University Presidents Caught in Partisan Ambuscade

Three university presidents were recently caught in a partisan “investigation” by a House of Representatives committee established by the majority House Republicans. Allegedly established to look into anti-Semitic activities against students of Jewish heritage on college campuses the hearing turned out to be a partisan, political ambush looking towards the elections of 2024. Four university presidents were invited to come before the House committee to answer questions about alleged anti-Jewish activities on campuses. The interesting feature of the investigatory committee is that they only asked the presidents of the four universities which were private, elite, liberal institutions in northeastern states  to appear. One of those could not appear, the president of Columbia University, due to a prior commitment. The other 3 presidents, those of Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania, consented to come before the committee.  No public universities nor universities from other regions of the country seem to have been invited. For an investigatory committee this seems to have been a rather narrow group to be invited if the committee were really looking for a broad investigation that might have a policy purpose. However, as we are now within a year of the 2024 elections and given the House Republicans announced intentions to hold many investigations to promote their partisan issues it seems clear that this committee had a limited intention from the start.  It was looking for a way to promote a pro-Israeli and pro-Jewish position in hopes of seeking votes and election monetary contributions from those that could be swayed by the Republicans announcing such positions.

The news media, as is often the case, reported on the committee hearing with little commentary of what its true purpose was. There seemed to have been no effort by the committee to have a constructive position of how to better defend Jewish students from being bullied or harassed, nor to have the hearing have an effect beyond these liberal institutions.  Further the committee seemed to have no concern regarding defending pro-Palestinian students who were bullied and harassed by pro-Israel supporters.

To a certain extent it appears the committee achieved its goals. The president of the University of Pennsylvania resigned her position. Those who appreciated the committee’s efforts to demand more support for Jewish students promptly wrote letters to the respective universities complaining about the president's and their lack of emphatic comments supporting Jewish students and the Israeli efforts. They further threatened to withhold funds from future university fundraising. All of this seems to fall into a common pattern where most of the reaction to events is in the immediate short term without analysis of what the perpetrators were attempting to do or what are the real long term issues involved.

It seems to be that the university presidents had been “prepared” by a reputable law firm so that they would make appropriately modest and nondescript responses to the questions of the committee. In this regard the university presidents when challenged as to why they were not more responsive and repressive to demonstrations that were pro- Palestinian and allegedly made the Jewish students feel that they were being bullied and harassed, would give answers to note that they had to take everything in context because of the right of free speech. That seems to  be an appropriate answer but it apparently gave great offense to the Republican members of the committee who felt that protesters calling for a Palestinian country from “the river to the sea”  meant that the Israeli nation would be destroyed and an act of genocide would be committed against the Jewish people. Although I believe it is possible for Palestinians and Israelites to live together in that land between the river and the sea.

The Republicans on the committee with their attacking questions reminded me of an attorney in court trying to badger a witness with as many unexpected questions as possible, from as many directions as possible, to get them to contradict themselves and accuse the responding party of saying something which was not the witnesses intention at all. It is a common tactic of attorneys in the courtroom. I'm not sure the Republican members of the committee should feel proud of such tactics. This committee has all the earmarks of the House Unamerican Activities Committee from the 1950s and Senator Joe McCarthy’s shenanigans which wound up beings exposed as an embarrassment to our democracy.

I imagine that one would find very few, if any, of the people in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations intending a genocide with their chants. It seems to me that we have now been through enough of these situations, where there are dubious actions going on in the world, and those in opposition form protests and shout chants without intending deeper meanings nor large scale violence. We certainly saw enough of such demonstrations during the Vietnam War and since then to know that such groups can spit out lots of noise without intending some implied horrific act.

We should not be surprised that the Republicans have structured their committees to promote partisan goals as the upcoming election is less than a year away.  When the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives by a narrow margin in the 2022 elections they promptly announced that they were going to have a lot of investigations to expose many hidden depredations. They have attempted to do that. They don't seem to have made much effort to do anything else. They needed 15 votes just to elect their speaker and they have since removed him from office. In their dysfunction they have taken over 720 votes in the year since becoming the majority and have only passed 26 laws, some of which are nothing but fluff.  They have been called the ”worst Congress the nation has ever had.”

With the background that the Republicans announced they intended to be very partisan with many investigations to promote their causes it is unclear why the presidents of the respective universities, and those that advise them on how to respond to questions, we're so timid. “What were they thinking”.  Given the announced partisanship of the  Republicans and their willingness  to undermine anyone to get votes and election contributions, why did the presidents of these liberal institutions act like they were going to get kid glove treatment. It would seem to me that the attorneys that prepared the presidents on what to do to be ready, the president's own in-house advisors and the presidents  themselves should have been able to look at this picture and understand that the committee’s hearing could quickly turn into a partisan effort and they and their institutions would be the target.

Since it is doubtful that the Republicans in the House of Representatives intend to change their attitude, or their method of operating, future parties invited to investigatory committees by the house should either decline or be prepared to defend themselves and the institutions or actions for which they may be responsible. It is doubtful that the Republicans in the House will be giving invitations that do not have a distinctly partisan intent.

Obadiah Plainman