The Truth with Lisa BootheThe Truth with Lisa Boothe: Confronting Anti-Semitism on Campus with Rep. Virginia Foxx
In this episode, Lisa is joined by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx who discusses the rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses. She criticizes university presidents for their inadequate response to anti-Semitic incidents and suggests that radical liberals are infiltrating educational institutions. Foxx calls for investigations into institutions like Columbia and Cornell for potential civil rights violations against Jewish students. She also discusses the role of donors and trustees in holding universities accountable. Foxx believes in balancing free speech and religious beliefs, and condemns calls for the death of people or the destruction of Israel. She expresses concern about the quality of education and the low graduation rates in colleges. The Truth with Lisa Boothe - hear new episodes every Monday & Thursday.
Ever since the October seventh terror attacks, we have seen a rise of anti Semitism, both here in the United States and around the world, just a vitriolic hatred towards Jews. Sadly, so many students around the country are bearing the brunt of it. I want you to just take a listen to what some students are having to endure.
Penn's president did choose silence, the neighboring university's president swiftly denounced the incident, and yet our president cannot because the glorious October seventh and you're a dirty little Jew.
You deserve to die, a word.
Said not by kame Off, but by my classmates and professors.
In recent weeks, the CIA's anti Semitic rhetoric has shifted the culture on campus to such an extreme of intolerance that seventy percent of MIT's Jewish students polled feel forced to hide their identities and perspectives. An Israeli student whose identity and personal info was sold online for a bounty has not left his dorm room in weeks out of fear due to death threats. For my part, I was forced to leave my study group for my doctoral exams halfway through the semester because my group members told me that the people at the Nova Music Festival deserved to die because they were partying on stolen land.
Multiple times a week on my way to class, I wop buy mobs of people chanting from the river to the sea, which is a call for the destruction of the state of Israel. Most recently, we have you outnumbered and globalize. The Indefada and Indovada is an uprising and the last two were marked by blowing up buses and restaurants.
So those are students who are attending Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT. It's disgusting what they're having to go through. Fortunately, House Republicans are trying to do something about it. The House Education Committee held a hearing recently holding presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT to account, asking the questions condemning them. So we're going to talk to House Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Fox about it. Talk to her about the goals of the hearing, what she learned, and what she's been hearing from students. Stay tuned for Chairman Virginia Fox. So, Congresswoman of Virginia Fox, thanks so much for taking the time. I know you are busy talking about this hearing, but it's so important, so we so appreciate your time.
Thank you for having me, Lisa, I'm happy to talk about it.
At the beginning of the hearing, you laid it out to these university presidents. You said, do you have the courage to truly confront and condemn the ideology driving anti Semitism or will you offer week blame shifting excuses and yet another responsibility dodging task force. What was your conclusion after having asked that question at the end of it.
They took the second alternative. I actually met with them the day before in my office and they asked me what was my vision for the hearing, and I said that you grow a spine and that you speak out with moral authority.
On this problem.
And so, I mean, I think they were shocked when I said that to them, about growing a spine.
I didn't think they expected to hear that from me.
But you know, these are called the elite universities. They showed in this hearing that they deserve to be called the most expensive universities in the country. I also told them in my meeting with them, the day before and during the hearing that they no longer deserved to be called institutions of higher education because they are not institutions of higher education. They are not teaching students to think, they are not teaching higher order skills. I felt that for a long time, Lisa, I've talked about that. I tell my staff, don't say higher education because it isn't that anymore.
How do you think we've arrived at this point where that these institutions are about higher education and these students are facing this anti semitism and even worse, really fearing for their lives.
Well, it's because we have allowed woke policies. I know people don't like that title, but we have let the radical liberals take over the colleges and universities. They also have tried to take over elementary and secondary school with their causes, and in some places they have infiltrated all of our education.
And Lisa, this hasn't been recent. This has been.
Going on for a long time. There was an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal, which I'll get my staff to send you about how Hamas said this openly. The leader of MOSS said, we can't go in with a sledgehammer. We have to go in and route, go into the roots of the institution and change how people think about us. So this has been going on for a long time. I tell people that the perpetrators of nine to eleven plan that for a long time. They have a great deal of patience. It's the same thing that's happened with our universities. They've been planning this, They've been surreptitious about what they've been doing, and they basically have poisoned the colleges and universities, and they're trying to poison the minds of people who go there.
This is something you know, I mean before going into Congress. I mean, you worked in higher education. You're an educator. I mean, this is what you know. This has been your life's passion before serving in Congress.
That's exactly right, Lisa. Let me tell you.
I grew up in houses with no electricity, no running water. I learned at an early age that getting a good education and working hard was the key to getting out of poverty. That used to be the case in our country, and it still can be the case in our country. I wanted to be a high school English teacher. I was impacted by a English teacher. I wanted to pass that on. So I have devoted my life to education, and even though I'm in Congress, I'm still in education. I got a waiver to be the chair of the Education Committee, and it's.
Caused me a law of work.
But I believe God put me there for a real purpose, and that was to be there right now with my strong moral background and my upbringing, to be the leader that we need in the Congress right now on this and other issues related to higher end. Yes, I was a college president, I was a community college president, I was a school board member for twelve years, and I was a university administrator for fifteen years. So I am steeped in as I'm actually the only person in Congress who has any kind of background in education.
Well, and you're right, it's such an important time on all of those friends to be, you know, trying to protect kids and especially these students. I mean, we played a montage at the beginning in our intro for you earlier of some of these students and what they're experiencing. And one student at MIT said that the student the Jewish students pulled their seventy percent feel they were forced to hide their identities and their perspectives. That one Israeli student's personal information at identity was sold for a bounty, and that student has been in hiding due to death threats. This student said that she was told the people at the super Nova festival deserved it. I mean there's calls for intofada, which is a violent uprising on college campus. I mean, these students are legitimately in fear for their life and with good reasons. And we saw at Cornell a student was arrested for making death threats. So, you know, talk a little bit about what you've heard from the students, their concerns and the threats that they're facing right now.
Well, everything you've said is accurate, and there's a lot more. As you said, there's one student afraid to leave her room because.
Of the death threats against us.
All of these students are afraid to be identified as Jewish students because they fear for their own safety. And the college presidents above all have to provide for the safety of the students on that campus, and they are not doing that again because they're not standing up and saying we will not tolerate speeches of genocide, speeches against Jewish students, speeches and commons and actions against Israel.
Intafada means destruction of Jews, all Jews. That is what that means. And right now.
Israel is in the process of trying to stamp out Hamas because Hamas came in and Hamas's charter said they want to stamp.
Out all Jews. We know that the.
Maps put out by Iran, by Hamas and by other groups show Israel wiped off the map.
We can't tolerate that.
We can't And you know, we know that at least the University of Pennsylvania's president, Liz Migil, there's been calls for her to step down, also report that she might be asked to resign, that she might be residing. Do you think that that's ultimately what should happen, That these university presidents who have failed to protect their students, should they step down.
Well, the trustees are going to have to make that decision. We're going into a full blown investigation of not only these institutions, but many others. We would have liked to have had more institutions there, but we couldn't get everybody there. Columbia, Cornell, many others have the same accusations being made and the same activities going on. So we want to do a full blown investigation. That's part of our responsibility in oversight on the committee, and we will at the end of that make recommendations as what should be done. We believe that civil rights have been violated. Students who are Jewish have a right again to be safe and have to be able to be free on their campuses and to be able to express their religious beliefs. So we will be in communication with the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Education to ensure that there's strong enforcement actions happen as a result of what's going on on the campuses.
Now I'm not sure.
I mean, I don't know that we will call for the resignations of the president.
Some members are doing that.
I'm not ready to do that before we get through our investigation. I don't want to prejudice the investigation. I want to go into it fairly and to be able to come out with good recommendations based on what we find. They could those recommendations could include pulling federal funding.
A lot of these university presidents, they'll say, oh, you know, it's free speech, it's free speech. That you know, students have the right to do you buy that excuse or where are the lines?
Well, the lines are calling for the death of people. That's what genocide is, when they call for the death of people for the destruction of Israel. I'm a big free speech advocate, I always have been. But number one in our freedoms is our religion, and we cannot allow that to be forgotten. We have to protect people with their religious beliefs as well as their free speech beliefs.
And obviously we don't want.
To infringe upon the free speech of students.
And we've seen two you know, wealthy donors say you know what, I am rescinding my donation. You know, Rus Stevens is trying to rescind one hundred million dollars donation to University of Pennsylvania. We've seen other people step forward, like Bill Ackman, you know, criticizing some of these university heads as well. So to some degree, you know, some of these wealthy alumni. They're holding you know, these these universities to account via you know, their donations and their money.
Yes, and that's fair appropriate for them to be doing it. Again, I'll go back to what I said before, the trustees need to be getting having a much more involved approach to the colleges and university. The trustees hold hire the presidents, and the presidents are hiring the people who are fomenting these problems on campus. The trustees have a responsibility here. Now, we can't do anything about the trustees, but we can do something about the policies that are adopted on the campus. So I am glad to see these trustees pulling out their money, but my hope is that they'll get much more involved with what's happening at the universities.
What do you hope was accomplished from the hearing? You know, we've seen since a lot of bipartisan uproar just really you know, condemning what we heard from the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT the hearing.
Well, as I said before, I think what the hearings did was reveal how rotten our colleges and universities have become the most important job that college administrators have is to uphold a safe learning environment for students in their communities as a whole, and these presidents are obviously not doing that. And by bringing them in for a hearing and asking them the simple questions of are you going to refute these calls for genocide, these calls for intifada, will you protect your students? The testimony was that poor, and I'm just deeply concerned about their lack of leadership and moral clarity. That was important for the whole world to see. Again, many of us involved in watching what's going on in education know that so much has been happening that's not right. The majority of the grades being given out in post secondary education now our a's they're facing a fiscal a cliff of demography where they're going to be very very few students eligible to go to college. I believe that they will be admitting more and more students who aren't prepared for college and university, and they'll be trying to keep them on campus. The taxpayers will be footing the bill for that. We already have less than we have about a fifty three percent graduation rate on the colleges and universities now.
And yet again.
After eight years, and the taxpayers are paying pel grants, loaning money, very small percentages of students are paying back their loans and they're going here. I don't want to use the word brainwash. But they're going in being influenced by very, very negative teachings on them. And I'm glad that the American people were able to see just the tip of the iceberg.
I am too, and I'm so glad that you held this hearing. It was extremely important and you should be very proud of the committee and the way everyone handled it. Congress Woman, thank you so much. I know you've got a busy day. We truly appreciate your time and we appreciate what you're doing.
Thank you, Lisa, I appreciate it. God bless you.
That was Congresswoman Virginia Fox, chairman of the House Education Committee. We appreciate here taking the time. She's been really busy this week, so it's an honor to have her on the show. Appreciate you at home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week. I want to make my producer, John Cassio, for putting the show together. Until next time,
