At today's Senate Health Committee hearing on antisemitism on college campuses, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) slammed the Trump Administration for attempting to deport foreign students and cutting funding to universities.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Tragically, anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States.
00:05It is outrageous, it is wrong, and we cannot and we must not tolerate it.
00:11We saw it when white supremacists marched in Charlottesville with swastikas yelling
00:16blood and soil.
00:18We saw it when a man walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue and killed congregants in
00:22their house of worship.
00:24We see it when synagogues are threatened and vandalized, and we see it when Trump administration
00:29officials support far-right Holocaust deniers.
00:34Anti-Semitism is a threat to our most basic freedom in the United States, the freedom
00:39to pursue faith without fear.
00:42But rather than seriously address anti-Semitism and protect Jewish student safety, this administration
00:48is cutting funding for the Office of Civil Rights.
00:51And Trump is cynically using the rise in anti-Semitism as a tool to restrict freedom, stroke fear
00:59and silence dissent.
01:01And it is as terrifying as it is evil.
01:06Under the guise of combating anti-Semitism, this administration cut off $400 million in
01:11funding for Columbia University, funding that, amongst other things, supports critical Alzheimer's
01:17and cancer research.
01:20We can't have cut-offs in Alzheimer's and cancer research in America.
01:25This month, ICE officers arrested students in Columbia and Georgetown and elsewhere lawfully
01:31here in the United States but haven't charged them with a single crime.
01:34We're the United States of America, it's 2025.
01:37You need evidence, you need a crime, you have to say what it is.
01:41And on Tuesday, masked ICE officers grabbed Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University,
01:52off the street as she was on her way to break fast for Ramadan.
01:56She has not been charged with a single crime.
02:00As far as I understand it, the Trump administration arrested these students because they engaged
02:04in the freedom of expression that is explicitly protected under the Constitution of the United
02:09States.
02:10What these individuals said or believed is besides the point.
02:14What matters is that we have a president arresting people because he disagrees with their constitutionally
02:19protected right to freedom of expression.
02:23And that imperils the basic democratic principles on which all of our freedoms relies.
02:28When the government of the United States is sending mass police to grab students off the
02:32streets and from their homes, holding federal dollars or threat of investigation as blackmail
02:39to force institutions into silence and routinely violating the Constitution, the law is passed
02:44by the United States in order to do what he wishes while using the Jewish people and
02:50others as a shield for its transgressions, we have crossed a dangerous, dangerous threshold
02:56from which we cannot return unless we call it out for what it is, authoritarianism.
03:02We have a very serious anti-Semitism problem in the United States of America.
03:09It is a problem that deserves a real and a forceful response.
03:15But the answer to anti-Semitism will never be authoritarianism.
03:19We cannot guarantee freedom if we let Trump march in and steal freedom while we remain
03:25silent.
03:26So, Rabbi Saperstein, in your testimony, you state, quote, anti-Semitism, the hatred of
03:34Jews as Jews thrives in an authoritarian environment where civil liberties are curtailed,
03:41not in spaces of robust, protected democratic discourse.
03:45So please expand on how Trump administration's authoritarian actions are a threat to the
03:52safety of the Jewish community and the role that Congress should play in response to it.
04:02I said before that the Jewish community in America has thrived to enjoy more rights,
04:07more freedoms, more opportunities than anywhere else.
04:10There are a number of reasons for that.
04:12One is the rule of law, which is at the core of our democratic system, our constitutional
04:20system.
04:21A second was the separation of government and religion.
04:28That government would not interfere with religion, be a wall keeping government out
04:32of religion.
04:34This was the first country in the history of the world in which we said your rights
04:38as a citizen will not depend upon your religious identity, your religious beliefs, or your
04:45religious peaceful practices, which is a standard in my work as U.S. Ambassador for Religious
04:50Freedom.
04:51I try to hold every other country accountable to its embodying in the international human
04:57rights covenants.
05:00We have always thrived better in open pluralistic countries than we have in dogmatic and authoritarian
05:09countries.
05:11We are always the other in those authoritarian countries.
05:16The reason we have thrived here has been the opportunities that higher education has given
05:21us, that the public schools brought us up through for generations in this country, and
05:28the attacks on each one of those that we're seeing.
05:32On higher education, on cutting back, even restricting funds, the public schools in terms
05:38of the attacks on the rule of law, on judges, the judicial system, ignoring judicial decisions
05:46that are being made, all of this undercuts the safety of not just Jews, but everyone
05:53who is a victim of discrimination in this country.
05:57Anti-Semitism is the problem.
05:58Authoritarianism is not the answer.
06:00Indeed.
06:02Senator Hawley.
06:03Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
06:07Thanks for calling this important hearing.
06:09Thanks to our witnesses for being here.
06:11Mr. Stern, if I could just start with you.