Congressional Hearings on Palestinian Protest Movement

Representative Virginia Foxx

Chair, House Committee on Education and the Work Force

fax: 202-225-2995

Representative Robert C. “Bobby” Scott

Ranking Member, House Committee on Education and the Work Force

fax: 202-225-8354

Dear Representatives Foxx and Scott:

We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our grave concern at on-going efforts by the Committee on Education and the Workforce to interfere with and radically reshape higher education across the country. Through its recent investigations and public hearings, the committee has threatened the freedoms essential to university life and learning, including academic freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. As a result of this campaign, the committee has made our campuses less safe for students, faculty and staff alike. These efforts shock the conscience and violate the First Amendment in ways that are reminiscent of the now-disgraced House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in the late 1940s and 1950s.

[…]

The committee’s leadership has described these hearings as necessary to combat an alleged explosion in antisemitism on U.S. campuses, which the committee blames on a burgeoning nation-wide student movement opposing Israel’s war on Gaza. Antisemitism is undoubtedly a serious issue. However, the framing and content of these hearings make it clear that many committee members are less concerned with combatting invidious discrimination than with suppressing and punishing pro-Palestine speech. Some of the committee’s members also seem intent on exploiting this moment to further their own long-held partisan agenda: dismantling the culture of critical inquiry that has long been central to the mission of this country’s institutions of higher education, and refashioning our colleges and universities to serve their party’s interests.

The two public hearings with university presidents held so far reflect these motivations and the threats they pose to the First Amendment. During both hearings, various committee members repeatedly characterized pro-Palestine advocacy as inherently antisemitic and smeared pro-Palestine students en masse as antisemites and even terrorists. Specific professors were attacked by name for protected pro-Palestinian speech acts. Some committee members demanded that university presidents offer courses and events that present Israel in a favorable light; review academic course offerings and university events to eliminate perspectives critical of Israel; and commit to adopting specific disciplinary measures against professors and students who express support for Palestinian rights, including terminations and suspensions. It goes without saying that these kinds of inquires do nothing to remedy antisemitism. Instead, they erode and stifle academic freedom, free speech and freedom of assembly by exerting and normalizing political control over higher education and subverting the bedrock principle that universities are autonomous sites of critical debate and free inquiry.

[…] Read the full letter by clicking the above link.

Letter from Concerned U.S. Law Professors Re: House Committee Investigation

We, the undersigned, comprise a group of racially, religiously, and ideologically diverse law professors from across the United States. Notwithstanding our differences, we are unified in condemning the House Committee on Education and the Workforce (the “Committee”) March 27, 2024 letter announcing a congressional investigation targeting the Rutgers University Newark Center for Security, Race, and Rights (the “Center”) and Professor Sahar Aziz, the Center’s founder and executive director.^[1] The Committee’s actions, which follow a similar February 6, 2024 letter from Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans,^[2] threaten core American commitments to free speech and academic freedom.

Read full letter.