Rep. Elise Stefanik, Donald Trump and billionaire hedge fund executive Bill Ackman would have you believe America's college campuses are teeming with antisemitism. But their focus on universities serves to obscure their own failures in condemning brazen examples of antisemitism and bigotry.
Let's start with Trump and Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference. The former president has suggested that, if elected again, he would revoke the student visas from pro-Palestinian activists on college campuses. And Stefanik is boasting this week about her role in spurring the resignation of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, which followed Stefanik's questioning of Magill, Harvard University President Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth during a House hearing on antisemitism last week.
Stefanik had asked each of the presidents whether “calling for the genocide of Jews" would violate their respective schools' code of conduct. Each declined to give a straight yes or no response to the question, drawing intense backlash from some university donors and lawmakers.
The presidents' legalistic approaches to answering Stefanik's question appeared to be nods to the complexity of the matter at hand, which includes issues regarding free speech protections, campus safety and religious rights. Their responses, in my view, were reflective of the nuanced discussion needed around this debate — not signs that they’re tolerant of antisemitism. (The Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf captured this sentiment well in a recent post).
Nonetheless, I found the line of questioning to be rich coming from Stefanik, given her fervent support for Trump and her association with the New York Young Republicans Club, which has faced scrutiny over its ties to neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Trump, in fact, appeared at an event for the group this past weekend. And both Trump and Stefanik have praised the NYYRC President Gavin Wax, whose extremism is laid out here by the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group.
Trump’s history of enabling white supremacism is well-documented: Last year, he dined with Ye — the rapper better known as Kanye West — and white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes; multiple white nationalists and fringe figures who espoused white nationalist views advised him during his presidency; and he memorably suggested there were "very fine people" within a crowd of antisemitic and racist rioters during the deadly 2017 protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.
(Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is Jewish, drove the point home during an interview with MSNBC's Ali Velshi on Sunday. The Maryland Democrat ripped Stefanik for supporting Trump, who he said "traffics in antisemitism all the time.")
Ackman, who is Jewish, backed X owner Elon Musk after Musk spread the antisemitic replacement theory on his social media platform. (Musk later apologized and said he isn't antisemitic, though it's not the first time Musk has been accused of platforming antisemitic beliefs.) Despite Ackman’s lenience toward Musk, Ackman has led calls to professionally blackball some pro-Palestinian student activists at Harvard who put the blame for the Oct. 7 attack solely on Israel. And he faced accusations of bigotry after he claimed last week that Harvard President Claudine Gay, who is Black, wouldn’t have her position if not for a "fat finger on the scale," suggesting she was hired solely because of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
I've wondered what consequences, if any, the prominence of these figures might have for pro-Israel advocacy in the United States. I fear the consequences we see in the immediate term — the potential toppling of college presidents and the possible blacklisting of pro-Palestinian students, for instance — may not be the only ones. After all, Americans’ support for Israel’s government has declined amid the Israel-Hamas war. And having Stefanik, Trump and Ackman at the forefront of this movement is unlikely to stem that tide.