Ashley Moody: Federal Government Should Claw Back University Funds To Stop Antisemitism On Campuses

3/10/2025

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on combating antisemitism, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) called to claw back federal funding to universities to stop antisemitism on campus.

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Transcript

00:00an incredibly important hearing specifically held to address anti-semitism and, you know,

00:09we will never address it, we will never fix it unless we have people on both sides making

00:15true representations. I was very surprised to have one witness blame our recent president

00:24for anti-semitism when college campuses were overtaken and Jewish students had criminal

00:30acts perpetrated against them under a different administration. But I also thought it was

00:36interesting that we blamed the right for not admitting anti-semitism is real when you have

00:40heard every one of us say what are we going to do to address it. In Florida, and I appreciate

00:48the compliment for our universities, we did not see the incredibly dangerous, reckless,

00:59offensive criminal behavior that we saw on college campuses around the nation, but that

01:03doesn't happen by accident. As soon as we saw this popping up, I was attorney general,

01:11leadership in Tallahassee was very clear this is a law and order state, it will not happen,

01:14we communicated directly with our presidents and not only that, I communicated directly

01:18with our chiefs of police, instructed them on the laws, the criminal laws that we were

01:24seeing that people should be arrested for, and we specifically communicated with our

01:29state attorneys and said if they are arrested, the last thing you should do is advocate that

01:34they get right back out and go right back to the university. As we saw in other states.

01:41This is proactive ways to stop this behavior before it destroys any semblance of sanity

01:49and peace and structure and free speech among a university. And so I'm really interested

01:58in some of the statements that maybe we give additional funding to stop this behavior.

02:02I think that's incredibly insane. In fact, I heard Senator Lee talk about are we using

02:11all of the tools at DOJ to stop this? I think maybe we should examine since federal funding

02:21flows to universities, maybe we should examine when universities are accused of allowing

02:27violations of the Civil Rights Act and maybe when there are court opinions that actually

02:32make findings suggest that has actually happened, maybe we should start clawing back federal

02:41funding that's already been given to them. That's a thought. And maybe just maybe the

02:48thing that happened last week where the university president asked permission in the middle of

02:52a protest of the protesters if he could go to the bathroom, maybe that wouldn't be happening

02:57if he thought maybe his federal funding might be clawed back. I was just wondering what

03:02you thought about that, Ms. Kohab.

03:07Thank you. That's a great question. I think that something has to be held over the university's

03:11heads because unless something happens and something changes and there's actual consequences,

03:15why would you change your actions? Look, I don't think the overwhelming majority of administrators

03:20are inherently anti-Semitic. I think they're lazy. And I think that they know that fighting

03:24anti-Semitism takes work and it's not something that's easy. And yes, you're going to make

03:27some people angry, especially the kinds of students that you've been educating to be

03:31angry about everything. If you're admitting the kind of student who takes over buildings,

03:35don't be surprised when the kind of students take over buildings led by their very professors.

03:40That's the thing. We keep saying that there's an issue in higher education, but we have

03:42our head in the sand as to how to fix it. I think that consequences are absolutely necessary.

03:48Filing my complaint was enough to get NYU to the table for a settlement, but that wasn't

03:51even close to changing what happened. After October 7th, you still saw encampments at

03:55NYU and they still had another case against them. I think that the law changes very slowly

03:59and that the only way to hold people accountable is to make sure that there are consequences

04:03on the other side.

04:04And Ms. Lewin, I'll ask you the same question. Do you believe if we had additional tools

04:10provided by the government that allowed for a clawback of federal funds if universities

04:15were found to have allowed or even facilitated civil rights violations, do you think that

04:20would help in combating anti-Semitism on campuses? And you can answer briefly.

04:25Absolutely, Senator Moody. I think that what we need most is to hold the universities accountable.

04:30The law is a very powerful motivator. And what we've seen is that just the threat of

04:36withholding the funds or clawing back the funds has already motivated universities to

04:40act. And I would suggest to you, quite frankly, that university administrators, when we've

04:44negotiated settlements with them, some of them are actually very relieved to be able

04:49to point to the law and to be able to say, we now have to do this because the law requires

04:54us to do it. And it gives them the backbone, which they otherwise seem to lack, to actually

04:59stand up and push back against the Jew hatred that's happening on their campus. So it's

05:04absolutely necessary to hold their feet to the fire and to impose these rules and show

05:09that violating them and violating Title VI has consequences.

05:18Thank you. Thank you all for being here today on this really supremely important topic.

05:27I think all of us on this panel were horrified.

Ashley Moody: Federal Government Should Claw Back University Funds To Stop Antisemitism On Campuses

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