U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district has proposed cutting federal funds from Harvard University and other academic institutions in the Bay State. Auchincloss, who is an alum of Harvard, recently visited his alma mater as demonstrators protested against the killing of civilians in Gaza and argued the school’s response to growing conversations about Israel and Palestine might violate federal law.
“It needs to be on the table. Harvard and other universities have unfortunately become ransacked by antisemitism,” Auchincloss said during a recent episode of Fox News Sunday.
“I have seen it in my conversations with Israeli and Jewish students. I have seen the fact pattern. And they need to look at their culture from first principles and actually create a culture of open discourse, of free speech, of mutual respect, in which people can pursue truth, in which everybody, regardless of nation of origin, of sex, of race, can have a suitable learning environment.”
Fox News Sunday Host Shannon Bream also pointed toward the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Campus Antisemitism Report Card, an assessment of the current state of antisemitism on college campus sand how particular schools are responding. According to the report, Harvard, Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and 10 other schools received failing grades.
“Right now, Harvard is failing, and that is why, after the ADL reported those failing grades, I sent letters to the eight universities in Massachusetts that got a C or worse and asked them for an action plan by May 17th, which they have returned and which we are now reviewing with the ADL, to make sure that over the summer that they get their house in order,” Auchincloss added.
