University heads testify before US House committee on campus tensions

WASHINGTON — The heads of three universities and an academic honor society are testifying on Thursday to the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce about universities' handling of pro-Palestinian protests.

The hearing is the sixth event the committee and its subcommittees have held on schools' responses to tensions that have flared since the war began. On dozens of campuses throughout the country, students set up tents and held rallies to call for an end to Israel's onslaught on Gaza and to demand that their universities divest from companies that back the government of Israel.

The student movement, compared by commentators to that of the Vietnam War-era student protests, has reached campuses across the globe. Similar pro-Palestine encampments have been established in Canada, the UK, Europe and Australia and have resulted in several institutions reconsidering their ties with Israel.

The student movement, compared by commentators to that of the Vietnam War-era student protests, has reached campuses across the globe. Similar pro-Palestine encampments have been established in Canada, the UK, Europe and Australia and have resulted in several institutions reconsidering their ties with Israel.

The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned after backlash over their congressional testimony in December about antisemitism on campus.

House lawmakers will now hear from the heads of Northwestern University, Rutgers University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

"Each of you refused to enforce your own rules, preserve campus safety and protect Jewish students," House Education Committee Chair Virginia Foxx said in her opening remarks.

The head of the Phi Beta Kappa Society will testify in his personal capacity, a spokesperson for the organization said.

According to a BBC report, UCLA has temporarily removed its chief of police as it probes his officers' response to a violent melee on campus earlier this month.

The campus police waited more than two hours to break up a fight that started when masked counter-protesters assaulted a pro-Palestinian student encampment.

The response at the top university led to intense criticism, including from the California governor's office, which called the "limited and delayed" police intervention "unacceptable."

The following day, police forcibly removed an encampment of protesters, arriving before dawn and using flash bangs and riot gear to violently push through lines of demonstrators who linked arms to try to stop them. Los Angeles police said 210 people were arrested at the school. 

At Rutgers and Northwestern, the universities reached agreements with student protesters to end the protests. The agreement at Northwestern allows demonstrators to remain through June 1.

A student at Northwestern filed a class-action lawsuit against the school on Monday, alleging it has allowed for "endemic antisemitism" to exclude Jewish students from the full educational experience.