Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the House committee on education, who for years said that the federal government should stay out of local school board decision-making, is now running an inquisition against the university presidents who chose to negotiate with student protesters, rather than call in the riot police. At her latest congressional hearings on May 22, much of the rage was targeted against Michael Schill, President of Northwestern University, who met with the peaceful protesters on his campus, and reached an agreement, after which the students voluntarily took down their own encampment. President Schill was accused of tolerating an atmosphere of hate and antisemitism on his campus. President Schill attempted to reason with the committee (but there is no reasoning with these crazed zealots) and said that he was Jewish, his family were survivors of the Holocaust, and he fully understands the meaning of antisemitism. Rep. Foxx and several others in her committee ignored his successful approach, and continued with demands for crackdowns, monitoring (surveillance), and “discipline.” The reality is that Schill’s negotiations with student protesters were so successful that it became the model that many other universities tried to study in dealing with their own protesters.
While Rep. Foxx constantly rants against “encampments,” it was her committee which created the encampment movement in the first place. At her last hearing in April, Rep. Foxx forced Columbia University president Minouche Shafik to call in the riot police and clear out the encampment at her campus. President Shafik made the call just hours after the hearing. However, the violent crackdown at Columbia triggered the creation of encampments all across the country, and later around the world. These encampments, in that sense, can be directly traced back to Congresswoman Foxx and her April hearing.
