▶ 0:19:30Chair Grassley: Good morning everybody, welcome. Before I get started I would like to address one thing quickly. Their perspectives on anti-semitism. I would ask those in the crowd to be respectful. Last congress, protesters show -- shouted profanities about jewish people. So we should not tolerate those sort of disruptions at today's hearing.
▶ 0:20:01Chair Grassley: With that, we are going to start with a short video, one minute: six. -- 1:06. [chanting] >> from coast-to-coast. >> campus to campus. >> ivy leagues, universities, colleges and high schools. Pro-palestinian protests are spreading and becoming increasingly disruptive.
▶ 0:20:31Chair Grassley: >> long live the intifada. There is only one solution. >> one protester was seen carrying a hamas flag. >> this movement is mushrooming. >> we are hamas. >> you are what?
▶ 0:20:52Chair Grassley: >> 2023 antisemitic's assault incidents increase by 45% and venom is him by 65 percent and harassment by 184%. >> jewish student say they do not feel safe. >> there is an acute problem taking place. I will conclude by pointing out the obvious, protecting jewish people does not come at the expense of any other group.
▶ 0:21:17Chair Grassley: This committee held a generalized hearing on hate crimes entitled a threat to justice everywhere, stemming the time a -- the tide of hate crimes in america. Do you notice that the hearing title is similar.
▶ 0:21:40Chair Grassley: Our hearing title is never be silent, stemming the tide of anti-semitism in america, and I want to explain why this is not another generalized hearing on every kind of hate with no specific outcome. October 27, 2023 was a very horrifying day. The most in recent memory.
▶ 0:22:07Chair Grassley: Hamas terrorists waged the gently asked attack -- the deadliest attack on jews since the holocaust and callously murdered over 1200 people. And they slaughtered children. Women were brutally raped. About 250 people including americans were taken hostage.
▶ 0:22:34Chair Grassley: You would expect this horror to lead everyone to rally around jewish people. I had people stop me in the hallways last year and ask what I thought about all of the killing that was going on as a result of this war? And I tried to respond in a very commonsense way, do you realize that nobody would be killed if hamas had not invaded.
▶ 0:23:05Chair Grassley: Now, instead, we witnessed stunning acts of anti-semitism on college campuses. We saw prominent displays of hezbollah flags and hamas armbands. And genocidal slogans. On the city streets. And in them we heard chance of death to america.
▶ 0:23:33Chair Grassley: And "we are hamas." students, professors and rabbis and shopkeepers were harassed for no reason. Other than that they were jewish. At union station, you saw on television, anti-israel antagonists brought their people to the doorsteps of capitol hill.
▶ 0:23:58Chair Grassley: They burned american flags, vandalized government property with vital statements including "hamas is coming." those burn marks remain there to this day. These atrocities were fundamentally un-american and they raised disturbing questions such as who is funding these activities?
▶ 0:24:29Chair Grassley: What agenda do these people have? And why do college campuses seem to be fertile ground for radical islamic ideologue instead of campuses where there is peaceful discussion of opposing points of view and respect for each other's point of view. In the face of questions like these, congress had a duty to shed light on this issue.
▶ 0:25:02Chair Grassley: And to confront it with moral clarity. To that end, my colleagues in the house held multiple hearings on anti-semitism, exposing the willful blindness of leaders in education and government. But, on this side of the capital , the committees remain silent. Presumably, this was because elements within the democratic party sympathized with protesters.
▶ 0:25:32Chair Grassley: As one democratic senator put it plain, "there is a reckoning necessary in the political left with anti-semitism and how certain factions have responded after october 7." continuing to quote that senator, "I do not hear a lot of people on our side focused on condemning it." in light of their deafening silence is, on may 2, 2024,
▶ 0:26:06Chair Grassley: Every republican wrote a letter requesting that we promptly hold a hearing to confront the flagrant civil rights violations targeting jewish students. And even though anti-semitism was literally happening right in front of our eyes, this committee did not hold a hearing.
▶ 0:26:26Chair Grassley: But, even then, after a few months, it was a vague hearing to "examine threats facing marginalized communities and how we can better protect the safety of all americans." during that hearing we failed to give the issue of anti-semitism the attention that it deserved and the same attention that it was getting on our college campuses.
▶ 0:26:52Chair Grassley: Republicans were given one witness and, incredibly, tone deaf statements were made during this hearing. For example. One of the witnesses called what we are seeing on college campuses "organic human rights movements." she called it "a complicated question" when asked if has below and hamas want to kill -- hezbullah and hamas want to
▶ 0:27:26Chair Grassley: Killed kille jews. Clearly, that was not responsive to them a second letter from republicans. More importantly, it was not responsive to the historic levels of anti-semitism that jewish people were facing every day in our republican letter, we wrote "this committee owes it to jewish students to examine the civil rights violations."
▶ 0:27:56Chair Grassley: We are here today because we still do. The threat of anti-senator hassan still looms -- anti-semitism looms large. Activists took over an academic building at byron college, injuring one employee -- employee so badly that they were hospitalized. Anti-semitism has found expand -- expression be on college campuses including through boycotts, employment discrimination and even esg policies.
▶ 0:28:27Chair Grassley: You will find few people who are more in favor of the first amendment than the senator. And I oppose censorship. But threats to the safety of jewish people are obviously not protected forms of speech. Yet that is what we are continuing to see and hear. Our former hearing quoted Dr.
▶ 0:28:51Chair Grassley: King's wise statement that " injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere." and of course, we all hate hate, be it on the basis of someone's religious, race, or anything else. But a hearing about everything is a hearing about nothing.
▶ 0:29:15Chair Grassley: When college campuses are assisting protesters in setting up jewish exclusion zones, we missed the mark with a watered-down approach to anti-semitism. When we equivocate about the acute threat to the jewish community, we are actively -- who are actively being assaulted, we end up turning a blind eye.
▶ 0:29:42Chair Grassley: During his acceptance speech for the nobel pre--- nobel peace prize, eli weizel wrote "the world did know and remain silent. And that is why I swore to never be silent. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor and never the victim.
▶ 0:30:08Chair Grassley: Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented." we cannot confront injustice without taking sides. We cannot be neutral in the face of hatred. Anti-semitism is and remains an ongoing poison.
▶ 0:30:27Chair Grassley: Unless we recognize -- reckon with that, we will never have the moral clarity to address other forms of injustice as they pop up. That is why, along with that is why, along wi -- along with eli weizel, we must swear to never be silent and to address the forms of
▶ 0:30:58Chair Grassley: Anti-semitism that went unaddressed in the last senate. And he will discuss the ongoing -- and to discuss the ongoing forms of anti-semitism even with asked -- even within the last couple of weeks. And to do it here.
▶ 0:31:11Sen. Durbin: Thank you. And thank you for attending this important hearing. I never met my grandmother, she was an immigrant to the united states in 1911. She brought three children with her. One was a two-year-old, my mother. They started in lithuania where my mother was born and took a ship to baltimore and then to new york and ellis island.
▶ 0:31:39Sen. Durbin: And then disembarked and found their way to illinois. I do not know how. I am sure that no one spoke english. She brought precious few things with her because she had three things to worry about -- three kids to worry about. One of the things she made a point of bringing was a roman catholic prayer book written in lithuanian. I did not know the significance of the prayer book but I had seen it around the house and my mom took care of it.
▶ 0:32:09Sen. Durbin: It turns out that the russian czar had made it clear that this was contraband and illegal. You cannot have a catholic prayer book in lithuanian, it had to be russian. Somehow or another my grandmother with limited education felt that that little book was so damned important that she was ready to risk it to bring it to the united states of america.
▶ 0:32:35Sen. Durbin: It was her statement and my family's statements about her freedom, to practice their religion. They wanted to be here in the united states of america to practice that religion, because they knew that this was a different country than the one they were leaving. Many of the flout -- founders fled religious persecution, so religious freedom was critical to them. I still have that prayer book up in my office.
▶ 0:33:04Sen. Durbin: That is why the freedom of religion is enshrined as the first amendment to our constitution. Throughout our history the united states has grappled with anti-semitism, which historians have called "the oldest hatred." one infamous example is the 1915 atlanta lynching of leo frank, a promise american jewish businessman.
▶ 0:33:31Sen. Durbin: It spurred the revival of the ku klux klan who were notorious for their bigotry and violence. We have seen a resurgence, a sad and tragic resurgence of anti-semitism in america since the horrific hamas attack on israel on october 7, 2023. And I would like to say a few words about the hearing we had on hate speech as it impacted all religions. Jewish religion, muslim religion, christian religion.
▶ 0:34:04Sen. Durbin: We had a hearing on hate speech. We did not focus on one aspect. We focused on many aspects. One of the witnesses or at least attending witness was the mother of a six-year-old boy, a palestinian boy from the suburbs of chicago. His name was wadi.
▶ 0:34:26Sen. Durbin: The landlord in the house where the palestinian family was living came to the door and told them to leave and when they did not, he pulled out a nasty -- a knife and stabbed the six-year-old boy over and over again. His mother was hiding in the bathroom and had been stabbed as well. It was clearly a hate crime, and it was based on their religion.
▶ 0:34:53Sen. Durbin: And the fact that that was part of the hearing did not diminish in any way my strong feelings about anti-semitism. It is the same hatred that we are trying to stamp out. In 2023 alone, which only includes the first three months after october 7, the fbi reported 2000 hate crimes against the jewish community.
▶ 0:35:19Sen. Durbin: More than two thirds of all reported religious based hate crimes in 2023 were driven by anti-jewish bias. I am making no excuses. But whether bias is against the jewish, muslim, christian or any religion it is still a hate crime and we should condemn them all. As chair, I held multiple hearings on the growing threat of hate motivated violence.
▶ 0:35:46Sen. Durbin: We heard compelling testimony from rabbi charlie walker and I hope I pronounced his name correctly, about the 2022 hostage crisis in his texas synagogue.
▶ 0:36:00Sen. Durbin: He told us how he opened the door to the terrorist because of his belief that the temple should be "a house of prayer for all people." he also testified that he survived because, as the leader of a synagogue in america, he was well trained to respond to security threats. We have to work together to bring about a day where rabbis only need to be security -- religious leaders as instead of security experts as well.
▶ 0:36:30Sen. Durbin: He told us "a terrorist chose a jewish synagogue because we -- he believed that the jews control the world." and we must do our best to debunk this lie. Let us be clear. There is no justification, none, for anti-senators him, whether -- anti-semitism whether from the left or right side.
▶ 0:36:58Sen. Durbin: Threats of violence have no place on the college campuses and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. It is up to political leaders to stand up and condemn anti-semitism when we see it, even if it is coming from the most powerful people in the nation. Which is why feel compelled to say how trouble imed by the actions of this -- I am by the actions of this administration.
▶ 0:37:23Sen. Durbin: I reject the comments that "any jewish person votes for democrats hates the religion." that was a statement by president trump and "people in this country that are jewish no longer love israel." that is what the president said. What does that mean?
▶ 0:37:40Sen. Durbin: On his first day in office he issued a full and unconditional pardon to the thugs responsible for the january 6 insurrection, and many who received pardons openly embrace violent anti-semitism.
▶ 0:37:55Sen. Durbin: Take robert keith walker, who wore a black hoodie with the quote and a shameful quote, " camp auschwitz." or timothy hale cruz and ellie -- koonaelly, who was identified as a white supremacist and nazi sympathizer.
▶ 0:38:19Sen. Durbin: He told his coworkers "hitler should have finished the job." he often dresses up to look like adolf hilter. At his hearing, the judge, a trump appointee as judge, said " statements and actions like yours make jewish people less safe and confident that they can participate as equal members of our society." after his release from prison,
▶ 0:38:52Sen. Durbin: He was welcomed as a speaker at two events held by the president's supporters at his bedminster club. At one of these events he received an award from ed martin, now serving as the interim U.S. attorney for the district of columbia. Mr.
▶ 0:39:10Sen. Durbin: Martin called him "an extraordinary man, an extraordinary leader." this president has also given an outside role to elon musk, who has endorsed and followed some of the most far right german political parties, even suggesting that "frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that." he said.
▶ 0:39:38Sen. Durbin: In response, the chair of the world's holocaust remembrance center in israel said "contrary to musk's advice, the acknowledgment and remembrance of the dark past of the country and its people should be central to shaping the german society. Failing to do so is the -- is an insult to the victims of nazisim.
▶ 0:40:05Sen. Durbin: The trumpet ministration has launched a broad attack on diversity, equity and inclusion policies which has led one federal agency to suspend holocaust remembrance day observances. If the trump administration is truly committed to combating anti-semitism, they would not be talking about eliminating the office of civil rights, responsible for enforcing antidiscrimination laws and schools.
▶ 0:40:32Sen. Durbin: The administration has already laid off a dozen officials for the office of civil and ordered many staff to halt most of their work. I am deeply concerned that president trump his allies have promoted the great replacement theory.
▶ 0:40:46Sen. Durbin: This was cited by the gunman who killed 11 worshipers at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh, the most deadly assault on the jewish-american community in our nation's history, claiming that they are conspiring to destroy the white race by encouraging nonwhite immigrants to invade our country.
▶ 0:41:06Sen. Durbin: In closing I would like to quote from a statement I received from this hearing for over 100 national and local jewish organizations, including reform, conservative and reconstructionist movements morning that "history has made clear, that our safety is inextricably linked with inclusive, pluralistic democracy and with the rights and safety of all people.
▶ 0:41:32Sen. Durbin: When the rule of law and democratic norms are threatened, anti-semitism increases. Jews and all communities are made less safe." which was a message from 100 national and jewish organizations. I hope we can come together across the aisle to protect our democracy and the safety and security of the jewish community.
▶ 0:41:59Chair Grassley: Before I introduce the witnesses, I think I want to make clear that I think that the trump administration is taking strong steps to fight anti-semitism in this country. Yesterday, trump threatened to pull federal funding from any colleges, schools and universities that allow illegal protests.
▶ 0:42:30Chair Grassley: He issued two executive orders, one in this term and what in last term. And his attorney general, pam bondi, created a multi agency task force to help tackle this problem.
▶ 0:42:47Chair Grassley: And, I think we should also support the department of education's title vi investigation into universities where anti-semitic arete -- harassment has been respond -- reported. I will introduce three witnesses and senator durbin will introduce two. The first witness is Ms.
▶ 0:43:08Chair Grassley: Adela cojab, a league us -- a legal fellow at the national jewish advocate for jewish college students. She gained national attention when a student at nyu when she filed a civil rights complaint against the university in 2019 for discrimination against jewish students.
▶ 0:43:38Chair Grassley: She is also a speaker on jewish rights and has written extensively on issues related to anti-semitism and israel. You are welcome. Next, we have alyza lewin, the president of the louis d. Brand eis center for human rights under law.
▶ 0:44:06Chair Grassley: This was to -- this was created to advance civil rights for jewish people and civil justice for all. It engages in research and legal advocacy, combating the resurgence of anti-semitism on campuses and in workplaces. It also train students to understand their legal rights and to educate employers on best practices to combat anti-semitism.
▶ 0:44:35Chair Grassley: And then we will hear fromasra nomani, an activist and journalism who have worked on issues related to islam's's issues related to islam's' human rights and free speech. And she has written expend -- extensively on these issues.
▶ 0:44:56Chair Grassley: Her advocacy is motivated by her dear friend and colleague, daniel pearl, who we all know was savagely murdered by terrorists in pakistan.
▶ 0:45:07Sen. Durbin: Thank you. I would like to welcome kevin rachlin, the inaugural roth -- washington director at the nexus project with 50 years of -- 15 years of advocacy and leadership and a senior fellow for israeli and palestine peace building. He served as a U.S. director for the alliance of middle east peace.
▶ 0:45:33Sen. Durbin: I also welcome meirvav solomon, studying -- a junior at tubbs university and alumni of the school for ethics and global leadership. I'm going to mess this up I afraid. She is part of the gap your program and seeds of peace.
▶ 0:45:58Sen. Durbin: She has also served on the student board and is a trained dialogue facilitator with essential partners. Thanks you for being here.
▶ 0:46:06Chair Grassley: I would ask you to stand and take the oath. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give before this committee will be the whole truth nothing but the truth, so help you god? Let the record note that all have said yes. And we will let you start.
▶ 0:46:38Chair Grassley: Please, start.
▶ 0:46:38Ms. Cojab: Thank you. Chairman grassley and ranking member durbin and members of the committee, good morning. I am a legal fellow at the national jewish advocacy center. My family is from syria and lebanon and they moved to mexico city before we made our way to the united states.
▶ 0:46:57Ms. Cojab: I grew up in a small community in new jersey where zionism was always an integral part like the early -- overwhelming call -- majority of the jewish community. I started at nyu and my first two years were great. My junior year everything shifted to israel and palestine.
▶ 0:47:19Ms. Cojab: 53 student groups threatened to boycott not only israel but the group that I was president of in any group that would dare to partner with us. I felt entirely isolated. I met with eight administrators who told me I was perceiving imagined threats. At one of our events a student set an israeli flag on fire while another one chanted pre-palestine. Protesters shredded our flags.
▶ 0:47:47Ms. Cojab: Nypd made arrest for reckless endangerment and assault. All of this acute -- all of this occurred in the -- this -- a week later I was mobbed and at one week the president of the student grant -- president herself felt the need to step in before things got violent. She broke through her own friend group and urged me to run. I left student government and stepped down from all leadership positions.
▶ 0:48:17Ms. Cojab: My professors told me to stop attending classes and arrange for me to take my final exams away from my peers. Instead of taking action, make you -- they gave them an award for their extending pot -- contributions to nyu life. I tried to meet with the school but my calls were dodge. I made the decision to file a complaint against them for failing to protect jewish community. Remember, all of this was years before october 7, 2023.
▶ 0:48:46Ms. Cojab: In december of 2019 caught the case of president trump -- it took the attention of president trump and then he signed the executive order on combating anti-semitism. I thought things would get better. I made the decision to go to law school and I chose to go away from the hostility I faced it nyu. I was ready to start my career as a prosecutor. Then came the events of october 7 with the brutal attack in israel and the aftermath that we saw in america.
▶ 0:49:16Ms. Cojab: Campuses exploded with anti-semitism and I got calls from students asking me if they should hide themselves. I thought back to my time at nyu and instead of becoming an ada I decided to work for the national jewish advocacy center to defend jewish rights. There is been no shortage of work. We focus on college campuses because this is where this hatred is most apparent. But it is not where it is the most acute.
▶ 0:49:45Ms. Cojab: Campus-based anti-semitism serves as a predictor for incidents and surrounding counties. When I was in nyu almost six years ago I did not stay on campus. It has worked into boardrooms and city streets. We see title vi cases on campuses that in k-12 schools and employment discrimination and public accommodations. We fight mader -- major corporations and betting that in our policies and we have dozens of cases on airlines.
▶ 0:50:14Ms. Cojab: We have also, after october 7, fired -- filed major anti-terror cases providing support to thomas. We also use provisions about obstructing houses of worship to protect seven dogs anti-israel protest. The last administration had little appetite to enforce the law already in place. We had to take new ways to pioneer ways to protect our community.
▶ 0:50:40Ms. Cojab: I am thrilled to see that the new administration is taking the issue seriously I am disheartened to see that people still politicize this. First, we will often hear from voices do not represent the overwhelming majority of the jewish community and that before this hearing, national students for justice in palestine which is one of the defendant sent in email about the hearing, looking for stories that the effect that the trump administration and their executive orders after my case might have on those
▶ 0:51:12Ms. Cojab: Tormenting the jewish community. We should give the committee the benefit of the doubt. Even if the email is not true it means that sj p saw an opening because of how political this has become. They are trying to attach themselves to co-opt their efforts to have a meaningful and real conversation about anti-semitism. I employed -- I employed the members to not let that happen and see us as your own constituents. You are the tart -- we are the targets of hate crimes and discrimination.
▶ 0:51:42Ms. Cojab: Help us instead of looking for counter narratives. Some might frame steps to fight anti-semitism as a threat against freedom of speech. Read the anti-semitism awareness act and they have nothing to do with speech. Anyone can say anything no matter how important, but they cannot use that to justify unlawful discrimination.
▶ 0:52:03Ms. Cojab: In terms of proposal, we must adopt the ira proposition as well as the bush, obama and biden administration across all federal discrimination law. Without a clear standard justice is arbitrary and anti-semitism thrives in loopholes. Congress has the power and obligation to close them. That at the very least should be bipartisan. Thank you and I welcome questions.
▶ 0:52:27Chair Grassley: Thank you.
▶ 0:52:31Mr. Rachlin: Thank you so much. My name is kevin rachlin and I am the washington director of the nexis project which is focused on countering the dangerous bike and anti-deming -- spike and anti-semitism.
▶ 0:52:50Mr. Rachlin: It has reached the alarming new levels and show that jewish americans are targeted nearly 60% of -- by all religious hate crimes and a nearly 20% jump from the previous year. This demands attention and action. We will hear about the human toll that anti-senator hassan and take on students on campus. Harassment and protest chance.
▶ 0:53:17Mr. Rachlin: Jewish students being excluded from organizations in leslie announced -- unless they renounce our zionist identity. Preschool regarding armed guards and holocaust survivors feel the need to hide who they are. Whether it is the fallout from october 7 or the gross -- growth of nazi expressions, jews have a heightened understanding of how much inherited fear and trauma.
▶ 0:53:42Mr. Rachlin: So the normalizing of nazi ideas and slogans is deeply shocking and upsetting. Seeing this salute, one of the most perverse of symbols on one of the most prestigious platforms is beyond terrifying american jews. Who could have imagined a president posting a note holocaust denier or a rockstar that promotes brazen anti-semitism.
▶ 0:54:07Mr. Rachlin: Who could have imagined senior officials promoting the great replacement theory and the same ideology that drove mass shootings at tree of life and el paso. What more troubling symbol could there be? And what is the most troubling about all of this is the lack of meaningful condemnation when public figures like steve bannon and elon musk advanced conspiracy theories or flash nazi salutes.
▶ 0:54:33Mr. Rachlin: These gestures are celebrated and embraced by the most extreme parts of the hate movement and the relative silence of too many politicians normalizes hate and embolden those who will have anti-semitic ideas. Congress has spent more time in hearings than voting for substantial solutions. The trump administration is using legitimate pain of jewish communities to advance an agenda that most jewish americans do not support.
▶ 0:54:59Mr. Rachlin: An example of this is the project by the heritage foundation. It was developed with minimal jewish input. And it shows. It exploits the legitimate conspiracy concern to sew fear and whip up support for policies that they did not ask for and reject. It paints liberal society groups as a hamas support network without any proof.
▶ 0:55:24Mr. Rachlin: A recent executive order seeks to turn these into the immigration enforcers. These actions divide communities and waste critical resources that could be used more practically to tackle actual anti-semitism. The demonizing of these institutions are coming out of the mouths of the cabinet secretaries like secretary kennedy who called universities greenhouses for the deadly pestilence of woke cancel co-chair.
▶ 0:55:52Mr. Rachlin: This does not make jews feel safer and it pits them against other vulnerable communities who face xenophobia, hate, and discrimination. Jewish safety is most secure and thriving democracies with robust civil rights protections. We are the most vulnerable when democratic institutions are weakened and destroyed. I really wish the committee to consider these recommendations.
▶ 0:56:17Mr. Rachlin: I urge you to speak out against anti-semitism, regardless if it comes from your party or group. They should be easy. No respectable person should stand by in silence while public figures use the symbols and ideas of the most anti-semitic and hateful and genocidal regime in human history.
▶ 0:56:38Mr. Rachlin: Second, instead of hearings and finger-pointing, use your power to authorize concrete action like the anti-semitism act which the majority of the samiti -- committee supported and cosponsored. While it is flawed it enjoyed far more communal support than any other initiative related to this issue and recent memory. Third, listen to us and jewish voices and the large plurality of jewish voices in organizations warning that america must not be allowed to slide into authoritarianism.
▶ 0:57:10Mr. Rachlin: Attacks on pluralism and nondemocratic norms make us feel less safe. Finally, do not discard the 2023 national strategy to counter anti-semitism. It is a landmark document developed from input with 1000 professionals and robust bipartisan support including most of the people on this community. We need thoughtful and evidence-based policies rather than a rhetorical gestures for unrelated political objectives.
▶ 0:57:39Mr. Rachlin: The most important way to confront anti-semitism is to strengthen democracy. There has to be a way for leaders to protect jews without targeting other communities. I know that I and the other members and the other witnesses stand ready to work with this committee on real solutions that bring communities together rather than divide them. Thank you so much.
▶ 0:57:58Chair Grassley: Thank you.
▶ 0:58:03Ms. Lewin: Chairman grassley, ranking member and esteemed members of the committee, I am honored to appear before you today. I am the president of the louis d. Bradesi d. Bradeeis center for human rights under law. As an attorney, I have devoted much of my professional commute to pursuing leaguer initiatives.
▶ 0:58:28Ms. Lewin: I led a team that presented that's represented the ben & jerry's lawsuit against the company which prevented an boycott of israel and I argued the case before the U.S. supreme court which influenced U.S. policy on jerusalem recognition. Together with my father we brought the first case under the anti-terrorism act which established a legal precedent allowing american victims of terror to sue domestic based groups.
▶ 0:58:57Ms. Lewin: As president of the center I have spoken for the past seven years in this position, almost every day with students, parents, employees, patients and other individuals who have encountered anti-semitism. Let me share with you a bit of what I am hearing.
▶ 0:59:14Ms. Lewin: First, jewish students on campus are being subjected to a sustained and coordinated campaign that has convinced many of their classmates, professors and administrators that it is ok and commendable to ostracize jewish students to refuse to renounce their connection to israel. Two universities have not only failed to protect the jewish students, but over the past year they have frequently catered to the very people doing the discrimination by refusing to hold them accountable for violating university policies.
▶ 0:59:45Ms. Lewin: Three, the ones engaging in the discrimination claim that they are not discriminating against use but only against zionists. But zionism, the recognition that the use -- jews are a people and as a people they have a right to self-determination and their ancestral homeland is for most, an integral component of their jewishness.
▶ 1:00:08Ms. Lewin: Not all of them are zionists just as not all of them are sabbath observers but that does not negate the fact that for those who observe the sabbath and those who celebrate ancestral heritage, there is -- those are key components of what it means to be jewish. If someone were to exclude all sabbath observing juice from their club --jews from their club would be obvious hatred. Exclude -- excluding them for zionists is different.
▶ 1:00:36Ms. Lewin: It is akin to the catholic disavow the vatican or muslims distance themselves from mecca. Four, over and over students and faculty and outside agitators break laws and violate campus rules to single out israel and demonize the jewish people. What we are seeing on campus is not a good-faith political debate.
▶ 1:01:02Ms. Lewin: Students are not dialoguing and they are not even debating middle eastern policy in an effort to make constructive change. In fact, when jewish students seek to engage and discuss the issues they are shut down and told we do not speak to zionists or we will not speak with colonizing oppressors. It is taking place is not a good-faith political debate but a vilification of jews.
▶ 1:01:30Ms. Lewin: Some have referred to it as a placard strategy which boils down to this equation of the star of david equals the zionist equals an evil concept, ethnic cleansing and colonialism, genocide, and those concepts are not being offered for discussion about whether or not we meet the legal gender -- discussion the legal definition. They are being offered just to hammer into the head the equation that needs to equate the jew with people.
▶ 1:02:03Ms. Lewin: After october 7 we saw a new placard that said let us keep our campus clean with the star of david in the trashcan. So now the move has begun to push the jews out of acceptable society. This is now spreading beyond the campuses. We are seeing it spread to workplaces, health care and publishing industry and more.
▶ 1:02:23Ms. Lewin: And the ira definition, the most universally distant -- accepted definition is needed now to help society on how to tell the difference between a good-faith political debate in the vilification of jews. We should be avoiding the latter.
▶ 1:02:42Ms. Lewin: The ihra says that "criticism of living -- of israel cannot be considered anti-semitic." it is not anti-semitic to criticize israel but it is to demonize or apply a double standard to the jewish collective, the jewish nation state and we need to begin using that definition to understand the difference.
▶ 1:03:06Ms. Lewin: It has become clear that without congressional oversight, schools and workplaces will not fix the problem on their own. The law is a powerful motivating tool and we need to use it to give administrators the backbone to holding countable those engaging in hatred. I thank you for including me and I look forward to answering your questions.
▶ 1:03:25Chair Grassley: Ms. solomon.
▶ 1:03:28Mr. Soloman: Chairman grassley and members of this committee, I am grateful for the privilege to testify and for your attention to the issue of campus anti-semitism. I grew up in raleigh, north carolina and I'm a junior at tufts university and I'm I a proud jewish-american and the daughter of two conservative rabbis. I'm grateful to tradition I grew up in and the values and ethics instilled in me and the jewish community that I have found.
▶ 1:03:57Mr. Soloman: I am here to share how I and other jewish students experience the increase in anti-semitic incidents. Since october 7 we have seen some rhetoric at antiwar protests cross the line into ugly stereotyping and hateful vitriol in social media and violent threats against students. For me and my friends in my community, the issue of anti-semitism is heartbreakingly personal and real.
▶ 1:04:21Mr. Soloman: Too many protesters have embraced anti-submitted quote strokes or conflated the government of israel with jewish people around the world, but we cannot give up on the colleges and universities. We have no common cause with those who want to discredit or defund higher education. Protecting education, civil rights and open dialogue is vital to my future and the ability of jewish students to succeed and thrive.
▶ 1:04:48Mr. Soloman: The vast majority of our classmates are not hamas aligned radicals. They are students who perspectives might differ but must be welcome as long as a voice them respectfully. When my grandparents applied to college, anti-semitic quotas kept them from getting a fair shake. We should not let the hateful ideas of a small minority of students be a reason to dismantle the education they fought so hard for.
▶ 1:05:13Mr. Soloman: Anti-semites occur -- charged us with dieicide, and blame us for a capitalist exploits. But, congress and the trump administration or abandoning the most effective tools the government has to fight anti-semitism in all of its forms.
▶ 1:05:34Mr. Soloman: The department of education's office of civil rights handles cases of discrimination and harassment against students, providing a crucial avenue for jews and other minorities to advocate for our rights. This administration has suspended thousands of investigations and no longer allow students or their families to file complaints. And now its future is uncertain. By threatening to withhold federal funds from universities that do not scrap d.e.I.
▶ 1:06:03Mr. Soloman: Programs this administration is threatening the future of holocaust awareness and anti-semitism in -- education on campus. This administration seems determined to sacrifice resources that keep jewish students safe at the altar of their culture war. This president is taking a cue from project esther, developed by a task force that includes christian nationalists without any major jewish organization input.
▶ 1:06:29Mr. Soloman: It blames the spread on anti-semitism on us and ignores any anti-semitism on the right where year after year, the vast majority of violent incidents occur. As the president's close advisers raise their arms in fascist salutes and biggest -- gets on social media denigrate jews and white nationalist groups stage xenophobic rallies must be focused on the biggest threat.
▶ 1:06:57Mr. Soloman: It is not the student protesters but the bloody legacy of pittsburgh, and the capitol riot. I cannot blame jewish students who see this fixation as more about someone else's political agenda than our safety. True support for jewish students like me means listening to the diverse experiences and needs and not using us to advance partisan agendas. Our parents and grandparents bought for the right to a quality education for jews and all-americans.
▶ 1:07:29Mr. Soloman: The actions of this administration are divisive and erode the civil rights and basic freedoms that have allowed american jews to flourish, our right to an equal future depends on your commitment to protect the values of pluralism and democracy in which jews and all-americans can thrive. I look forward to your questions. [applause]
▶ 1:07:53Ms. Nomani: Thank you so much. I sit before you today as a witness to what I have seen on the streets of our world. I was born in india. My parents gave me the name asra, which means a Ms. cook -- mystical -- mystical journey that the prophet muhammad made from mecca to jerusalem, landing at what is now called the dome of the rock.
▶ 1:08:24Ms. Nomani: Why I am here today is because I have a deep and profound care for every sentiment expressed today about this war that we are seeing on the jewish people. It is disturbing and frightening. It is my worst nightmare. 22 years ago I stood on a street in pakistan and I waved goodbye to a dealer friend. His name was daniel pearl.
▶ 1:08:57Ms. Nomani: He was a friend who helped me learn america as an immigrant. He went with me to the big hunt down and to put -- dupont circle, now abandoned. He let me throw my first party because I had not gone to my prom as a good muslim girl. There were parrots above us and they saying into that karachi sun.
▶ 1:09:27Ms. Nomani: And in the days that followed, we learned that danny had been kidnapped. He had been kidnapped by muslim militants. First they said he was a spy for the cia. And then the newspapers, unfortunately reported that he was jewish.
▶ 1:09:47Ms. Nomani: The ransom note arrived, senators and it said that he was not just a spy for america, but a spy for the mossad, the israeli intelligence agency. What they did in those next days is they demonized him, because he was a grandson of israel. Weeks later we received the murder video and in the video, he declared those words that are lasting forever beyond his breath.
▶ 1:10:19Ms. Nomani: My father is jewish, my mother is jewish, I am jewish. Many people think he was targeted because he was jewish. But in fbi agent went and interviewed the kidnapper and he said, I did not target him just because he is jewish, I targeted him because he is a son of israel. And in those last words of danny he said that there is a street in a town called b'nai b'rith with my ancestor's name.
▶ 1:10:52Ms. Nomani: I am here to report to you that in the 22 years since then, I have been investigating the network that has perpetuated the hate that was targeted against danny. We have called them agitators today, and we have called them protesters. But they have names. They are from organizations that are in a network that I have numbered at 1500. This is not a grassroots organization.
▶ 1:11:20Ms. Nomani: They put out posters like this one with military warfare and ironically, no pride in genocide, free palestine. They target everyone. I have this poster from the democratic national committee convention and you will see familiar faces because they target the democrats also. But, if you do not believe me about this network, look at their signs. What does it say, american muslims for palestine.
▶ 1:11:51Ms. Nomani: Chairman grassley, you mentioned the hamas is coming graffiti at union station. It was not just an agitator, it was a man who is the richmond director of american muslims for palestine. Who was it that birthed the flag at union station, it was a man who is look at the fine print, party for socialism and liberation.
▶ 1:12:15Ms. Nomani: The hate that killed danny pearl on the streets of karachi is now in our streets. It is on our campuses. It is a frightening network of the far left and islamist groups. Nobody in this room can support their ideals. Their ideals are against individual liberties and free enterprise. They want to destroy the united states of america. They want to destroy israel.
▶ 1:12:45Ms. Nomani: And our young jewish students on campuses, and our younger danny's are in their crosshairs. We must recognize this exit -- existential threat. It is a vast network and we must investigate them and have them register with the foreign agents registration act when they are doing the work of these malign foreign actors that want to destroy america.
▶ 1:13:12Ms. Nomani: And we must support muslim reform movement leaders who want to stand up with our jewish brothers and sisters, two of them sit behind me today. And, they are the solution. We are the solution. We do not have to be divided in our contest over suffering.
▶ 1:13:37Ms. Nomani: We must end hate of all kind so that danny's legacy can survive into the modern day with freedom for all and transparency and accountability. So that all of our young danny's can be safe in this world. Thank you so much. [applause]
▶ 1:13:59Chair Grassley: Before we start our five minute round of questioning, because there is a vote on and I will be gone for a short period of time, if there is a republican president, please take over. If there is no republican, the democrats will take turns asking their questions. I'm going to start with you.
▶ 1:14:23Chair Grassley: At our last hearing, a member of the other side said "what we are trying to do is to identify a problem in america that extends beyond the jewish population." as a muslim woman, I am sure that hate crimes against all religious minorities trouble you, and you have said that very clearly. But in our current environment, do you think that antisemitism warrants attention in its own right?
▶ 1:14:53Ms. Nomani: Sir, it absolutely does warrants attention in its own right. Anti-semitism is now an industry. It is an industry that is being perpetuated unfortunately by organizations that have nonprofit status in america. 501(c)(3) and 501(c) four.
▶ 1:15:17Ms. Nomani: These are organizations that are relying on their own mission in order to use as a trojan horse this opposition to israel to protect your weight -- perpetuate this hate. These young students are the targets. October 7 became the moment. Pulling punches and not recognizing their danger in our society serves no one.
▶ 1:15:46Ms. Nomani: It does not serve our of an inclusive society. An actual inclusive society means we don't allow hate of any kind. The kind we have now against our jewish community is of epidemic proportions.
▶ 1:16:04Chair Grassley: Ms. cojab, this first question -- if you don't answer you don't have to. I have two questions. What are you view on the trump administration's push against antisemitism, and what is the most effective way you think the task force can address the issue?
▶ 1:16:25Ms. Cojab: Thank you for the question. This is about antisemitism, but I believe president trump has been the greatest ally israel has had in the white house and the jewish people have had. After I filed my complaint against nyu, the of nutrition invited me to speak with him and he signed an executive order on combating antisemitism.
▶ 1:16:48Ms. Cojab: It pains me to see after what we saw on october 7, when every campus corrupted in antisemitism , students on campus across all universities did not have the same treatment. They did not feel heard by the administration. They did not see in a thicket of order making sure rights are protected and heard. During the last administration, not a single university lost federal funding under title vi. How many title vi cases have been filed against them? I welcome trump's actions on combating antisemitism.
▶ 1:17:18Ms. Cojab: Your second question, can you remind me?
▶ 1:17:20Chair Grassley: Your most effective way you think the task force can address the issue?
▶ 1:17:25Ms. Cojab: The first thing is adopt a definition. The ira definition has been adopted by an overwhelming majority of jewish organizations. 51 of 53 adopted the definition. United states government has adopted ira for title vi and adopted it in the state department in 2015. To have a definition, we must have objectivity. It understands antisemitism the best.
▶ 1:17:55Ms. Cojab: The example show how antisemitism shifts and shakes and changes with the times depending about people want to scapegoat. There's the requirement of objectivity. To have a good working definition it must be objectively able to be recognized to be used. I isra -- it's impossible to fight some the you can't define.
▶ 1:18:20Chair Grassley: For you, bin laden's letter to america that surfaced in november 2023 surged and popularity on social media. What role do you think social media plays in spreading antisemitism? How are the platforms responsible for it/ -- it?
▶ 1:18:46Ms. Cojab: Social media does not generate ideas. It just spreads them. This is what I was taught at nyu. In one of my classes we write an essay that glorified religious extremism and jihad is him -- jihad ism. When I raised my hand to whether osama bin laden was a terrorist, I was out with scoffs and laughs. This was nothing new.
▶ 1:19:17Ms. Cojab: In 2023, I saw exact about my peers were -- I mainly use instagram. I use youtube. I no longer use tiktok. The algorithms have been right for -- ripe for antisemitism because of the way click bait works. A video we goes viral in an opposite direction to the point I was getting death threats, calls for suicide. I am no longer on tiktok.
▶ 1:19:46Ms. Cojab: When it comes to antisemitism across social media platforms, they have done too little. There bias reporting is nontransparent. I've had post taken down even though I was reporting on antisemitism while other people were holding up nazi symbols. Until we look at the way social media is perpetuating dangerous ideas which do exist and have existed, we will have a very big problem.
▶ 1:20:13Ms. Cojab: I have two younger sisters, both jen jgen z. They are looking to divide and distract.
▶ 1:20:21Chair Grassley: Senator durbin.
▶ 1:20:23Sen. Durbin: Time trying to resolve the notion we are all committed to stopping antisemitism while at the same time the funding of certain agencies who had the responsibilities being cut dramatically. The office of civil rights in the U.S. department of education 's reportedly under the new administration no longer opening cases based on complaints from students like Ms. solomon, and families.
▶ 1:20:53Sen. Durbin: They are focusing on the so-called directed investigations ordered by the new administration. Employees have said they have been told not to communicate with students, families and schools involved in cases launched by the previous administration, with the exception of disability related claims, and a claims, and canceling meetings and remediation's. The funding of the office of civil rights is critical. It has not been inadequately funded for a long time.
▶ 1:21:24Sen. Durbin: Despite opening a number of title vi investigations about antisemitism since the october 7 terrorist attack in israel. It comes down to this. If we are going to close down versed he equity, and inclusion -- diversity, equity and inclusion which is reactive to discrimination, if we are going to underfund the office of civil rights, we can have these hearings every week. We could have them twice a week.
▶ 1:21:52Sen. Durbin: Who is going to litigate the claims made of antisemitism on campus or anywhere else? If you want to stop antisemitism , you have to leave open the possibility there be some way to litigate your case. Ms. solomon, have you seen this experience?
▶ 1:22:09Ms. Solomon: Yes. I have seen this across campus. The fear for jewish students to now report and be able to access avenues of advocacy, to advocate for themselves on college campuses where they face antisemitism on the right or left has been severely harmed by this current administration.
▶ 1:22:33Mr. Rachlin: Before the administration decided to stop funding and investigate whether not the department of education should exist, there was a 50 to one caseload in terms of 50 cases per one investigator. The office has been underfunded and consistently up for cuts by congress.
▶ 1:23:01Mr. Rachlin: One think I have been talking about pushing is this was a bill last congress called the showing of her students act introduced by Mr. casey and Mr. goldman on the house side. This would increase the amount of money to go to ocr so they get adequate have funding to continue investigations. I think without ocr things get very dangerous in languishing in purgatory. More cases continue to build up.
▶ 1:23:30Sen. Durbin: The point of this inquiry is basic. If we agree on the premise that antisemitism should be stopped, where you go to stop it? If the new administration believes it should be the department of education -- some have called her abolishing it, and it should not be the office of civil rights, where you turn? You can't have it both ways.
▶ 1:23:55Sen. Durbin: You can't declare this is wrong and we need to give due process to those that are aggrieved and then shut down the funding and the venues that are important for this to happen. That just seems so obvious. I hope we can resolve that. High yield at this point. I have to go vote. Senator lee.
▶ 1:24:21Sen. Lee: Thank you very much. This is an important topic and what we have got to wrestle with. Many -- far too many of our once respected academic institutions in america have become hotspots. Not just places that tolerate it but hotspots of antisemitism rhetoric, violence, and hostility.
▶ 1:24:45Sen. Lee: The inaction of both university presidents, university administrators, and inaction on the part of the biden administration have allowed notable and a surgeon antisemitism that creates an atmosphere of of fear and intimidation. . Depriving jewish students of the opportunity to have a safe learning environment.
▶ 1:25:14Sen. Lee: An environment that is conducive to learning as opposed to something quite the opposite. In contrast, over the few weeks he has been in office, president trump has issued an executor order that combats antisemitism on the campuses of america's colleges and universities.
▶ 1:25:30Sen. Lee: To enforce the mandate, he established a task force to combat antisemitism, which plans to visit 10 universities identified as having allowed antisemitism antisemitisc violence and to remain unchecked. Moments ago we heard from one of my democratic colleagues, a suggestion that would allow this to happen is not in fact the fact the U.S.
▶ 1:25:58Sen. Lee: Government has literally funded hamas. Literally given money that has gone to hamas. Funded what Ms. nomani was referring to that the antisemitic industrial complex. Instead, it is a desire to withdraw funding from the office of civil rights within the U.S. department of education. Let me ask the question.
▶ 1:26:26Sen. Lee: At what point to the office of civil rights do a darn thing about this? At what point did they stop funding from going to some hamas? At what point did they call for a halt to U.S. government funding of the antisemitism industrial complex? They did not. They can't. The enemy is before us. It is found in universities, colleges, administrations, and the prior administration for not doing anything at all about this.
▶ 1:26:57Sen. Lee: Ms. cojab, with the administration prioritizing and escalating efforts to eradicate antisemitism on our college and university campuses, have you noticed any universities making reforms in response to that?
▶ 1:27:14Ms. Cojab: Not specifically. I do understand from what I speak to students -- I speak to students almost daily. Students on campus is on these coast and west and the south and north. For the most part they say universities for the first time are taking antisemitism seriously. They are no longer bending knees. What you thought columbia and barnard was a tragedy. This happened a week ago when students took over a building.
▶ 1:27:42Ms. Cojab: There's a video of the dean asking for permission from the protesters to use the restroom. We cannot see that anymore. At the same time I want to say it seems the new administration, because they are putting teeth behind the civil rights acts we have been begging to be enforced, administrations are making a difference. Taken why you -- nyu. I filed my case against them and 2019. There was a case filed in 2023.
▶ 1:28:08Ms. Cojab: They have changed their policy to have an anti-zionism section that says you cannot use zionism as a litmus test to let students in or out of spaces. You cannot ask if they are zionist or have zionist free spaces. That is a huge step forward. I think administration's have realized they were privileging activism over academics to the detriment of nunnally their jewish population but to any student who might think differently.
▶ 1:28:30Sen. Lee: Often using contrived inadequacies in the law as justification. Either an of the first amendment that cannot be reconciled with jurisprudence or inadequacies of civil rights laws that don't exist. The antisemitism task force plans to visit the following 10 schools. Columbia, george washington, harvard, johns hopkins, new york, northwestern, ucla, berkeley, usc.
▶ 1:29:00Sen. Lee: Other other schools he would add to that list that ought to be at the top?
▶ 1:29:03Ms. Cojab: How much time do you have? Every single ivy league schools to blame. There are some schools that can be studied. There are studies like in florida or georgia that shut down the encampments. At princeton, they put out a statement after the encampments at nyu and clung you the brothers at any student will be suspended and possibly removed from the university. They had two or three students try to camp and they were shut down and merely. Other spots is berkeley?
▶ 1:29:34Ms. Cojab: Stanford?
▶ 1:29:34Sen. Lee: It was not. I'm sure there are others that could be mentioned and we maybe we can cover those in a subsequent meeting. Ms. nomani, what tools to the department of justice have at his disposal to go after those suspected of committing a crimes against jewish americans?
▶ 1:29:52Ms. Nomani: We have to prosecute. To your point, what has happened is that the anti-israel and distro complex as you eloquently put it created franchises at these various universities that have taken money from these malign foreign influence actors. I would at georgetown university to relist where I taught journalism. George mason university. Uc berkeley.
▶ 1:30:18Ms. Nomani: They are creating this conveyor belt of radicals that are now going into our streets and campuses. The efforts of the justice department is investigate the malign foreign inference. Behind me you will probably recognize the familiar color of the code pink activists.
▶ 1:30:37Ms. Nomani: What is unspoken is the fact that a man by the name of nee that a man by the name of nevel roy sigham has funded chinese propaganda against him echo using israel and jews as a trojan horse to have this kind of hate. We have to start those malign foreign actors. The signs I have showed you include this manifesto from the americas communist generation.
▶ 1:31:09Ms. Nomani: The american commonest party. These are malign foreign actors that are in the united states of america. They want to overthrow our system. That is the most serious way we can try to do is mental -- dismantle their network.
▶ 1:31:25Sen. Durbin: Marxism.
▶ 1:31:30Sen. Klobuchar: I believe having seen this firsthand in the fear and the dangers we must speak out against hate crimes and antisemitism whenever they occur. To me this means the basic idea of making sure that we prioritize with law enforcement.
▶ 1:31:55Sen. Klobuchar: It also means ensuring funding for the nonprofit rand program that I was involved in early on when we started to expand it. And funding security upgrades at our synagogues and nonprofit organizations and places of worship. It is critical students feel safe in their schools and it is critical we allow peaceful -- peaceful protests. This is important in minnesota.
▶ 1:32:26Sen. Klobuchar: There's a strong sizable jewish population. We have a sizable and strong muslim population. I always remember as I look at how sometimes things do work, I look at when one of our jewish community centers where I grew up got a hateful threat call. The kids ran out in their swimming suits in the middle of the winter. The seniors who were there for classes without coats.
▶ 1:32:56Sen. Klobuchar: They were wondering in the wilderness in the middle of the snow. When they got back in, when the threat was assessed and they were allowed back in the center, they checked their answers on their phone calls. The first one that they got was from our islamic center offering them a place to meet and a place to go. That is what guides me as I think about what we want to see more of in this country. I will focus on you, Mr. rachlin .
▶ 1:33:27Sen. Klobuchar: I do appreciate all the witnesses. Minnesota last year, as many as 25 jewish schools and religious facilities received bomb threats. We had threats on mosques. We had a severe bombing at a mosque. It was investigated by the fbi years ago. People were prosecuted that were white supremacists. In your testimony you said the fear of antisemitism has become commonplace for too many american jews.
▶ 1:33:57Sen. Klobuchar: Can you talk about how we could better direct ways for the public to help on this? Our U.S. attorney for the last administration who is jewish created a good working relationship with our muslim community. Prioritized working to build community relations, including meeting with those after their synagogue was defaced, making sure the community was informed. Can you talk about that?
▶ 1:34:27Mr. Rachlin: Thank you for that question. I want to thank you for mentioning the nonprofit. I speak for everyone up here and for the vast majority of the jewish community that it is one of the most vital programs congress has passed and allows us to feel safe in our communities.
▶ 1:34:43Mr. Rachlin: That said, to your point of what else can be done, providing armed security guards and bulletproof glass and different kinds of weapons to keep us safe only gets us halay there. The example you brought up about the islamic center texting about the different people and trying to get them to come in while they were in the cold and there was a bomb threat, that speaks volumes.
▶ 1:35:13Mr. Rachlin: I have worked in the peace building space. One of the biggest things I have noticed is the ability to bring people together. That is absolutely critical. When we are looking at ways to combat antisemitism, you have to look at things beyond hard targets. -- hardening targets. Invest in coalition building, bringing communities from across the spectrum together to have constructive conversations.
▶ 1:35:43Mr. Rachlin: To create a shared language of what is and isn't antisemitism. Beyond that --
▶ 1:35:48Sen. Klobuchar: Social media. The committee is determined to do more on that. Senator grassley has long been involved in this. Protecting speech. When we look at things like pornography, fentanyl sold online, impacts social media has on spreading hate, could you talk a little bit about that? Is there not being done online? I'm afraid this is instigating some of this.
▶ 1:36:16Mr. Rachlin: I would say absolutely not. More needs to be done online. One of the major drivers of antisemitism online is the x platform, formerly twitter, with the removal of safeguards and Mr. musk ascending we have seen a massive increase in antisemitism propagated on the platform and spreading out from there. Does not even talking about meta or the other platforms.
▶ 1:36:46Mr. Rachlin: There needs to be more done to actually bring them to heal and understand what is antisemitism. To actually stop those ceos that run the organizations from pushing those theories out further.
▶ 1:36:57Sen. Klobuchar: Last question. I pressed fbi director patel to investigate hate crimes against all communities, including the jewish community, and he agreed. What steps do you think the fbi -- since we are the federal body here in the senate -- can take to making combating hate crimes a priority?
▶ 1:37:20Mr. Rachlin: I would think -- I would hope that the fbi and the new administration would refer back to the 2023 strategy that was supported by jews across the spectrum. Not just from an fbi perspective but the whole of society perspective. How do we do this as a society to arata kate --eradicate antisemitism?
▶ 1:37:43Sen. Klobuchar: Thank you.
▶ 1:37:45Sen. Durbin: Senator kennedy.
▶ 1:37:48Sen. Kennedy: Thank you all for being here. Ms. solomon, I want to understand your testimony. Did I understand you testified that antisemitism is worse under the trump administration?
▶ 1:38:05Ms. Solomon: Thank you for your question.
▶ 1:38:08Sen. Kennedy: Your best thanks is to answer.
▶ 1:38:11Ms. Solomon: Antisemitism has been rising, especially since the 2017 --
▶ 1:38:18Sen. Kennedy: The trump administration caused that?
▶ 1:38:21Ms. Solomon: Hasn't been an increase since trump entered office? Yes.
▶ 1:38:26Sen. Kennedy: You see a causal connection?
▶ 1:38:29Ms. Solomon: Trump highlighted and platforms neo-nazis and white supremacists.
▶ 1:38:35Sen. Kennedy: Mr. -- I can't see that far. Mr. rachlin, I understood you to say in answer to senator durbin's question, the spending reductions -- reducing the federal budget would increase antisemitism. Isn't that what you said?
▶ 1:38:56Mr. Rachlin: No. I said the constant threats to cut money to the office for civil rights and the department of education prevents the government from adequately investigating antisemitism and other hate crimes on college campuses.
▶ 1:39:08Sen. Kennedy: You think one way to stop antisemitism is to give people more money?
▶ 1:39:12Mr. Rachlin: One way is to find people that are designed to investigate antisemitism on college campuses.
▶ 1:39:19Sen. Kennedy: What is there to investigate? We see it. Did you watch television? Did you see what happened at columbia?
▶ 1:39:27Mr. Rachlin: Absolutely.
▶ 1:39:28Sen. Kennedy: It was clear to me that the administration of columbia and most numbers of the faculty belief passionately -- believe passionately in diversity, equity, inclusion, and the right to hurt c and the right to hurt jews. Is that what you saw? -- isn't that what you saw? Isn't that what you saw?
▶ 1:39:57Mr. Rachlin: I saw protesters against the war in gaza using some antisemitism slogans and thoughts. I would say, however, -- I would say that --
▶ 1:40:12Sen. Kennedy: Are you telling me that is not what you saw?
▶ 1:40:18Mr. Rachlin: It is difficult for the federal government to address the issue of antisemitism --
▶ 1:40:21Sen. Kennedy: The columbia administration the faculty was supportive of the jewish community? You need to stop dipping into your ketamine stash.
▶ 1:40:30Mr. Rachlin: Excuse me?
▶ 1:40:33Sen. Kennedy: If are going to solve this problem, we need to talk about it. It wasn't just a columbia. It was at berkeley. It was at ucla. It was at bernard. Columbia has a history of discriminating against jewish people. They refuse to let jewish people come to the university. You can try to bubblewrap this, but that is what I saw.
▶ 1:40:59Sen. Kennedy: If you want to stop them, maybe we need to stop teaching kids to be antisemitic.
▶ 1:41:06Mr. Rachlin: I would relish that opportunity.
▶ 1:41:09Sen. Kennedy: Let me ask you a question, Ms. cojab. Is it possible to feel compassionate -- compassion rather for the palestinian people without hating jews?
▶ 1:41:28Ms. Cojab: Absolutely.
▶ 1:41:30Sen. Kennedy: Would you elaborate on that? It looks to me like many of our ivy league universities -- they were nothing only once. Some handled it well. Vanderbilt. University of chicago. Two lane. --tulane. The administration was teaching kids you have got to pick a side. You have to hate jews or before hamas. -- be for thomas. There is no middle ground.
▶ 1:42:00Sen. Kennedy: You have written a book about it. Maybe Mr. rachlin ought to read it.
▶ 1:42:07Ms. Cojab: I read a chapter in the anthology on zionist voices about what is happening on college campuses. My book is coming soon.
▶ 1:42:17Sen. Kennedy: Good plug. [laughter] can you feel compassion for the palestinian people and not hate jews?
▶ 1:42:27Ms. Cojab: Absolutely. I have seen a pushing of marx's framing of the way you see the world. This is not only in liberal studies department. I have taken dance classes and creative writing project for your final project is political is personal. They are teaching the political is personal and everything should be personalized. Peer is global north, global south, global right.
▶ 1:42:54Ms. Cojab: What's happening is we are allowing ideology to drive violence. A society that says you can commit violent at based on ideology because it is correct is a society that is eroding. That is what I see on college campuses. You asked if I can feel compassion for the palestinian people. Absolutely. Every night my go to bed I pray for the jewish people but also pray for the palestinian people, for god to send leaders that care more about their safety.
▶ 1:43:23Ms. Cojab: Leaders that put their people's safety to propellant ideology at risk are not leaders. If you look at hamas, they tell it happened after october 7 as a victory. How can you lie in rubble after thousands died and call that a victory? What has to happen is de- radicalization. You cannot fight it. You cannot fight it.
▶ 1:43:55Chair Grassley: I know there is a lot of strong feelings in here. We all have them. Each member only has five minutes. It takes time away from their five minutes if you really want to get all these facts out.
▶ 1:44:11Sen. Hirono: Thank you for testifying. I recognize how important this issue is. There was a time when we had a lot of focus on the attacks on the asian american pacific islander native hawaiian communities during covid. The safety of the minority community members is always an issue in this country.
▶ 1:44:38Sen. Hirono: In my view we have not done a particularly good job of making sure people are safe. I have a question for Mr. rachlin. We have an administration that is obsessed with d.e.I. To the point where they want to -- they put out the word that any reference to diversity, equity, and inclusion should be wiped out of all of the websites of the administration, including
▶ 1:45:09Sen. Hirono: To agencies to get federal money. And example of how ridiculous it is, in my view, I met with a group of people from the department of agriculture in hawaii. They had to remove our friends to diverse crops. Equity is also involved in things like equity in your house. It is what I recall in obsession with dei. It has been very weaponized. Mr.
▶ 1:45:37Sen. Hirono: Rachlin, title vii of the civil rights act, which is a long-standing law, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. We already have a law that prohibits discriminatory hiring. For example, in employment we already have that.
▶ 1:46:01Sen. Hirono: What I don't get is why there is all this anti-dei fervor I think adds to the kind of discrimination and divisiveness in our country. Do you have any thoughts about what is happening with dei and it is not helping?
▶ 1:46:24Mr. Rachlin: Thank you. Thank you for pronouncing my name correctly. I would say this regarding dei and what you said about title vii, we have laws on the books. The ability to attack dei initiatives in the continuous obsession with them does nothing but create division within our society.
▶ 1:46:47Mr. Rachlin: If the administration was interested in actually addressing this, they would look for ways to bring different populations together rather than labeling things as diversity, equity, and inclusion and divide them apart. Is a strange of session I have noticed in the last several months -- obsession I have noticed in the last several months.
▶ 1:47:06Sen. Hirono: It is definitely weaponized. Dei is blamed for everything by people who obviously have not faced the kind of discrimination that truly should be illegal. I have to share another instance.
▶ 1:47:30Sen. Hirono: During the horrific incident with the plane crashing into the potomac, the president says it is only common sense that we should blame dei. I found that astounding. The conclusion was somehow people of color, women and people of color have something to do with this crash. I can tell you I was so appalled by his comment, I said there is nothing common sense about it.
▶ 1:48:00Sen. Hirono: His reference that dei should be blamed. And just about every other instance you could think of I said this is sexist, racist, and I used the term b.s. But I will not say that here, but you get my meaning. Ms. solomon, during our last hate crimes hearing we heard the value of civic education.
▶ 1:48:28Sen. Hirono: We heard a call for university to develop -- universities to develop courses for difficult conversations. A university is supposed to be the hardest civil discourse. I have supported civics education in our schools. We could do more. Do you think schools and universities are doing enough education on civil discourse?
▶ 1:48:57Ms. Solomon: I think some universities like my own of tufts university is doing a remarkable job of educating students about their civic duties in the country and beyond. I think there's always ways we can do more. The past year, university established an educational initiative for its freshman orientation. They included antisemitism education and education about islamophobia.
▶ 1:49:22Ms. Solomon: This is a model for other colleges and universities to adopt to their own campuses to stem the tide of hate crimes across this country.
▶ 1:49:29Sen. Hirono: One would think the university setting is appropriate as a place for different ideas can be contemplated and debated. As a person -- I matriculated during the vietnam war. I was at the university of hawaii where I protested. It is one of the activities that awaken my sense of civic possibility. Thank you pretty much salvi. -- to all of you.
▶ 1:50:00Chair Grassley: Senator schmitt.
▶ 1:50:01Sen. Schmitt: The democrats have a real problem on their hands. There is a growing hamas wing of their party. A tough spot to have these conversations. I'm glad you had this. It's the reason why josh shapiro was not picked to be vice president, the nominee. This is the heart calculus kamala harris made.
▶ 1:50:25Sen. Schmitt: It would upset the pro-hamas wing of the party and she's worried about losing michigan. That's the truth. We can dance around all this all we want. I'm glad were having an open hearing for everyone to see. After october 7, I went on the senate floor and if you want -- you shouldn't actually be that surprised by what is happening on college campuses. If you appreciate what has been taught now for at least a generation.
▶ 1:50:58Sen. Schmitt: My friend on the other side wanted to understand the obsession with dei. So do I. Dei is rooted in cultural marxism. Cultural our schism divides the room by -- marxism divides by race.every room is a oppressor versus the oppressed. You group all the oppressed versus the oppressor. Guess what happens in that totem pole?
▶ 1:51:25Sen. Schmitt: On the total pole of oppression the jews lose out because they are considered white or the oppressor. It is very dangerous. If you want to understand why this is happening on college campuses, is because they are viewing the room by oppressor versus oppressed. It is terrible. It is a terrible road to go down. I want to ask Ms. nomani a couple of questions that are related to this.
▶ 1:51:59Sen. Schmitt: You in your book, "woke army," looked at the alliance between radical muslims who preach jihad against western freedoms and far left activists whose divisive ideology turns all the societal issues into a race war. Who is funding this alliance? Who is funding within our lifetime?
▶ 1:52:27Ms. Nomani: This is why this committee is a perfect place to answer that question. But justice department must investigate is funded -- those fundings. The individuals from the cast of characters is university of california berkeley treating american muslims for palestine. Where is this base? Not far from northern virginia. 500 group street.
▶ 1:52:57Ms. Nomani: It is the hub of the islamist organizations in the united states. They are the legacy organizations of the muslim brotherhood, which is dedicated to global caliphate and the destructioof the state of israel. Qatar is funding these organizations. Saudi arabia has been funding these organizations. Turkey is funding these organizations. Iran, china, russian oligarchs and others.
▶ 1:53:27Ms. Nomani: This is maligned foreign influence in the united states. To the point about the ideologues, this is answer coalition. They are using free palestine. Does anyone in this know who that coalition is? A socialist marxist communist self-declared organization. They get the petitions for these protests that end up with the american flag being burned. We have to follow the money, senator.
▶ 1:53:57Sen. Schmitt: I agree. We're just getting started. Some of these ngos funded by usaid, there ought to be a bigger microscope on that. I think it will be terrifying what we find. I also think that she mentioned earlier the cultural marxism that undergirds all of this relies on the constant churning.
▶ 1:54:28Sen. Schmitt: In corporate america, these modern-day struggle sessions will go through is ridiculous. I think, thank god, president trump won. We will route this stuff out. If we want to understand -- I think what is happening on the campuses is the symptom of a much deeper problem, right? By the way, it is not just on college campuses.
▶ 1:54:58Sen. Schmitt: If you want to understand critical race theory. There is no class on critical race theory. There doesn't need to be a class if all of your trainings, all your professional development is rooted in critical race theory, which is based in cultural marxism. All the stuff needs to be exposed. Thank you for holding this hearing.
▶ 1:55:17Chair Grassley: Before I: senator schiff, I would like to draw attention to a letter from rabbi -- a senator approached me with an allegation of wrongdoing. They centered on credit suisse's servicing of nazi accounts during and following world war ii.
▶ 1:55:42Chair Grassley: As ranking number of the budget committee, I asked senator whitehouse, and sherman -- the chairman of the committee to open an investigation which now continues under my chairmanship of this committee. 78 years have passed since the nazis surrender anywhere that resulted in 75 million deaths, there is much to learn about the holocaust.
▶ 1:56:06Chair Grassley: After I sent a letter to senator dash of argentina, he agreed to opening previously sealed nazi archives in that country. My thanks to him and the tenacity of the simon wiesenthal center to uncover the truth. Without objection, I will include this in the record. Senator schiff.
▶ 1:56:33Sen. Schiff: I would like to ask permission to enter into the record a statement from the jewish council on urban affairs. A 61-year-old and the community of chicago and ask if he included in the record.
▶ 1:56:48Chair Grassley: That will be included in the record as well. Senator schiff.
▶ 1:56:52Sen. Schiff: Thank you for holding this hearing. I think for those of us in the jewish community, the shock of october 7 was one thing. The scale of it, the barbarism of it. The torture, the rape, murder, the continuing depravity of it.
▶ 1:57:19Sen. Schiff: The unleashing of the wave of antisemitism was another shock that I think we are still trying to grapple with. We have had to come to recognize this scourge is always with us. It is never far from the surface. Always there to be tapped. I would like to ask about the disturbing presence of antisemitism on the left and on the right, because I think we have a problem coming from both directions.
▶ 1:57:50Sen. Schiff: On the left, I wonder if you can shed light on why it seems some of our academic institutions known for their strongest academic excellence, we see some of the most prevalent antisemitism. Is it because they are a magnet for people who come from off-campus? Was there something else going on we should be aware of?
▶ 1:58:17Sen. Schiff: In terms of antisemitism from the right, what are we to make of the use of these nazi leaders by thought leaders of the republican party like steve bannon or elon musk?
▶ 1:58:33Sen. Schiff: What are we to make of a vice president unwilling to meet with the mainstream german chancellor but eager to meet with the old right party leader -- al t-right party leader? How are we to reconcile that with the claim of being post, -antisemitism. Mr. rachlin, on the right. Ms.
▶ 1:59:02Sen. Schiff: Solomon, if you can address the issue from the left.
▶ 1:59:06Mr. Rachlin: Thank you. I appreciate that question. I completely agree the rapid coming forth in normalization of antisemitism from the right is deeply disturbing. It extends beyond steve bannon and Mr. musk. We have seen secretaries and his cabinet and other officials propagate the great replacement theory, which is basically saying jews are trying to replace the white race.
▶ 1:59:36Mr. Rachlin: What I find most troubling is there seems to be an inability to reconcile on the right and the conservative movement that antisemitism is real and they are unwilling to confront it. I point to the heritage foundation completely dismissive -- dismissing it as nonexistent. That is not true. The vast majority of violence comes from the right. To your point, antisemitism is a whole society problem.
▶ 2:00:08Mr. Rachlin: It is something we have to address on the right and left. There is antisemitism on both sides. It requires a copper hence if approached to eradicate it from society.
▶ 2:00:17Sen. Schiff: Ms. solomon, our things better this year -- are things better this year? How do you copper him the challenge and why does it seem so much more prevalent in institutions known for their academic excellence?
▶ 2:00:36Ms. Solomon: Thank you for the question. Centers of academic excellence such as institutes of higher education in this country are places of dialogue. Dialogue can sometimes enter spaces unfortunately of hatred and division if they're not facilitated correctly and with empathy and nuance. You asked me to speak about antisemitism on the left that have seen on my college campus, which is sometimes harder to root out.
▶ 2:01:02Ms. Solomon: It is not as openly nazi-lik as a right-winge antisemitism we see today. Many jewish students, including myself, have been excluded from certain progressive groups on campus. I know also students who have been bullied out of housing because they are affiliation with jewish groups. This has nothing to do with israel. It is simply with us being jewish.
▶ 2:01:30Ms. Solomon: It means -- tufts university had an issue with student groups boycotting different jewish groups on campus simply because they are jewish. Nothing to do with israel, palestine, or the conflict.
▶ 2:01:43Ms. Solomon: I want to say I'm thankful to be here as the only student on the panel to represent a student experience that I think is actually part of the vast majority of student experiences but has not been heard previously in previous committee hearings, because it is much easier to listen to students who are on the more extreme or radical side. It is harder to listen to students like me who have a much more nuanced perspective and nuanced experience for the past year and a half.
▶ 2:02:11Sen. Schiff: Thank you, Mr. chairman. >> ip all the witnesses here today. This is an incredibly important hearing. Specifically held to adjust -- to address antisemitism. We will never address it and never fix it unless we have people on both sides thinking true representation.
▶ 2:02:40Sen. Schiff: I was surprised to have a witness blame our recent president for antisemitism when college campuses were overtaken and jewish students had criminal act perpetrated against them under a different administration. I thought it was interesting we blamed the right for not admitting antisemitism is real when you heard every one of us say what are we going to do to address it.
▶ 2:03:07Sen. Schiff: In florida -- I appreciate the compliment for our universities. We did not see the incredibly dangerous, reckless, offensive criminal behavior we saw and college campuses around the nation. That does not happen by accident. As soon as we saw this popping up, I was attorney general. Leadership in tallahassee was clear. This will not happen.
▶ 2:03:35Sen. Schiff: We communicated rightly with the presidents. I communicated with our chiefs of police, instructed them on the laws, the criminal laws that we were seeing, that the people should be arrested for. We specifically communicated with our state attorneys and said if they are arrested, the last thing you should do is advocate that they get right back out and go right back to the university. As we saw in other states.
▶ 2:04:02Sen. Schiff: This is proactive ways to stop this behavior before it destroys any semblance of sanity and peace and structure and free speech among universities. I'm really interested in some of the statements that we give additional funding to stop this behavior. I think that is incredibly insane.
▶ 2:04:25Sen. Schiff: In fact, I heard senator lee talk about using all the tools at doj to stop this. I think maybe we should examine, since federal funding flows to universities, maybe we should examine what universities are accused of allowing violations of the civil rights act and maybe when there are court opinions that make findings that suggest it is actually happened,
▶ 2:04:58Sen. Schiff: Maybe we should start calling back federal funding already given to them. -- clawing back federal funding already given to them. Maybe last week with university present asked permission in the middle of a protest if you could go to the bathroom, maybe that would not be happening if he thought maybe his federal funding might be clawed back. I was wondering what you thought about that, Ms. cojab.
▶ 2:05:25Ms. Cojab: That is a great question. Something has to be held over the universities' heads. Otherwise why would you change your actions? I do the overwhelming majority are inherently antisemitism. I think they are lazy. They know fighting antisemitism takes work and it is not easy. Yes, you will make some people angry.
▶ 2:05:53Ms. Cojab: If you are admitting the kind of student who takes over buildings, don't be surprised when those students take over buildings led by their very professors. We keep saying there's an issue in higher education but we have our head in the sand as to how to fix it. Consequences are absolutely necessary. Filing my content got nyu to the table for a settlement but that was not close to changing what happened. After october 7, you saw that on campus and they had another case against them. A lot of changes very slowly.
▶ 2:06:23Ms. Cojab: The only way to hold people accountable is to make sure there are consequences on the other side.
▶ 2:06:26Sen. Moody: Ms. lewin, same question. If we have tools provided by the government that allow for a claw back of funding were universities facilitated civil rights violations, without help combating antisemitism on campuses? You can answer briefly.
▶ 2:06:45Ms. Lewin: Absolutely. What we need most is the universities accountable. The laws are very powerful -- is a very powerful motive a very powerful motivator. Clawing the font is already motivated universities to act. The university administrators, when we negotiated settlements with them, some are very relieved to be able to point to the law and say we now have to do this because the law requires us to do it.
▶ 2:07:16Ms. Lewin: It gives them the backbone was the other way seem to lack the stand up and push back against the jew hatred happening on the campuses. It is absolutely necessary to hold their feet to the fire and oppose these rules and show violating them and violating title vi has consequences. >> thank you. Thank you all for being here today on this supremely important topic.
▶ 2:07:49Ms. Lewin: I think all of us on this panel were horrified to see what happened on our campuses and what happened in many other public spaces in the wake of october 7. I have visited israel numerous times since october 7.
▶ 2:08:10Ms. Lewin: One of the memories that is seared in my mind is a conversation in the war cabinet with prime minister netanyahu and the other ministers shortly after october 7. They played the videos, some now public.
▶ 2:08:37Ms. Lewin: Some of what we saw has not been made public but it was the most stomach turning, absolutely sickening pictures I have ever seen. What are the ministers -- one of the ministers said pointing to the video, you know, throughout our history the jewish people have had to run and hide. Israel was supposed to be a place where we no longer had to run and hide.
▶ 2:09:07Ms. Lewin: These people tried to run and hide. We cannot tolerate this anymore. I think someone understanding that view can also understand why the violence, the threats of violence, the taunts and other stuff that occurred on campuses and throughout the world after
▶ 2:09:38Ms. Lewin: October 7 raise such fears among the people who were targets of I t. I thank you for being here today to talk intelligently and objectively, as dispassionately as anyone can about this issue and what we can do in a legal sense, preserving the first amendment, the right of free expression, and hopefully doing it in a way, as we have always done, to allocate time, place,
▶ 2:10:11Ms. Lewin: And manner restrictions that make sense on college campuses just as they would in the public square. I think it is a continuing conversation we will have to ha conversation we will have to pursue on the definition of antisemitism.
▶ 2:10:31Ms. Lewin: I'm not sure we have exactly the right answer but I think we need to talk in good faith among ourselves about what the right answer is. I'm an enforcer by training and by career. I'm a prosecutor. I did as united states attorney, she federal prosecutor in connecticut, I did it as attorney general of connecticut for 20 years.
▶ 2:10:58Ms. Lewin: For me, enforcement of civil rights to protect civil rights is very, very important. I am very deeply troubled by the plan to dismantle the office of civil rights in the department of education, which the new secretary has said she will do. She will dismantle the whole department of education.
▶ 2:11:25Ms. Lewin: The office of civil rights definitely she has said should no longer exist. If anyone here is in favor of dismantling the office of civil rights, I would like to hear you tell me why you should. Mr. rachlin, I know in your testimony you supported the continuation of the office and maybe you can tell me why.
▶ 2:11:53Mr. Rachlin: The office for civil rights at the department of education is one of the avenues for students who actually bring discrimination cases to a head. I think that this office is absolutely critical in being able to do investigations on what is happening on campus and working with school administrators to come to an equitable outcome.
▶ 2:12:21Mr. Rachlin: If there is criminal intent, if there is discrimination, that jumps into this cremation law rather than department of education. In this space, ocr is vital to the kids that are jewish, non-jews, all across the country to help address those issues. >> thank you senator limit the. Senator britt.
▶ 2:12:48Sen. Britt: Thank you for calling this hearing. It is important this committee does this work and I wish this committee had addressed this before now. I appreciate his leadership in doing this. I had opportunity to travel with the senator across the aisle to israel after october 7. To echo his words, what we saw was unimaginable. Could not wrap my head around it. It was gut wrenching and heartbreaking.
▶ 2:13:18Sen. Britt: It was just out of the bounds of what you thought anyone was capable of doing. When we came home to see what occurred on college campuses here, I could not have been more disgusted. But was allowed to happen at what some believe are some of our most elite institutions.
▶ 2:13:45Sen. Britt: I look at that and take a step back and you think about what you wish to its -- jewish students dealt with. They should have never been prohibited from entering sections of the campus because of who they were. Yeah that happened at ucla. Jewish students should have never had to navigate a professor tweeting that hamas's barbaric attacks constituted, "such an amazing day!" but that happened at yale.
▶ 2:14:19Sen. Britt: Jewish students should have never had to experience a professor referring to hamas's attack as something that was exhilarating and energizing. That happened at cornell. Jewish students should have never had to have tolerated comments such as that, "october 7 will be every day for you." or, "hamas, we love you. We support your rockets." that among many other things happened at columbia.
▶ 2:14:53Sen. Britt: The schools and their administrations tolerated this and allow this to happen -- it is repulsive. It brought shame on themselves. We have to take what we have learned from this and make sure it never happens again. They have repeatedly proven they deserve no benefit of the doubt at all and how they are going to handle antisemitism. I'm glad both congress and the trump administration said this is going to be a priority.
▶ 2:15:18Sen. Britt: I'm proud to be a cosponsor of a number of bills from the antisemitism awareness act to countering antisemitism act among others that are going to hit this head on. I want to ask a couple of questions. Ms. lewin, the brandeis center undertakes research and legal advocacy in the space.
▶ 2:15:40Sen. Britt: Because of that, I'm interested in your view of what steps congress actually needs to take to strengthen title vi as a relates to combating antisemitism and a hostile educational environment. Is it a matter of adding discrimination based on the religion to the statute? Is it better to clarify actual discrimination on the base of race or national origin?
▶ 2:16:08Sen. Britt: Do we need to codify the 2004 policy? What is it we need to do to make sure this does not happen again?
▶ 2:16:19Ms. Lewin: Thank you very much. Start off with adopting the definition. Let's codify executive order 13899. That will help us understand and recognize the difference between a legitimate political debate and vilification of jews.
▶ 2:16:40Ms. Lewin: When you demonize or apply double set of eyes that double standard -- or apply double standard, that is not critical of israel. We need to be able to start teaching our society how to define and understand the difference between the two. We need to give whatever strength we can, as senator moody was saying, to make sure we are holding accountable anyone violating title vi.
▶ 2:17:08Sen. Britt: 10 removing federal funding. By would give you money if you are violating title vi?
▶ 2:17:14Ms. Lewin: Correct. What needs to be understood as you said is that when faith-based groups are targeted on the base of their shared ancestry or ethnicity, that is a violation of title vi.
▶ 2:17:29Ms. Lewin: If you see groups that are being denied the equal access to educational opportunities because of their shared ancestry and you have folks on campus who are encircling jews, spitting at them cutting the jews out and saying you are not welcome you that you cannot go three the cadman, students told us they will not sit next to them because they are zionist. They will not allow them in their plays. It will not include them in any other activities.
▶ 2:17:59Ms. Lewin: They are being shunned and marginalized. It is not a conversation about the arab-israeliit is one storyt the arab-israeliit is one storyt would be heard. >> very briefly,. Psalm somebody gives you an opportunity. Appreciate it.
▶ 2:18:25Ms. Lewin: I think senator welch would be upset with me as chair if I let everyone go past. Senator welch.
▶ 2:18:35Sen. Welch: You are moving fast. That is tough to do when you are sitting next to senator britt. Thank you all very much. It is amazing. We have the wonderful state, vermont. It is a very tolerant of state but we have an alarming increase in antisemitism. It is not just october 7. We saw that before. October 7 has intensified it.
▶ 2:19:05Sen. Welch: I know all of you are living with it in a very real way. I just want to express my gratitude that each of you is here. The question is often and rightly so, what is hate speech, what is figure speech. There is also another reality that there is real anti-semitic behavior towards people in our communities.
▶ 2:19:37Sen. Welch: I think about the tree of life and the hate that inspired them. On the panel there are disagreements about what is the best way to g thiso and doing everything we can to address anti-semitism. Just to aggress a couple of questions after expressing my gratitude for each of you. Mr.
▶ 2:20:05Sen. Welch: Rachlin, the president has issued an executive order to address some of the concerns that several folks on the panel have addressed. By definition there will be a big argument about whether he goes too far or does not go far enough. By definition in reporting that comes out will raise free speech questions that will be debated.
▶ 2:20:30Sen. Welch: I just want you to have an opportunity to express your views on orders regarding the political activities of international students and should there be a distinction between the speech of a person who is here is an international student versus a citizen of a country.
▶ 2:20:51Mr. Rachhlin: Thank you so much. We do not have a policy on ford students but the national policy that was put together with 1000 jewish communal leaders that had broad bipartisan support that was the basis encountering and this is a -- encountering anti-semitism does not talk about students in any shape way or form.
▶ 2:21:20Mr. Rachhlin: I would take a step back and recently the jewish council for public affairs led a letter of 100 different organizations speaking directly to the idea of deportation of individuals by this administration. What they have said is that the scapegoating of immigrants, people of color, transgender people and other marginalized people have justified draconian policies that threaten the freedom and safety of all americans.
▶ 2:21:49Mr. Rachhlin: There needs to be an investigation that regardless of how you think, it is important to listen to the vast majority of the committee and be very skeptical of this action but overall when we look at the national strategy that I have in front of me right here, it does not say anything about that. That came with so much endorsement.
▶ 2:22:12Sen. Welch: Thank you. Ms. sullivan, can you give us some sense of what you think endangers dialogue among students and the things that we can do that allow for robust debate but mutual respect?
▶ 2:22:27Ms. Sullivan: Thank you for your question. As you said before, universities must differentiate between protective speech and threats of violence. What is even more important is that dialogue can best be had on the basis of education.
▶ 2:22:44Ms. Sullivan: If we are not aware of what is happening and cannot have constructive dialogue about what is happening, what I find issue with is when we are actively seeing people advocate for the cutting of federal funding to ocr which is free and often the only way for jewish students to access avenues of advocacy. You are seeing that being threatened.
▶ 2:23:06Ms. Sullivan: I don't understand how we are able to encourage higher education institutes to be able to have these dialogues if there are so many political leaders advocating for the foundation of them.
▶ 2:23:19Sen. Welch: That was helpful. What about ocr? That seems like a pretty important question.
▶ 2:23:29Ms. Cojab: I did not advocate for the defunding of ocr but it was not defunded was nothing in place. They are replacing it with direct investigations. Ocr did open a complaint and yet four years later we see another lawsuit against nyu for the same thing on anti-semitism. How do you get sued twice within five years for the same thing? Because whatever you did did not work.
▶ 2:23:54Ms. Cojab: I am not advocating for the defunding of ocr but it has not been effective, not a single school has lost their funding under title vi and it has not been enforced. >> senator blackburn.
▶ 2:24:07Sen. Blackburn: Thank you all for being here, for your time, for the preparation, for the hearing and for speaking out. I think one of the things that has been so troubling to many of us is to see what took place on colleges and college campuses and they seem to pay no price. There was no penalty and there was no corrective action.
▶ 2:24:41Sen. Blackburn: I appreciated Ms. cojab your listing of the schools that were doing things wrong and you said how much time do you have because the list goes on and on. Now that the anti-defamation league has said that vanderbilt university gets an a for fighting anti-semitic activity, for being neutral, institutionally neutral and for supporting free speech and being
▶ 2:25:11Sen. Blackburn: From tennessee, we recognize and appreciate that good work that vanderbilt university is doing to keep students safe and to encourage robust, respectful debate. My hope is that we will see some of these elite universities turned to that and appreciate that.
▶ 2:25:41Sen. Blackburn: This nation has stayed strong and free because we have allowed free speech in the public square and to see what has taken place on some of these campuses -- a mom I talked to who had a child at one of these elite universities said it best.
▶ 2:26:01Sen. Blackburn: They had spent money getting through high school, getting the best grades, being academically competitive and feeling as though they had opened her mind to want to experience the world and learned and appreciate others with diverse opinions and views and cultures.
▶ 2:26:26Sen. Blackburn: And they sent her to school and every time she came home, they noticed it seemed to be her worldview was narrowing. And the point of concern for them, Ms.
▶ 2:26:43Sen. Blackburn: Lewin, I want you to just briefly touch on what universities should be doing, could be doing, where they have gotten so far off track on this that no longer can a student feel safe asking the question or delivering a counterpoint. I give it to you.
▶ 2:27:11Sen. Blackburn: You can use that time to tell the story you wanted to tell with Ms. britt.
▶ 2:27:14Ms. Lewin: Thank you very much. Universities have to set the rules and stick to them. They have to show that if you violate the rules, you will be held accountable. That's the most important thing they have to do. They also need to be able to call out when there is a group on campus that is riling up the campus to turn against part of their community. The story I was going to tell was about dialogue only works when you have willing participants. Ms.
▶ 2:27:41Ms. Lewin: Cojab talked about how in 2019 at nyu there was a boycott investment sanction resolution adopted by the student government and endorsed by 53 student groups. What was a little unusual at that time was that it called not only to boycott is really products and companies doing business but to boycott all of the jewish organizations on campus, the pro-israel groups.
▶ 2:28:03Ms. Lewin: You had them 53 student organizations saying we will not engage with these jewish students, cosponsor events with them or do projects with them. The university to its credit said this is not a good thing, to have so many of our students boycotting a group of our students. They hired a professional facilitator to try to facilitate a dialogue among these students. I think Ms. cojab was at that meeting.
▶ 2:28:32Ms. Lewin: You have all of these students who showed up and the facilitator explained we are not here, this is not a debate. We are not here to convince somebody I am right and you are wrong. We will go around the room and respectfully listen to one another. What was supposed to be a 1.5 hour dialogue turned into a 2.5 hour discussion about whether the anti-zionists would even talk to the zionists. They said we showed up here because we did not want to risk losing our student government funding but you cannot force us to talk to one another.
▶ 2:29:01Ms. Lewin: I am told that there was one palestinian student in that room and that student said, I don't understand it. The jewish students want to hear my story but my allies will not let me tell it. After 2.5 hours the facilitator gave up. She said I cannot force you to talk. She sent them home and the university announced we are not divesting from israel which is very nice but it did not do anything to address this interpersonal tension between the students on the campus.
▶ 2:29:33Ms. Lewin: Universities have to recognize that that is what is happening on campus. The ostracizing, the marginalizing,he shining of jews -- the shunning of jews.
▶ 2:29:48Ms. Lewin: >> I am pleased we are finally holding a hearing after years on this vitally important topic, particularly as these anti-jewish, anti-israel protests now erupt again on college campuses, all of which are getting massive amounts of federal funding. Mr. rachlin, is that how you say your name?
▶ 2:30:10Mr. Rachlin: R-a-c-k. >> I appreciate it. Did you say you are not in favor of canceling visas for foreign students who commit unlawful acts against jewish students?
▶ 2:30:27Mr. Rachlin: At this time nexus does not have a position on that. I went on to describe how in the national strategy it does not talk about that or recommend that and that was done in consultation with 1000 leaders across the board and was supported by the atl, j fna, j street.
▶ 2:30:45Sen. Hawley: You don't think that is not a good idea? Why would we permit a foreign student who is here on a visa who commits an act of violence against a jewish student? Why wouldn't we say sorry, but if you will commit acts of violence against jewish students or jewish americans, we will revoke your visa.
▶ 2:31:10Mr. Rachlin: On that issue -- sorry. I'm trying to think now. When you are talking about acts of violence and you are talking about breaking U.S. law toward students, that is criminal. That should be done through the justice department. Deportation is immigration. Is there -- if there is a criminal investigation that leads to deportation, I think it is appropriate.
▶ 2:31:38Sen. Hawley: They are here on visas. Why don't we put -- why don't we write into the process a condition of the visa that if you assault a jewish student on campus, you are out of here, you are gone? [applause]
▶ 2:31:57Mr. Rachlin: If it was written in the statute and broad enough to be not just for jews but all people regardless of who they are, we should look at that. Until that is law, I am basing this on what the current statute says.
▶ 2:32:14Sen. Hawley: I guess I do not understand the hesitation here. This is an easy call. I have urged secretary rubio to do this. My position is it would send a clear message. If you come to this country on a student visa, you are here as a guest of the united states for particular purposes. If you assault a jewish student on campus, you ought to be out of fear. We ought to make it clear to people we will not tolerate it for any reason.
▶ 2:32:43Sen. Hawley: [applause] can I ask while I have you here, I have heard you talk about dei. I just want to be clear on this. You would agree that much of this rhetoric has been weaponized against jewish students? That the dei dialogue has been weaponized against them?
▶ 2:33:11Sen. Hawley: They are called colonizers, imperialists, oppressors. It is the classic intersectionality dei language. I will give you some examples. The dei chair at m.I.t. Publicly issued statements calling israel a genocidal apartheid state. You have the university of washington's dei office that send an email describing israel as an unlawful and oppressive cellular colonial apartheid state.
▶ 2:33:39Sen. Hawley: The dei program coordinator at rutgers said to jewish students, f you colonizer, f you zionist. Isn't it time to speak some truth to power and say that israel is not a colonizer state or an apartheid state. Jewish students are not colonizers and this kind of rhetoric should not be weaponized against them. You would agree with that?
▶ 2:34:04Mr. Rachlin: It is wrong to blame jewish students for the actions of the state of israel in any way, shape or form.
▶ 2:34:10Sen. Hawley: And it is wrong to call the state of israel a colonial or apartheid state?
▶ 2:34:14Mr. Rachlin: I would say that israel right now, a number of different human rights organizations talk about them. Personally, I do not see israel that way. I have been there many times. I have family that lives there. I have been to the west bank. However there are considerable issues that need to be addressed and inadequacies between how palestinians live in the west bank versus how palestinian americans and israelis live.
▶ 2:34:40Sen. Hawley: My time is our most expired and the chairwoman is being strict on the time. I want to make this point because we are seeing this over and over where you have actual campus apparatus, dei apparatus on these campuses, these are departments, officials, professors who are weaponizing that against jewish students. My question is should we condemn that?
▶ 2:35:03Sen. Hawley: No holds barred, say that is wrong for dei officials to be saying is really students are colonizers -- israeli students are colonizers. That is wrong,. , no conditions, would you agree with that?
▶ 2:35:15Mr. Rachlin: I would say a lot of dei need to bring into it antisemitism training.
▶ 2:35:23Sen. Hawley: Or just be eliminated. Why don't we just eliminate the dei programs. >> thank you senator hawley. I appreciate your passion and we understand. Thank you for your participation.
▶ 2:35:39Sen. Hawley: I caught myself a moment ago getting excited as well but I will remind the audience as chairman grassley said, we need to conduct this hearing with the quorum so we can remain efficient so I will ask for your participation with that. With that I will send it over to senator cruz.
▶ 2:35:57Sen. Cruz: Antisemitism is evil, it is wrong and it is flourishing with the active participation of students, faculty, of administrators and government officials and sadly, the democrat party has a deep and pervasive problem confronting this evil. For the last two years this committee held zero hearings on anti-semitism in the united states to fight the fact that republicans call for it.
▶ 2:36:27Sen. Cruz: The acts of violence prior to october 7, 3669 anti-semitic incidents occurred in the united states. In three months the number spiked to 5000. In 2024 the number skyrocketed to over 10,000 anti-semitic incidents. This problem is particularly acute on our college campuses.
▶ 2:36:52Sen. Cruz: Columbia university was a major epicenter where they encouraged, tolerated and celebrated this vicious and vile antisemitism. Rabbi eli buehler emailed every jewish student on campus and said, "the events of the last few days have made it clear that columbia universities public safety cannot guarantee jewish students safety in the face of extreme anti-semitism and anarchy.
▶ 2:37:21Sen. Cruz: I would strongly recommend you return home." this is the rabbi of the university saying your school will not protect your safety. Columbia did not do a dam thing about it. The rabbi was not crazy. Here is a picture taken on the campus of columbia. In the back are jewish students waving american flags and israeli flags will be in the front is a columbia student wearing a mask because these cowards are so brave that they cover their faces.
▶ 2:37:52Sen. Cruz: Holding a handwritten sign that says, all caps on --l qassam's next best target. This is a rich blonde girl from atlanta.
▶ 2:38:22Sen. Cruz: Whose parents are multimillionaire real estate developers and they got so proud I am sending my child to an ivy league education where she will be indoctrinated to dress up and advocate hamas murdering jewish students because they are jews. If you agree that is evil and vile, let me ask you something. Where are the democrats?
▶ 2:38:50Sen. Cruz: Not one is here and it is because the democrat party has decided the pro-hamas wing of the party is more important than protecting jewish students in america. If you do not believe me, maybe you will believe chuck schumer. That is the wrong one. No it's not.
▶ 2:39:08Sen. Cruz: Chuck schumer texting with columbia said the following, "on january 4 president of columbia explained the shipment and her fellow co-chair that she had met with chuck schumer who advised that universities political problems about antisemitism are really only among republicans.
▶ 2:39:31Sen. Cruz: We the democrats do not care about this antisemitism stuff." Ms. lewin, am I the only person that has noticed that these anti-israel pro-hamas anti-semitic protests, that the tense all match?
▶ 2:39:58Ms. Lewin: You are not the only one who has noticed. . It is clear that there is coordination and there must be some common funding.
▶ 2:40:06Sen. Cruz: In the last two years under the biden justice department are you aware of any investigation to follow the money behind these protests?
▶ 2:40:16Ms. Lewin: I am not.
▶ 2:40:19Sen. Cruz: Are you aware of anyone who has been indicted following these protests's?
▶ 2:40:23Ms. Lewin: I am not.
▶ 2:40:24Sen. Cruz: Are you aware of anyone whose funds have been cut off who have had their own officials cheering on antisemitism? Has even my university lost their funding?
▶ 2:40:35Ms. Lewin: I am not aware of any university losing their funding.
▶ 2:40:39Sen. Cruz: Some of them say free speech. You have a free-speech right as an american citizen to say hateful things. Let me ask you something. If a university student went into the public square dressed up in a clan outfit and said we should murder african-american students, do you have any doubt that the university would expel that student?
▶ 2:40:59Ms. Lewin: I am fairly certain that the universities would take action.
▶ 2:41:03Sen. Cruz: They should expel them if they are foreign students. There should be deported and mark my words, if you are horrified at the antisemitism, you will see the trump department of justice follow the money, prosecute the people who are paying for this, prosecute those engaged in violence and cut off the money from universities that are tolerating and celebrating this.
▶ 2:41:26Sen. Cruz: That is the rule of law and ask yourself why did the biden justice department do absolutely nothing about this horror that unfolded.
▶ 2:41:35Chair Moody: Thank you. Senator whitehouse.
▶ 2:41:39Sen. Whitehouse: For the record, my account is that blue dog democrats have been here for this hearing -- my account is that eight democrats have been here for this hearing. I did not want it to be thought that they are not interested. We have a friend in common who thinks extremely highly of you and I wanted to pass that along.
▶ 2:42:07Sen. Whitehouse: I also wanted to offer for a moment some thoughts about some things that went right. There have been a lot of focus on what went wrong and clearly allotment wrong. In rhode island, our university has done a pretty good job and one thing that stuck out for me as somebody who looks at the justice system and particularly the concept of restorative
▶ 2:42:38Sen. Whitehouse: Justice, which is a useful way to think about justice, in one of our universities the administration went in to see the protesters occupying a building and did two fairly simple things. One said you are expelled if you are not out of here by this time. Every single one of you.
▶ 2:43:06Sen. Whitehouse: And that managed to clear out the building pretty quickly. I think a lot of parents who put a lot of money into tuition might not be amused. If you are not a student at all, you had no business in the building to begin with.
▶ 2:43:20Sen. Whitehouse: The second is that they insisted on a program of restorative justice so that the students who had interfered with the upcoming graduation, the preparation of their fellow students for the upcoming graduation, for finishing senior projects or other projects in the mad rush to finish out a college year and
▶ 2:43:52Sen. Whitehouse: They went through a process of restorative justice so that people who had done that had to understand what they had done to their fellow students with these activities. That is not enough and that is not all but I thought it was a very useful and creative use of the principles of sort of justice -- restorative justice. It certainly kept the campus on a good, humane in footing which I think was very important.
▶ 2:44:26Sen. Whitehouse: I think I am though last. Senator moody is still here. I will close out the hearing with that. I think you all. I thank you for your attention to this. There is an enormous amount of work we need to do.
▶ 2:44:40Sen. Whitehouse: We need to look at only at the bad examples but also some of the good examples will be craft ways to make sure that the college environment is protected and the dangerous head of antisemitism gets stomped on as soon as it appears. Thanks very much.
▶ 2:44:59Chair Moody: Thank you senator whitehouse. I want to first thank our witnesses. I know any there is a hearing or an event or a discussion which involves so much passion and people who want to protect others, I know it is difficult to prepare. It is difficult to be here.
▶ 2:45:26Chair Moody: It is difficult to participate without being overcome with emotion at times and I felt that also from our audience today. Thank you for being here and participating. We are very grateful. Our government does not function unless it is truly a reflection of the people. For everyone who took time out of their lives to be here with us and participate in your government, this is your government. Thank you.
▶ 2:45:50Chair Moody: This process does not work and our government does not work if it is not reflective of the people that have sent us here and gave us the opportunity to serve. Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you for bearing with us as we try to remain orderly and efficient throughout the morning so that we can conclude in a reasonable time. I appreciate that. The record will remain open for eight weeks so if there any submissions that need to be made, you may do so.
▶ 2:46:19Chair Moody: Senators will have the opportunity to ask additional written questions. If you receive those, if you could please respond and turn those back in within a week, that will be great. This hearing was a long time coming. A lot of us over the last few years were hoping for this opportunity. I thanked chairman grassley. As soon as we got the 1/19 congress up and going, this is one of his first hearings. I agree with him. Many of my colleagues agree with him.
▶ 2:46:49Chair Moody: We were waiting for the state with anticipation. Many of us were frustrated. We only had five minutes but we tried to stick to that and we were grateful that you helped us stick to that time limit. Thank you again for being here. I want to thank all of the staff who helped make this hearing possible too. They are the fuel behind the engine that makes this committee run. We are very grateful to the staff with us. And with that, we are adjourned for the afternoon. Thank you so much.