Over 70 US lawmakers demand ousting of UPenn, Harvard and MIT presidents for not condemning Jewish genocide calls

Over 70 US lawmakers demand the governing bodies of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology oust their presidents over comments they made during a congressional hearing about antisemitism on US campuses amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, Reuters reports.

Republican Representative Elise Stefanik and Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz are the main signatories on a letter demanding the university chiefs be removed to prevent “an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture.”

“Testimony provided by presidents of your institutions showed a complete absence of moral clarity and illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities that your university presidents enabled,” the letter charges.

“There is no context in which calls for the genocide of Jews are acceptable rhetoric. Their failure to unequivocally condemn calls for the systematic murder of Jews is deeply alarming,” the letter reads.

“It stands in stark contrast to the principles we expect leaders of top academic institutions to uphold. It is hard to imagine any Jewish or Israeli student, faculty, or staff feeling safe when presidents of your member institutions could not say that calls for the genocide of Jews would have clear consequences on your campus,” the lawmakers say.

The lawmakers also say the boards must work to ensure the safety of Jewish and Israeli students.