Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., laced into Harvard University President Dr. Claudine Gay during a House committee hearing on the rise of antisemitism on college campuses on Tuesday, challenging that the Ivy League school’s leader answer “Harvard student calling for the mass murder of African-Americans is not protected free speech at Harvard, correct?”
Stefanik demanded that Gay respond to the “yes or no question,” before asking the Harvard president if she was familiar with the term “intifada” and cited multiple instances of Harvard students chanting, “There is only one solution. Intifada, Revolution,” and “globalize the intifada” since Hamas’ October 7 massacre and Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza that followed.
The House GOP chair stated, “the use of the term intifada in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against, civilians and the genocide of Jews.” Gay admitted she had heard the term before and said, “That type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.”
While Gay admitted that speech calling for intifada, and therefore genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally, was “at odds with the values of Harvard,” but deflected when pressed by Stefanik if those sorts of remarks were against Harvard University’s code of conduct.
“President Gay’s willingness to call chants of ‘Intifada’ and other hateful antisemitic speech ‘abhorrent’ is reassuring, but the next step is action. When students are saying ‘from the river to the sea Palestine will be Arab’ and clearly calling for violence against Jewish communities – and even interrupting classes to do so – we need to hear Harvard clearly state how it will discipline those who are voicing these hateful views,” another student, Charlie Covit, an activist for the Israel on Campus Coalition, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on X: @danimwallace.
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