Once upon a time, the Ivy League symbolized American excellence in education. Its eight institutions were beacons around the world because of their commitment to free inquiry, democratic values, and extraordinary achievement in a wide range of fields.
Yet today, Dartmouth College is the only Ivy League school that is not facing a federal investigation over antisemitism. In the last month, Princeton and Yale have deeply exacerbated the problem by forcing their students to face anti-Israel referenda on student ballots and allowing a climate of toxicity toward Jews and Israelis to brew. It’s time for Congress to investigate these schools for their handling of antisemitism and for the Department of Education to reconsider their eligibility for federal funding until they take real action to correct the issue.
Take Yale University, which has gone from bad to worse over the past year. Last spring, an “encampment” by anti-Israel students was so confrontational that campus police had to arrest 48 students for incidents of trespass. Radicals chanted for an intifada — the name of a previous spate of terrorist suicide bombings from 2000 to 2005 that killed over 1,000 Israelis, mostly civilians — and used the phrase “from the river to the sea,” implying the elimination of the whole country of Israel, rather than a two-state solution. Even the Yale Women’s Center, an undergraduate group founded in 1970 to ensure female representation and empowerment, has disseminated anti-Israel propaganda and refused even to speak with pro-Israel students.
Then, at the beginning of the present school year, the Yale Chaplain’s Office hired a new assistant Muslim chaplain, Leenah Safi, who calls the country of Israel a “settler colonial project” and has publicly opposed any diplomacy by Muslim countries with the “Zionist entity.” As the semester progressed, an anti-Israel group called “Sumud Coalition” began promoting a referendum calling for the university to divest 25 companies that do business with Israel as a form of economic warfare aligned to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions of the Israel campaign. BDS campaigns lead to a dramatic increase in antisemitic speech and activity when they are conducted at university campuses. Yale is a case in point, as anti-Israel protesters followed and physically blocked visibly Jewish students on campus.
Princeton University has had similar troubles. Yale’s Center for Middle East Studies hosted a talk in October with the sister of Iyad Sawalha, a former leader of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the mastermind behind two suicide bus bombings that killed 31 people in Israel during the last intifada.
Meanwhile, when former Princeton professor Ronen Shoval, Israeli by origin, tried to give a talk at his former campus, he faced calls for cancellation, and he was shouted down during his speech until he had to abandon the attempt and be escorted back to his vehicle by police. Anti-Israel student groups viciously defamed university research labs, calling them “incubators for genocide” for working with Israeli institutions. At a Princeton encampment last spring, anti-Israel radicals chanted, “Hamas are freedom fighters,” and flew the flags of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
Anti-Israel forces at Princeton forced another BDS student referendum in late November that galvanized anti-Israel sentiment. Princeton’s President Christopher L. Eisgruber has himself admitted the prevalence of the problem on his campus, saying, “Up until last year, I could say that I had neither experienced nor personally observed any antisemitic comment or act on the Princeton campus in the nearly 45 years since I first arrived here as a freshman. I can no longer say that. I have been the target of antisemitic comments or behavior twice in the past six months … some of our Jewish students, faculty, and staff have had similar experiences.”
A day of reckoning must come for these campuses, as it did for University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Harvard President Claudine Gay, both of whom infamously refused to tell a congressional panel that calling for the genocide of Jews constituted a violation of university policies. The country’s largest university endowments already stand to lose billions of dollars if they go through with BDS against Israel. Now, the federal government must respond to the rampant prejudice and hatred that has taken over Princeton and Yale.
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For too long, federal grants have gone to support university professors and educators who have inculcated their students with hateful anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric. There can no longer be a blank check to academic institutions that promote hatred and hostility toward Jews, Israel, and America itself.
Congress should investigate Yale’s and Princeton’s handling of antisemitism, a process already begun by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which has recognized serious concerns with both schools. Similarly, the incoming Trump administration, through the Department of Education, should revoke federal funding to these universities if they fail to protect their students from antisemitism.
Lizzy Savetsky works with numerous nonprofit and philanthropic movements as an outspoken advocate for Israel and the Jewish people. She also serves on New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s Jewish Advisory Council.