Jewish students at Northwestern University met with members of Congress on Wednesday to recount how anti-Israel protests have turned into “shocking and scary” anti-Semitic hate-fests, with demonstrators defacing the Star of David and chanting that Jews should “go back to Germany.”
“At the encampment, I was told to go back to Germany and get gassed,” said a freshman civil engineering student named Mia, who traveled with the delegation of Northwestern students to Washington, D.C. “I overheard in my dorm people talking about the white Jewish power on campus, and what we have to do to address this Jewish power.”
“To me [this is] really, really shocking and scary,” she said. “It’s leaking everywhere on campus, not just the [protest encampments].”
Alumni and students’ parents have accused Northwestern administrators of failing to combat anti-Semitism at the school, where anti-Israel protesters recently set up a protest encampment in violation of the campus’s anti-trespassing policies.
Northwestern president Michael Schill declined to arrest the students this week and instead agreed to numerous concessions—including hiring more Palestinian faculty members—to get the protesters to disband the illegal encampment.
The Department of Education is also investigating alleged anti-Jewish incidents at the school, where anti-Israel protesters have paraded the Hamas flag and professors have canceled classes to encourage students to attend the demonstrations against Israel.
The group of over a dozen Northwestern students met with numerous Republican and Democratic House members on Wednesday, including House Republican Conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Rep. Mike Lawler (R., N.Y.), Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D., N.J.), Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D., Fla.), and Rep. Ritchie Torres (R., N.Y.), ahead of the lower chamber’s vote on an anti-Semitism bill.
Stefanik said she was disturbed by the stories of “repeated anti-Semitic attacks and harassment” at the school.
“Instead of addressing these attacks and protecting their Jewish student body, Northwestern’s leadership has chosen to reward the violent pro-Hamas mob by submitting to their outrageous demands, emboldening others across the nation to follow suit,” she said. “Congress will continue to hold these failed higher education institutions accountable.”
The students also met with Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, who is overseeing an investigation into anti-Semitism at universities. The group pressed the lawmakers to investigate the incidents at Northwestern University and to confront Schill, the school’s president, about his alleged inaction.
“This is a bipartisan trip. We have no political agenda. We just want protection,” said Michael Teplitsky, a Northwestern alumnus who helped organize the visit.
“These students have been victims of harassment and discrimination like you’ve never seen and could never imagine in America at any point in time in the last 30, 40 years,” he said. “These administrators that are running these institutions are complicit in a crime.”
The students said their campus had become “unrecognizable” due to the protests, during a lunch meeting with Jewish community leaders from B’nai B’rith, the Israeli embassy, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, and Hadassah.
“In the entrance of Deering Meadow this week, which is where the camp is set up, I found a Jewish star with an ‘X’ on it,” said Jaime, a Northwestern senior. “It definitely made me and others feel very unsafe.”
Another student, Toby, said there has been a “very concerning decrease in Jewish students wanting to express their identities,” such as wearing jewelry or religious items that could identify them as Jewish.
James, a freshman at Northwestern said he was concerned about the “amount of people who are not students who have been allowed to come onto campus, camp on campus, live on our private campus. I have female friends who feel unsafe.”
Another freshman named Lauren said the anti-Israel protests are being promoted by the faculty. She said one of her professors “spoke to pride in our university for forming the [anti-Israel] encampment and for the student conduct. He urged us to attend, canceling class.”
