(The Center Square) – For “mealy-mouthed, spineless college leaders,” actions will have consequences, the North Carolina congresswoman leading a key U.S. House of Representatives committee said Tuesday amid ongoing college campus disruptions.
The war between Israel and Hamas has led to significant demonstrations or encampments on at least four dozen campuses nationwide, a national observer of such activity reports. U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., with support of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the Committee on Education and the Workforce she chairs has opened a congressional probe and on May 23 will hear from presidents of Yale and Michigan and the chancellor of UCLA.
“The committee has a clear message for mealy-mouthed, spineless college leaders,” Foxx said in a news conference. “Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of your duty to your Jewish students. No stone must go unturned while buildings are being defaced, campus greens are being captured, or graduations are being ruined. College is not a park for play-acting juveniles or a battleground for radical activists. Everyone affiliated with these universities will receive a healthy dose of reality.”
She paused with definitive intent and said, “Actions have consequences.”
According to the website for Campus Safety magazine on Tuesday afternoon, protests about the war had impacted 48 campuses with demonstrations nationwide. In Foxx’s native state, the nation’s oldest public university – the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – was among them, with its famed Polk Place quad the battleground.
For a brief time, the flag of Palestine was raised in place of the American flag; it didn’t last, with interim Chancellor Lee Roberts holding firm and himself returning surrounded by lawmen to raise the Stars and Stripes to its proper place.
“Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos” will convene at 10:15 a.m. on May 23. Invited witnesses are Dr. Peter Salovey, president at Yale University; Dr. Santa Ono, president at the University of Michigan; and Dr. Gene Block, chancellor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Foxx thanked Johnson for making it an “all of the House” issue. She said it was an issue for the entire country. She said American universities “are officially put on notice that we have come to take our universities back.”
She said the committee wanted to hear from the trio of university leaders on their handling of “the most recent outrages.”