UC Berkeley Leader Defends Pro-Hamas Prof As ‘Fine Scholar’ At Congressional Campus Antisemitism Hearing
University officials from Georgetown, Berkeley, and CUNY testified for over three hours before a House panel that was interrupted four times by pro-Palestine protesters.
University leaders from Georgetown University, University of California, Berkeley, and the City University of New York were grilled for over three hours on Tuesday by a House panel investigating campus antisemitism in the wake of the October 7 Hamas massacre.
The session, chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), followed hearings earlier this year on the anti-Israel encampments that convulsed college campuses. This time, the House Committee on Education and Workforce delved into why these antisemitic outbursts so readily took hold at the nation’s universities.
The simple answer is that these institutions are rotten to the core: The faculty — including groups like FSJP; faculty unions — and foreign influence peddling are the drivers of campus antisemitism.
While the faculty were the focus of the hearings, Walberg explained that DEI policies have also fueled campus antisemitism: The DEI ideology embraced by so many university bureaucrats categorizes Jews as white oppressors and therefore excuses or even justifies antisemitic harassment. The violence, fear, and alienation felt by Jewish students is at its core a result of administrators and their staff lacking the moral clarity to condemn and punish antisemitism that is creating a hostile environment for Jewish students on America’s campuses.”
Meanwhile, faculty unions “played a critical role fomenting antisemitism at universities under the guise of labor rights.”
Walberg called for greater transparency into foreign funding to universities from authoritarian countries like Qatar, especially for universities like Georgetown that have a separate campus there. An in-depth study by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy (ISGAP) recently revealed Georgetown received over a billion dollars in donations from Qatar.
The lengthy session was briefly interrupted four times by pro-Palestine protesters.
Dr. Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor of The City University of New York, testified on behalf of CUNY. Once known for welcoming working-class Jewish students when other schools excluded them, CUNY is now a hotbed of Jew-hatred.
Rodriguez was doggedly questioned by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). (Readers may recall Stefanik was great at the campus antisemitism hearings we covered here.) Yesterday, she reminded Rodriguez that in 2021, he hired Saly Abd Alla, a former employee of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), as CUNY’s chief diversity officer.
While it holds itself out as a Muslim civil rights organization, CAIR has long been accused of sympathizing with Islamic terror, including Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Rep. Stefanik’s full questioning is captured in the @StopAntisemites post below.
So is it okay, from your perspective, obviously it is, to have a former employee of CAIR?
CUNY Chancellor’s laughable DC testimony:
– Baruch: Jews met with “Zionists are terrorists” chants; no discipline.
– Hunter: Jews entered past a swastika; no discipline.
– CAIR operative still in CUNY diversity role.⁰
Felix Matos Rodríguez is a failure.
pic.twitter.com/1nqa1ad3Og— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 15, 2025
Later, when Rep. Messmer (R-IN) followed up on Stefanik’s questions, Rodriguez refused to call CAIR antisemitic: “The Director of CAIR said after the October 7th attacks that he was happy to see people breaking the siege. Is CAIR an antisemitic organization?” Messmer asked.
Rodriguez balked: “I mean, CAIR, I don’t know about their policy about being antisemitic or not.”
There you have it. Yet another American university that doesn’t just let antisemites off the hook, it gives them a paycheck too.
Do better, @CUNY. pic.twitter.com/Wa4Lhsmesn
— Congressman Mark Messmer (@RepMessmer) July 16, 2025
Dr. Robert M. Groves, Interim President of Georgetown University, was questioned by Chairwoman Emerita Virginia Foxx. She asked him about Jonathan A.C. Brown, one of the professors at the Georgetown Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. After the United States’ successful strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Brown tweeted, “I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on the base.”
Groves said Brown had been placed on disciplinary leave and removed as chair of his department over the tweet, which was later removed. He’s still reportedly listed as “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization” on Georgetown’s website, however:
Good question… https://t.co/MREfwUwnaf
— House Committee on Education & Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) July 15, 2025
Further on, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) asked Groves whether Georgetown would allow members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to speak on campus. Dr. Groves replied with a mealymouthed “I don’t think we would.” Rep. Owens pressed him further: “If Georgetown would prevent white KKK bigots on campus, why would the university allow faculty and students to invite antisemitic bigots?”
If @Georgetown faculty are willing to invite an anti-Israel activist to its campus—who celebrated the brutal massacre of more than 1,200 innocents—would the school's faculty also invite the KKK? @RepBurgessOwens exposes American higher ed's antisemitic double standard ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/fnN98HhQDb
— House Committee on Education & Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) July 15, 2025
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) expressed disgust with the witnesses’ testimony which he found to be “dishonest” and “gaslighting.” He confronted Dr. Rich Lyons, Chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, over why he hired and continues to employ professor Ussama Makdisi, who stated the unprovoked October 7th attack was justified.
Chancellor Lyons repeatedly defended Makdisi as “a fine scholar.”
Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-WA) pressed for full transparency for foreign donations at Berkeley. When asked whether he would commit to fully reporting foreign payments, Chancellor Lyons stated he has several donors who request anonymity and could not commit to transparency.
“What do you think that says to the American people when you want to hide foreign influence on your college campus?” Rep. Baumgartner replied.
Colleges take millions every year from America's adversaries—with zero transparency. That's why we passed @RepBaumgartner's DETERRENT Act. It's critical schools tell us where the money comes from, and if there are strings attached. Why couldn't @UCBerkeley just commit to that? pic.twitter.com/wIJ66d6NZU
— House Committee on Education & Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) July 15, 2025
Throughout the hearings, Republican members took turns questioning the witnesses with Democrats, who invariably made it all about Trump. They accused his administration of “weaponizing” antisemitism to justify attacks on higher education. They also denounced Trump’s cuts to the Department of Education, whose dismantling was greenlighted by the Supreme Court earlier this week.
“While we are holding hearings to combat antisemitism on campuses, the very office in the Department of Education that works to protect Jewish students, the Office for Civil Rights, has been attacked, undermined, and cut by the Trump administration,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ).
But as Walberg pointed out, “some of the most egregious events — encampments, violence, destruction of property” took place during the Biden administration, while the OCR was “at full strength.”
Antisemitism is “basically a university problem,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) concluded. “We’re never going to have a committee hearing on antisemitism at the construction site. We’re never going to have one antisemitism working in retail or working in manufacturing or in the military or antisemitism in the retirement home.” And that’s because “we have such a slanted overall view of the world and the university compared to the country as a whole.”
“Universities are just overwhelmingly Democrat, which is a breeding ground for this antisemitism because right now the progressive wing of the Democrat party … this anti-Israel feeling has become … the norm.”
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Comments
That’s some nice work by the Republicans. Although I doubt there is any way to redeem most of higher ed, making sure voters know how corrupt it has become is important.
Nice work but so what? Probably 5% of Americans will ever hear about this and nothing will happen beyond what the Trump Administration is already doing.
It’s still important to get these Dhimmi-crat university administrator pukes on the record, exposed and humiliated.
Linked to this in the Burgess Owens post.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/07/15/fine-scholar-uc-berkeley-chancellor-praises-professor-who-expressed-solidarity-with-oct-7-attacks/
Pretty amazing to see. Brendan O’Neill at “Spiked” has described these people in the UK quite well, but it applies here, too, to those with Israelophobia.
“And much of the animus has come from that section of society that fancies itself as being on ‘the right side of history’. The preening grad classes who say ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘transwomen are women’ are the ones marginalising Jews. Israelophobia and its less guarded cousin – anti-Semitism – have become the dinner-party prejudices of our age. That was clear in the sick spectacle of middle-class youths at Glastonbury chanting for the death of the Jewish nation’s soldiers. Educated elites who for years posed as anti-racist now gleefully partake in mob orgies of Israelophobia that often cross a line into something even darker.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/07/15/how-dei-unleashed-the-monster-of-anti-semitism/
To escape discrimination, seems it’s easier to be KKK or Hamas than a Jew.
And some very good writing by Jane Coleman!
Thank you!
No it wasn’t. Everyone agrees that Trump can’t dismantle the Department; but he isn’t doing that. He’s merely reducing its activities to the extent allowed by law, in preparation for Congress eventually abolishing it; and it’s obvious that he can do that.
There’s gaslighting for you. Either that or the congressman has been swapped with a counterpart from an alternative history, and our version is currently in that reality railing against a DOEOCR that is doing a good job…
Dont need a DOE to protect anyone’s rights. It’s a matter of law and can be enforced by the universities. The DOE is just bureaucracy and not a good watch dog.
There have been concerns about antisemitism at the US Air Force Academy.
A number of years ago there was quite a lot of strong arming of cadets to go to church. Not to any religious service but to a christian church. I’m not sure whether that was stopped. I don’t recall it occurring in modern times at any other of the service academies.
Alumni at these anti-Semitic colleges need to STARVE these SOBs. Cut off ALL donations.
Signed,
An Irish Catholic
And parents should stop donating their children.
Hey — I’m sure there are very fine scholars on both sides.
No they f’g aren’t.
A person can be a very fine scholar while also being a very bad person. The nazis had some very fine scholars indeed.
Great good and great evil can exist in the same person.
Jeremiah 17:9-10
The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
10 I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
so they lied about trump sayn there were fine nazis in the charlottesville leftwing anti free speech march
but this leftist says the naziblmplo is a fine scholar
Trump said there were very fine people on both sides of the Charlotteville rally and brawl (which took place on Saturday afternoon, not the neo-nazi march which took place on Friday evening and was unconnected with the next day’s events). This person didn’t say the professor is a fine person, just a fine scholar, which is a very different thing.
charlottsville nazis chased /threatened the driver who ran into the young anti freedom protester who unfortunately died
a professor who was part of a left wing gun club admitted to chasing the car
University of North Carolina anthropology professor, Dwayne Dixon, is the leader of an armed Antifa group called Redneck Revolt. He has admitted chasing chasing James Alex Fields, Jr. with a rifle, causing Fields to drive into a crowd of other Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters, resulting in one death and dozens of injuries. The media was quick to brand Field’s actions as terrorism but, according to authorities, Fields expressed remorse and shock after the incident, asking “Are they okay?”, suggesting the tragedy was not intended but a result of fleeing from Professor Dixon and his rifle. -GEG
This is not true. James Fields is a nazi scum who deliberately set out to murder people. Dixon testified that 30 minutes to an hour earlier and four blocks away he had seen a driver circling the crowd several times, and chased him away. We can presume that if not for that he would have made his attack then and there instead of later.
When Fields did attack, he was not being chased. He arrived slowly and idled for a bit, and then backed up and accelerated at the crowd at high speed.
None of which reflects on the rally, its organizers, or on any of the other people who attended, on either side. Fields acted alone so he’s not relevant to the rest of the story. Just as the neo-nazi march the previous night is not relevant to the rally.
Trump said there were fine people as well as vicious thugs on both sides of the rally, because there were. Fields was not one of the fine people, but they were there and Trump was right to say so.
The undeserved nuance you are according this creature from the depths of Berkeley scum was not afforded to Trump.
I also can’t remember a single one of these useless sycophants affording the “very fine scholar” label to excellent scholars that are targeted for woke DEI-driven persecution.
This is one thing that makes no sense to me about you. You don’t ever seem to want anyone to sarcastically use the hypocrites’ own words against them. Most people give slight latitude for such comparisons, but you seem to take inflexible rigidity as some kind of virtue.
Milhouse is interested in truth and accuracy. He’s not really one for hyperbole nor sarcasm. I’m sorry if his not dancing to your tune is upsetting but that’s not his problem.
Any school that takes government funds from any level of government in any form must obey the government’s rules. That extends to all administrators and employees and more specifically the teachers, You can have any opinion you want but as soon as you express it in any way that is tracked back to the school you are GONE. No discussion. No second chances. You are a defacto government employee so leave your bigotry at home.
On the other hand if the school is private and neither the school nor any student receives public funds go crazy. Be an ass. It is already expected of you.
That works at high schools, but not at universities. Universities have academic freedom, and as a general rule the law recognizes that professors, even in the classroom, are always speaking for themselves, not for the university. That’s why professors are allowed to express religious views, and even lead prayer in the classroom if they choose, while primary and secondary teachers are not.
First there is no academic freedom any more, You must toe the progressive line. Period. Otherwise you will be destroyed.
Next you can possibly have academic freedom in your discipline. What you can’t do is spout whatever you want to on any subject, That is not academic freedom. That is freedom from any consequences,
Third, who even said academic freedom is a thing. You’re an employee, Period. I don’t want to pay anyone whose views are an anathema to me. I have to accept politicians whose views I despise. I live in MA after all. What I don’t have to do is pay the bloated salary of a government worker i.e., teacher who has gone of the f’g reservation. It’s my tax money and I and my fellow tax players have a right to not pay an offensive ahole if we don’t want to.
Berkeley, a cess-pool of lower learning.
That was posted as a comment.
Somehow it got stuck in as a reply to your post.
Well Jewish Americans, how are you VOTING? Much of the situation we find ourselves in is, in some part, aided by 100 years of Jewish American Leftist activism, intellectuals, professors, donors & students, Up to 3 years ago they led the charge to kick conservative opinions off campus. When the tiger turned on them, it was CONSERVATIVES who stood by them, yet most Jewish Americans will continue voting Left. When the Left starts organizing this century’s freight cars, blame yourselves.
Yes. Jewish American voters, and large part, helped create the “tiger” that turned on them.
This BS again. Jews are only 2% of the vote in the US if that and vote 35% Republican. Voting wise we aren’t responsible for much of anything except perhaps in certain districts in certain states.
It is certainly true that Jews contribution to government and intellectual thought is outside their percentage in this country. However there have been plenty of Jews in Republican administrations as various antisemites wail about.
News flash. We don’t run government, universities, the banking system, hollywood or the media. We are not the boogie man. There is not Jewish conspiracy. The illuminati is not real. The Rothschilds don’t control the world. We don’t control the weather with space lasers. Stop blaming us for everything. Blame the fact conservatives have been shitty messengers a lot of time. Also blame conservatives for being so narrow minded as to want to kick everyone out that doesn’t agree 100% with what often is their narrow views.
On the “fine scholar” point, as Milhaus pointed out, a person can be a “fine scholar” and a bigot or worse. Phillip Lenard, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, led the opposition to what the Nazis called “Jewish physics,” mostly Einstein’s relativity. (Ironically, Einstein had won his Nobel for his theory of the photoelectric effect, which he conjured up from first principles and then noted almost in passing that it explained Lenard’s experimental findings.). Walthur Gerlach was the Nazi “emperor of physics.” Shake the humanities or social sciences building at most so-called elite universities and a number of odious characters may come tumbling out.