College Campuses ‘Ransacked’ by Antisemitism, Rep. Auchincloss Says

(Boston Herald/TNS) — College campuses are awash in antisemitism and need to do more to address it, U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) said in an appearance Sunday on Fox News.

Auchincloss said that his visits to some Bay State’s college campuses, including his alma mater, Harvard University, have left him with concerns for the Jewish students studying at those schools in the midst of protests over an ongoing war between the Israeli military and the Hamas terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

“Harvard and other universities have, unfortunately, become ransacked by antisemitism. I have seen it in my conversations with Israeli and Jewish students,” Auchincloss said.

Last month, after the Anti Defamation League gave several colleges in Massachusetts poor or failing grades for their response to a noted rise in antisemitic behavior on campus, Auchincloss demanded those schools provide him information on what they were doing to combat the problem.

The schools have responded to his request for that information, and the Newton native said his staff is reviewing it, but that the problem doesn’t appear to be going away.

“Right now, Harvard is failing,” he said Sunday.

If schools cannot comply with their obligations under federal law to provide all students with a safe place to learn, regardless of their religious identity, Auchincloss said that it may be necessary to consider withholding federal funds from those institutions.

“It needs to be on the table,” he said.

In a report released early in April, the ADL awarded just two of the ten Bay State universities that they examined — Brandeis University and Amherst College — with a grade of B or better regarding their response to a nationwide uptick in antisemitism.

Auchincloss demanded answers from Boston University, Northeastern University, Wellesley College, and Williams College, which each received a ‘C’ grade, as well as Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University, and UMass Amherst, which each received an ‘F’ grade.