Restore Our Campuses Coalition 

 

Last updated: May 21, 2024 

 

Dear Speaker Johnson and Minority Leader Jeffries,

 

We, the undersigned, are American student leaders who attend 62 universities across our great nation. We have recently come together and formed the Restore Our Campuses Coalition (ROCC) and write to you with a unified voice, representing thousands of college students across the United States.

 

Some of us have had the opportunity to meet with Members of Congress to share our experiences as a result of the rapid spread of virulent antisemitism on our college campuses. All of us are on the front lines of the chaos that has engulfed our schools. We are writing this letter to express our gratitude for your leadership and to request urgent Congressional intervention to address the tsunami of antisemitism and anarchy that threatens the safety and Constitutional rights of Jewish—and all— college students.

 

We are deeply appreciative of your personal leadership over the past months and the principled stance you have both taken, raising the visibility of the crisis of antisemitism at America’s universities. We also are grateful for the leadership of the House Education and Workforce Committee for its efforts to expose antisemitism and begin to hold university presidents accountable. Regrettably, notwithstanding your collective efforts, over the past several weeks we have all seen unprecedented escalation in brazen antisemitism on campuses, threats against Jewish students, incitement to violence against Jews and physical assaults.

As students and as Americans, we embrace and revere the right to free speech and expression—even when the speech is uncomfortable. This is a core American value. However what is happening on campus is not an exercise in freedom of speech. It is a regressive, coordinated campaign that includes targeting of Jewish students because of our beliefs and identity, with the stated goal of sewing mayhem, disrupting the functioning of our universities, and depriving students of the ability to safely learn and study.  

 

We have seen many of our campuses descend into anarchy, where mobs have taken over public spaces and buildings, cheered on and supported by faculty, and literally supported by Hamas and the Iranian regime and its proxies in the form of statements published on social media. In just the past few days, events are escalating where Jewish students are being physically blocked from accessing buildings and spaces on campus and physically assaulted as well. We look at these events with bewilderment and disgust that this behavior is being allowed and in some cases encouraged by our leaders.

 

This is a moment that demands leadership by those who are responsible for our campuses. Instead, unbelievably many of our university leaders have taken no meaningful action to reassert control over our campuses. What they have done is demonstrate continued fecklessness, with a lack of resolve and have taken few concrete steps to enforce rules by which all members of our universities are required to abide.

 

It is no exaggeration to say that many school administrators have appeased the antisemites, and surrendered our campuses to terror-supporting hate mobs. This is an absolute disgrace and a complete abdication of all sense of principle, morality and professional responsibility. As the saying goes, “where are the grown ups in the room?”

 

The events we have been experiencing on campus are not centered on peace and co-existence. Demands for an “intifada revolution,” creating “Zionist-free zones” at American universities, and violent takeovers of university buildings expose the true face of many of the so-called protestors (who often hide behind full face masks). Much of their rhetoric is focused on calls for violence and the elimination of the nation-state of Israel, a democratic close ally of the United States.

 

We also believe that if this kind of hate was targeted at any other minority group, it would be rightly seen as a national scandal and would not be tolerated. Yet because Jews are the target, we have been gaslighted with “it depends on the context.” We write you to say loudly and unequivocally: No it does not depend on the context. There is no context for incitement, targeted bullying and harassment.

This letter is a plea to you to use the power of Congress to hold university leaders accountable, to investigate the funding behind these so-called protests and the significant funding universities have been and continue to receive from terror states. We seek your immediate intervention, within the laws of our country and states, to help restore our campuses to being safe environments for all students to study, learn, express themselves, and to be free from an environment of hate, exclusion, harassment and antisemitic discrimination.

 

Specifically we urge Congress to:

 

1. Enforce Title VI violations and withhold federal funding for identified violations.

2. Call for the termination of faculty and expulsion of students who are in breach of university codes of conduct—including for social media posts that specifically support violence against Jews (including Israelis). Freedom of speech does not include freedom to incite, threaten or create a discriminatory environment for Jewish students on campus. This is particularly egregious when it comes from the very people who are supposed to be educating and teaching students. Instead many are engaged in polemics and propaganda.

3. Work with the Administration to initiate and enforce deportation of non-U.S. students who are encouraging terror driven jihadic behaviors.

 

None of these recommendations are or should be controversial. To be clear: the perpetrators are bullies who are driven by an agenda that is infused with hate, bias and prejudice, and they often invert the narrative to portray themselves as victims.

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The antisemitism that is infecting our campuses is a crisis that knows no political boundary. It does not distinguish between Republicans, Democrats, or Independents. Political affiliation provides no immunity to this hateful virus which is antithetical to our core American values.

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Speaker Johnson and Leader Jeffries, each of us who has co-signed this letter are children or grandchildren of immigrants who came to America in pursuit of the American dream, and to escape persecution and antisemitism elsewhere. We have worked hard to earn our place at our schools. Our families have followed the rules, worked tirelessly to provide us with the opportunity for an education. Yet we—and tens of thousands of Jewish students at campuses across the United States of America, in 2024— find ourselves in a situation we thought unimaginable until the past several months.

 

We thank you again for your tireless leadership, for your patriotism and for your support.

 

Respectfully,

 

Signed Delegates

 

CC: Chairwoman Virginia Foxx; Ranking Member Bobby Scott