3 college heads testified before the House last month. One still has her job

Less than a month after the leaders of three top U.S. colleges testified before the House about antisemitism on their campuses, two of them have been forced to resign, and GOP lawmakers have made clear they are not yet satisfied.

The presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Dec. 5 all declined to say definitively if calls for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment at their schools.

Penn’s Liz Magill lasted less than a week afterward.

On Tuesday, Harvard President Claudine Gay, who also faced mounting accusations of plagiarism, announced she was stepping down.

“TWO DOWN,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who had first posed the genocide question, posted Tuesday on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I will always deliver results,” she added in a press release.

“Your silence is deafening @MIT,” Stefanik tweeted on Wednesday. “Not even an apology issued by your school to date. And zero commitment from your school to combat antisemitism and protect Jewish students. Accountability is coming.”

“TWO down, one to go,” Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) said on X.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth, meanwhile, has stayed in her position, based on little more than the school’s immediate response followed by radio silence.  

After the House Education Committee hearing, the Harvard and Penn presidents released statements walking back their congressional testimony, with Gay later giving an apologetic interview to The Harvard Crimson.

MIT took a different path. Kornbluth, who also faced the fewest questions from lawmakers, never released a statement about her testimony after it occurred, and the school’s board vowed their support early on.  

“The MIT Corporation chose Sally to be our president for her excellent academic leadership, her judgment, her integrity, her moral compass, and her ability to unite our community around MIT’s core values,” the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation said. 

“She has done excellent work in leading our community, including in addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate, all of which we reject utterly at MIT. She has our full and unreserved support,” it added.   

Kornbluth, 64, was named the 18th president of MIT in October 2022. She previously was the provost for Duke University.

Although she has so far survived by keeping her head down, some advocates say her school’s response was the weakest of the three.

“I mean, they didn’t even they didn’t even pretend to evaluate her comments,” said Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. “The Harvard Corporation at least took me a couple of days to discuss the matter. As far as I know, as soon as Dr. Kornbluth went ahead and gave her testimony, they immediately rallied to her defense.” 

“I think all three university presidents should have resigned after they were unable to articulate a proper answer about the question concerning genocide,” Halber added. “It required, instead of using lawyerly language to express themselves, what we needed was a clear denunciation of antisemitism towards Jewish students, and that hateful language won’t be tolerated on campus” 

MIT did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

Kornbluth is certain to face further congressional scrutiny, with House Education Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) announcing an official investigation into the three schools in the wake of last month’s hearing.

“The testimony we received earlier this week from Presidents Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth about the responses of Harvard, Penn, and MIT to the rampant antisemitism displayed on their campuses by students and faculty was absolutely unacceptable,” Foxx said in a statement.

But some say at this point the controversy about Kornbluth is secondary to changes that need to happen on college campuses. 

“The bigger question is not whether [Kornbluth] should have resigned, that ship has sailed, she has not resigned, or whether she should have been fired right after, that ship has sailed also. The larger issue is that you’ve got three presidents of three of America’s most premier universities where the presidents were unable to articulate a clear cut vision that would protect their Jewish students on campus,” Halber said.  

Republicans are looking for systemic change in higher education, with many taking particular aim at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices.

“One of the ways I think colleges and universities have promoted antisemitic speech and behavior is through their DEI offices,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) said at one hearing.

Higher education’s defenders, however, say Republicans are simply using the current controversies as an excuse to unload on one of their favorite targets.

“I think it’s very clear this is part of an agenda that is just trying to politicize higher education,” Ryan Enos, professor of government and faculty associate in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard, previously told The Hill.

—Updated at 5:39 p.m.