Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., joined “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy” to criticize colleges for allowing antisemitic protests on its campuses “under the guise of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”
Lawler’s criticism comes as students at elite college campuses across the nation are forming “Gaza Solidarity” encampments to call on their respective schools to either cut ties with or end their support of Israel.
The nationwide movement has spread to schools like Columbia, Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley, University of Southern California, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern University, Vanderbilt University, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, University of Virginia and others.
A protester at NYU spit on a sign that said “Jewish” before adorning it over the word “White.” The final sign said “Pure Evil” and “Jewish Supremacy.” (Obtained by Fox News)
Lawler said, “Congress must act to crack down on it because these universities and college presidents and administrators are failing in their responsibility to keep these students safe, and to ensure that there is a free exchange of ideas, but based in truth and reality, and not antisemitic rhetoric, designed to threaten and target Jewish students.”
Gowdy then pointed to concerns over the use of “tax dollars or public moneys” funding colleges that either can’t or won’t condemn “racist, antisemitic activities.”
“Bottom line to me is, you need to be able to define what antisemitism is, enforce it and if schools are failing in the enforcement, then they need to be stripped of federal dollars, including student aid. And that’s why I introduced the Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses Act, which would defund institutions of higher learning,” Lawler said.
Lawler also insinuated these colleges would have “cracked down” right away if the ongoing protests were aimed at Blacks, Hispanics or members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Pro-Palestinian supporters rally outside Columbia University on April 23, 2024 in New York City. In response to recent campus unrest and anxieties regarding Jewish student safety, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced a shift to online learning for Monday. She further urged faculty and staff to prioritize remote work. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MOVES TO HYBRID LEARNING ON MAIN CAMPUS AMID ANTISEMITIC PROTESTS
“Oftentimes it requires the power of the purse to get these institutions to act, and the threat of taking those federal dollars away, surely will cause many of them, to do what they should have been already doing, which is put an end to these protests because they’re not rooted in fact, they’re not rooted in reality, they’re rooted in antisemitism and the fact that these schools have allowed it to happen, knowing full well that if these were protests against Black people or protests against immigrants or protests against gay people, the schools rightly would have cracked down on it right away, but they are allowing it to happen under the guise of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but we know what it is, it’s antisemitism at its core.”
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Fox News’ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
Christopher Lopez is a digital production assistant for Fox News Digital. He joined Fox News in 2021.