Stefanik, Gottheimer Launch Bipartisan Caucus To Combat Campus Antisemitism

NASHVILLE, TENN. (VINnews) — A Republican from New York and a Democrat from New Jersey announced a new House caucus this week aimed at confronting antisemitism on American college campuses, pairing congressional oversight with pressure on universities to protect Jewish students.

Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., unveiled the Combating Antisemitism on College Campuses Caucus during a visit Tuesday to Vanderbilt University. The announcement came at a discussion with Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and visiting administrators from Dartmouth College, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Alabama and the University.

The lawmakers said the group will coordinate oversight of how colleges respond to antisemitic harassment, press schools to enforce existing anti-discrimination rules, advance federal legislation targeting campus antisemitism and boycott campaigns against Israel, and highlight campuses they say have handled the problem more effectively.

Gottheimer, who is Jewish, tied the effort to the surge in campus hostility after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

“Since October 7th, Jewish students on too many campuses have been harassed, intimidated, and made to feel like strangers in their own school,” he said. He added that the caucus would “hold universities accountable, back up the schools getting it right, like Vanderbilt, and make sure every Jewish kid can have a college experience without fear of discrimination or violence.”

Stefanik, chair of House GOP leadership and author of the book “Poisoned Ivies,” has been one of Congress’s most visible critics of university presidents since a widely watched 2023 hearing on campus antisemitism.

“I have been proud to be the leader in Congress on combatting antisemitism and anti-Americanism at our colleges and universities,” she said, calling Gottheimer a partner on the issue. “We are committed to saving American higher education for the next generation.”

According to the lawmakers’ offices, the caucus will also track bills that include the Antisemitism Awareness Act, the HEAL Act and the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, an anti-BDS measure the House passed last week that would cut federal student aid to colleges that join commercial boycotts of Israel.

The event in Nashville was framed as a showcase for campuses that have tried to draw a line against harassment while protecting free speech. Vanderbilt has been cited by both members as a model. Other participating schools were invited as examples of administrators willing to confront the problem rather than defer to protest encampments and classroom disruption that followed Oct. 7.

Campus antisemitism has remained a flash point in Congress for nearly three years. Jewish students at several elite universities reported being blocked from walking to class, excluded from student groups and subjected to chants calling for Israel’s destruction. Federal civil-rights investigations followed, along with donor revolts, presidential resignations and a series of House bills tying federal funding to enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Stefanik and Gottheimer have worked across the aisle on that file even as they sit in opposite parties. Their new caucus is intended to keep the issue on the House calendar as the current Congress heads toward its final months.

The members did not announce a full roster of co-chairs or a hearing schedule on Tuesday. They said the immediate work would be oversight, legislation and public attention on universities that either protect Jewish students — or fail to.