Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), and Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) to discuss House Republicans’ investigations into the federal funding of universities that are violating the rights of their Jewish students by allowing antisemitic mobs to take over their campuses. Leader Scalise also called on the Biden Administration to stop withholding the aid Congress passed for Israel as they face Hamas.
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On university presidents’ lack of support for Jewish students:
“Last week, you saw the House pass overwhelmingly a bill to stand up to the antisemitism that we're seeing on college campuses all across America. If only those college presidents would do their jobs in protecting their students, Jewish students that are threatened every day. Right now as finals are approaching, you've got some schools that are actually canceling in-person classrooms and in-person finals, because the schools don't want to protect their students from antisemitism. It's disgraceful. And we've called on those heads of universities to step down who aren't doing their jobs.”
On holding university presidents and leaders refusing to protect Jewish students from antisemitic attacks accountable:
“You saw just a few days ago here on this stage, Speaker [Johnson] leading an effort that six of our different standing committees are participating in, to ultimately go into and dig into the money. The billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money that these universities are receiving, some with requirements like Title VI, that ensure that they protect their students. And these universities are not meeting the legal obligations as they're taking those billions of dollars. We're going to be digging into that.
“You're seeing it this week with the Oversight Committee, bringing in Mayor Bowser, to hold her accountable for the fact that when George Washington [University] was under siege from one of these mobs, as you're seeing on so many other campuses, they called in the police and Mayor Bowser’s administration told the police not to go and help out. That's the job of police. Police want to do that job, want to keep people safe. And when you've got elected leaders that are telling the police not to keep students safe, you're going to see this House Republican majority take action to hold those leaders accountable. And so you're going to see that from every standing committee that has jurisdiction, we're going to be following the money; we're going to be bringing in more heads of universities.”
On the Biden Administration withholding aid to Israel:
“This isn't going to end. And I'm sure Speaker [Johnson] is going to talk about this more too. But this House came together to support an aid package for Israel, our dear ally in the Middle East, who's under attack since October 7. They're out there right now, fighting a terrorist organization, Hamas. And we passed an aid package that is currently being held up by the Biden Administration. It is time for the Biden Administration to stop holding up that aid to Israel. Congress came together in a very bipartisan way to pass that much-needed relief so that they can go and root out a terrorist organization who killed Israelis, who killed Americans, who still has about 130 hostages that they're holding. And the Biden Administration is going to hold up the aid to Israel. We're going to continue to speak out against that.”
