1997 College graduate and United States Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) sent a letter to Interim Penn President Larry Jameson — and eight other university presidents — on Oct. 4 requesting that they publicly detail their universities’ plans to protect Jewish students on campus.
Gottheimer also sent the letter to the presidents of Rutgers, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, George Washington, and New York Universities, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The letter came days before the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, the aftermath of which has involved widespread pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses — including at Penn.
"We received the letter and are considering our response,” a University spokesperson wrote to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
In a statement to the DP, Gottheimer wrote that although diverse viewpoints are important in higher education, universities cannot "become a bully pulpit for those who seek to spew hate."
“I am dismayed that this type of blatant hate and antisemitism has been occurring at my alma mater for more than a year now," Gottheimer wrote to the DP.
Citing statistics from the Anti-Defamation League — which detailed more than 8,800 antisemitic incidents in 2023 and a spike in incidents in the last three months of the year — and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gottheimer wrote in the letter that it was “crucial” and “imperative” that universities prepare plans to protect Jewish students on campus.
“We are experiencing a tidal wave of antisemitism across our communities and universities, and it is paramount that as university presidents, you take direct action to enforce plans to ensure the safety of Jewish students,” Gottheimer wrote.
He emphasized that administrators at colleges and universities are required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and Executive Order 13899 — a 2019 executive order that focuses on the implementation of Title VI, including support for the International Holocaust Remembrance Association's definition of antisemitism — to protect Jewish students from acts of hate by “antisemitism, harassment, and intimidation,” adding that their federal funding eligibility would be at risk if they failed to do so.
Gottheimer’s letter comes after Jewish students across the United States, including at Penn, have expressed feeling unsafe on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and ensuing campus protests over the past year.
It also follows scrutiny of university presidents for their handling of antisemitism on their college campuses. Former Penn President Liz Magill — along with the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and American University — testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce last December in response to this criticism, before ultimately resigning just days after her congressional testimony.
"One of the things my time at Penn taught me was to never stop fighting to do better. That is why I will never stop fighting for campuses to do the same for their students," Gottheimer wrote to the DP. "No amount of antisemitism or hate should be tolerated on campus.”
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