their focus on antisemitism while not speaking out on the dismantling of the education department, which is tasked with investigating antisemitism and other civil rights violations in schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have turned this hearing room into a kangaroo court, where they spend our time litigating a predetermined outcome to do nothing, actually, to help Jewish students, just make public theater out of legitimate pain,\u201d said the California representative Mark Takano.<\/p>\n
Republicans said university leaders have allowed campus antisemitism to run unchecked.<\/p>\n
\u201cUniversities can choose to hire antisemitic faculty, welcome students with a history of antisemitism, accept certain foreign funding and let the behavior of antisemitic unions go unchecked,\u201d Tim Walberg, a Michigan representative and committee chair, said in his opening statements. \u201cBut we will see today they do so at their own risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hearing was periodically interrupted by protesters who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans before being removed by Capitol police. Randy Fine, a Florida representative, berated the college presidents and said they were responsible because of the attitudes they had permitted on their campuses.<\/p>\n
Republicans pressed the three college leaders on whether they had disciplined or fired faculty and employees for behavior they said was antisemitic. Elise Stefanik, a Republican representative of New York, pressed the Cuny chancellor, F\u00e9lix Matos Rodr\u00edguez, on the employment of a law professor who worked on the legal defense of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist the Trump administration attempted to deport over his role in protests at Columbia University.<\/p>\n
Stefanik pushed Matos Rodr\u00edguez to answer whether the professor should be fired. Without responding directly, Matos Rodr\u00edguez defended Cuny and said antisemitism had no place at the school. He said any student or employee who broke Cuny rules would be investigated.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n University leaders also emphasized the importance of free speech on campuses for students and faculty.<\/p>\n Robert Groves, the interim president at Georgetown, said that as a Jesuit university, fostering interfaith dialogue and understanding was a key part of the school\u2019s mission. He said the university has not experienced any encampments or physical violence since the Hamas attack in October 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven our Jesuit values, we expose students to different viewpoints on the Middle East,\u201d Groves said. \u201cIn addition to speakers on Gaza, we\u2019ve hosted IDF soldiers, families of Israelis and Palestinians who\u2019ve lost their lives, US families of US hostages in Gaza. Georgetown is not perfect, and as events evolve, we\u2019ve had to clarify rules of student behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n Lyons, as well, said his campus has \u201cmore work to do\u201d to prevent antisemitism.<\/p>\n \u201cI am the first to say that we have more work to do. Berkeley, like our nation, has not been immune to the disturbing rise in antisemitism. And as a public university, we have a solemn obligation to protect our community from discrimination and harassment, while also upholding the first amendment right to free speech,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n This article was amended on 16 July 2025. An earlier version misnamed Robert Groves as \u201cRichard\u201d Groves and said that Rich Lyons was in his first year as chancellor of UC, Berkeley, when he is in his second year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rich Lyons, the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, challenged US House Republicans on Tuesday as they questioned him and leaders of Georgetown University and the City University of New York (Cuny) in the latest hearing on antisemitism in higher education. The committee accused the schools of failing to respond adequately to allegations of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2200,4320,662,1891,452,671,807,4321,781],"class_list":{"0":"post-11082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-campus","10":"tag-challenge","11":"tag-claims","12":"tag-hearing","13":"tag-house","14":"tag-leaders","15":"tag-representatives","16":"tag-university"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}