Top US Lawmaker Threatens to Revoke Federal Funding From Harvard University Amid Campus Antisemitism Crisis

US House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) cautioned Harvard University and other elite institutions of higher education that their official accreditation could be in jeopardy if they did not do more to combat surging antisemitism on their campuses.

“Your accreditation is on the line,” Scalise said last week in a meeting in Washington, DC with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-Israel lobbying organization, according to recordings acquired by The Guardian and reported on Wednesday. “You’re not playing games any more or else you’re not a school any more.”

Scalise reportedly singled out Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University, all of which have come under scrutiny for not doing more to combat increasing antisemitic incidents and rampant anti-Israel demonstrations since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. The lawmaker’s threat could potentially saddle the embattled Ivy League institutions with another crisis as they grapple with simmering antisemitism controversies.

Scalise added that conservatives in the US government are considering targeting the federal funding of Harvard and other schools, indicating that the relationship between the Ivy League institutions and US federal officials could continue to worsen if former President Donald Trump were to retake the Oval Office in November. 

“We’re looking at federal money, the federal grants that go through the science committee, student loans,” Scalise continued. “You have a lot of jurisdiction as president, with all of these different agencies that are involving billions of dollars, some cases a billion alone going to one school.”

Six US congressional committees have continued investigating Harvard as part of their probe into campus antisemitism in higher education. The committee chairs have warned that the university’s federal funding could be imperiled if it does not provide a safe environment for Jewish students. 

“The House of Representatives will not countenance the use of federal funds to indoctrinate students into hateful, antisemitic, anti-American supporters of terrorism,” the committee chairs wrote to Harvard in June. 

Trump has repeatedly threatened to install accreditors who would revoke accreditation of universities that do not handle campus antisemitism seriously. 

In the year following Hamas’s brutal slaughter of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel, Harvard has become a hotspot for protests against the Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, a slew of campus groups issued statements blaming Israel for the massacre and rationalizing Hamas’s atrocities, which included systematic sexual violence. In addition, anti-Israel protests immediately erupted across Harvard and other elite universities.

The anti-Israel statements and protests drew the ire of elected officials, causing lawmakers to summon former Harvard President Claudine Gay to testify in front of the US Congress in December. Gay resigned from her post in January amid uproar over her congressional testimony, in which she said calls for genocide against Jews may or may not violate campus conduct policies depending on the “context.”

Rep. Elise M. Stefanik (R-NY) released a statement this week condemning Harvard for not doing more to tackle campus antisemitism. 

“Harvard University has once again refused to condemn and discipline the pro-Hamas mob on campus, instead inviting another school year filled with antisemitism and anti-Israel hate,” she said. 

Harvard isn’t the only university at risk of having its accreditation threatened by Republican lawmakers. Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania are among those that could face funding cuts over their response to anti-Israel campus protests, which have included threats of violence against Jewish students.

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