Hostile powers have undue influence in U.S. classrooms. The United States must do more to prevent adversaries from spreading poisonous ideologies in taxpayer-funded schools and programs.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce recently released what it called a “bombshell” report on antisemitism and higher education. The investigation was spurred by pro-Hamas riots and demonstrations that immediately followed the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel.
Iranian proxies invaded the Jewish state and carried out the biggest slaughter of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust. Women, children, and the elderly were killed in the most appalling ways imaginable. Family members were tortured in front of one another, and homes and communities were incinerated with some of their inhabitants inside.
This barbarism should have provoked universal condemnation, but instead, to the horror of many, it was celebrated on some college campuses. The House committee report, issued by the majority staff under the leadership of Rep. Tim Walberg (D-MI), explains why.
It found that top universities such as Northwestern and Georgetown have “housed faculty or fellows and student groups that foment antisemitism,” undermining their commitment to Title VI principles. The committee also found that even after Oct 7, these institutions “participated or hosted deeply one-sided events that legitimize antisemitic rhetoric.”
Further, universities had clear financial incentives to do so, benefiting from relations with Qatar, a longtime backer of Hamas and other Islamist terrorist groups. Qatar has provided sanctuary to Hamas leaders and leaders of the Taliban. Its state media have a long history of offering apologetics for terrorism.
Georgetown and Northwestern have arrangements with Qatar in which they are “contractually required” to abide by the “applicable laws and regulations of the State of Qatar” and “respect the cultural, religious, and social customs of the State of Qatar.” They have satellite campuses in Qatar that focus on politics and journalism, respectively. These satellites prohibit speaking out against the Qatari government and Islam.
The House committee also uncovered numerous instances of faculty members and associates voicing ethinic prejudice against Jews. For example, the head of Northwestern University’s Liberal Arts Program in Qatar said on social media that “Zionist Jews are disgusting liars.” The same program had faculty who trafficked in age-old blood libels, claiming Israelis profit from selling the body parts of Palestinians. At Georgetown’s Qatar campus, students held signs saying “We stand with violence on Israelis” and “Long live the Popular Front for Liberation”. The PFLP is a designated terrorist group that took part in the butchery of Oct 7.
These institutions reject the civilized Western and American values on which they are founded. U.S. colleges should be free to teach about the belief system of Osama bin Laden, but they shouldn’t adopt it themselves or propagandize their students to do so.
WHAT ARE BLUE STATES GETTING FOR ALL THAT SPENDING?
In recognition of this, the U.S. undetsecretary of state for public diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, announced that her office will take “a brand-new role in partnership” with the Education Department to “bring transparency to foreign money in U.S. higher education and research.” Rogers pointed out that “foreign dollars (often with strings attached) have been flowing into U.S. universities” and that “it’s time the American people find out exactly who’s paying and at what cost.”
Rogers is right. The State Department’s new partnership with the Education Department to root out foreign influence is welcome and overdue. One senses that what has been uncovered so far is only a fraction of the horrors that lie beneath the surface. More transparency is needed. Sunlight, as always, is the best disinfectant. What it illuminates is likely to need expunging.