Congresswoman Elise Stefanik received the Evelyn Sommer Next Generation Award at the Plaza Hotel on Wednesday night, in recognition of her work in holding America’s top universities accountable for anti-Semitism.
Representatives of the Women’s International Zionist Organization, which presented Stefanik with the award at its annual gala, recognized her leadership in driving change on American campuses. They particularly applauded her performance during the congressional hearings on anti-Semitism that prompted two university presidents to resign, paving the way for broader leadership changes and a reexamination of the purpose of higher education.
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Nevertheless, as Stefanik noted in her remarks, combatting anti-Semitism and restoring the values of academic excellence at America’s elite institutions remain works in progress.
Three years on, the scenes that played out on Ivy League campuses after October 7, 2023, remain shocking. Harvard’s student associations blamed Israel as “entirely responsible” for Hamas’s barbaric violence. A Cornell professor said he was “exhilarated” by the terrorist attack. Chants of “Globalize the Intifada” rang out at protests across America’s top schools. Swastikas were graffitied in restrooms at Columbia. Violence and harassment directed at Jewish students increased sharply across campuses.
That December, those incidents became the subject of the congressional hearings Stefanik led. In her acceptance speech, Stefanik recalled how university presidents offered evasive answers to her questions. “I had struggled to get a direct answer,” she said, so she sought to “ask this in the most straightforward way possible. . . . ‘Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s code of conduct?’”
“One after the other, after the other, MIT, Penn, and Harvard’s presidents answered: ’It depends on the context.’ And the world heard,” she said. “Let me tell you, it does not depend on the context.”
Subsequent public outcry led to the resignation of Liz Magill, then-president of the University of Pennsylvania. Claudine Gay, serving as president of Harvard University, apologized for her remarks but also later resigned amid a plagiarism scandal. Donors withdrew millions of dollars of pledges from the universities, including a $100 million gift that hedge-fund founder and former alum Ross Stevens was due to make to the University of Pennsylvania.
The hearings “set off a long-overdue earthquake in higher education,” said Stefanik. In response, Harvard, UPenn, and others enacted new institutional neutrality policies, committing themselves to civil discourse on campus. Schools also took more severe action against protests and disruption, and a federal investigation resulted in Columbia’s agreeing to a $21 million settlement to resolve alleged civil rights violations against Jewish students.
To Stefanik, the whole affair augured something far more concerning.
“This deep anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine for anti-Americanism,” she said. “More profoundly, it is a much deeper attack on the values and achievements of the West.”
Asked what reforms to higher education she believes policymakers should focus on now, Stefanik told City Journal that more needs to be done to tackle “foreign dollars from adversaries.” And she pointed to the fact that philanthropic investments, like Ken Griffin’s recent $2 billion donation to fund a new Carnegie Mellon campus in Miami, is already catalyzing the creation of innovative competitors.
Founded in 1920, the Women’s International Zionist Organization focuses on social welfare, women’s rights, and education, operating a network of schools and daycare centers in Israel. Proceeds from the group’s annual Sponsor a Child gala, at which Stefanik was honored, will fund the creation of a new support center providing therapeutic care to children affected by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Mona Sterling, the gala’s co-chair, told City Journal that Stefanik was awarded the prize for her work in bringing “everything from under the surface into light.” Her acceptance speech was met with large applause. Elected officials should follow her example in combatting anti-Semitism.