Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) Photo courtesy of Olami Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) held a press conference Wednesday, March 20 in Washington, D.C. featuring two Jewish students urging the federal government to better address antisemitism on college campuses.
Mace’s office drafted a letter to the Department of Education lobbying it “to implement a uniform reporting system for all instances of antisemitic bias and discrimination at all college and universities that receive federal funding.” The first student who spoke at the press conference, Stanford University senior Joshua Jankelow, is South African; he explained that parliamentarians in the South African legislature “have been calling for the arrests of prominent rabbis and have engaged in various campaigns to undermine the safety of the Jewish people in South Africa.” He added: “I fear that the impunity propagated across American college campuses may lead to the same level of hatred among American politicians if it continues to go unchecked and there are no proper procedures for reporting hate on our campuses.”
He emphasized that his South African and Jewish heritage have both played a key part of his campus experience, in one example when he defended Israel at a student government meeting. “Students had said that I, as a Jewish South African, am predisposed to supporting apartheid regimes and thus had no right to discuss the issue.” Further, Jankelow claimed that a student who lauded the Oct. 7 massacre “was lambasted by an anonymous South African who called them from a South African phone number. On a WhatsApp group, people decided to state that since they already knew a particular South African, it would be most wise to pin it on me.” When Jankelow was informed about this, he took down his door sign and reported the development to campus security; Jankelow alleged that security told him “that it’s not their jurisdiction to interfere in a time like this, but rather it is their duty to determine whether a crime has happened or not.” They referred Jankelow to the university’s Protected Identity Harm Reporting office; three days later, the office then referred him back to campus security, who yet again referred Jankelow to the Protected Identity Harm Reporting office.
“It became abundantly clear that the whole system was dedicated to moving students from department to department until their exhaustion eventually outweighed their fear,” Jankelow said, “and I’d argue my experience was one of the more benign. Students have had their safe housing vandalized with slogans of ‘Free Palestine,’ which have nothing to do with the students’ identity.” These students have similarly had to deal with “more offices” like housing, public safety and police, Jankelow said. “With universities being risk-mitigating, they benefit from burying their students in bureaucracy, and it creates an image that they’re doing perfectly fine and they’re perfectly safe.”
Having Mace’s suggestion implemented, Jankelow said, would create “a transparent reporting system” and “ensure that the government actually knows the reality of what’s happening at our college campuses.”
Drexel University senior and Resident Assistant (RA) Gisele Kahlon followed Jankelow, said that on Oct. 9 she rebuked a fellow RA who celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre in a WhatsApp group chat. “I was instantly met with intense backlash from the rest of the RAs,” Kahlon said. “I was dismissed as their colleague and their fellow Drexel Dragon.” Kahlon proceeded to take a deep breath before saying, “Since then, I’ve been seen as one thing and one thing only in their eyes: A Jew. I am not safe on campus.” Kahlon knows an openly Jewish student whose dormitory door burned down, and a friend who was hit in the face while wearing a kippah walking from a Shabbat dinner; the assailant shouted, “F— the Jews!” As far as Kahlon knows, the university is still investigating both matters, and in her eyes neither of them are safe on campus.
“College is the place for students to learn more about themselves and to discover their passions in a safe environment,” Kahlon said. “Jewish students deserve no less … to feel safe is not a privilege, rather, it is a right. It is our right as American Jews.”
In Mace’s letter, the congresswoman also pushed for “reporting by these colleges and universities to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights [OCR] within a defined period of time of details pertaining to each incident of antisemitic bias and discrimination, and the actions taken by the college or universities in response to these incidents.” Additionally, Mace urged the department to “establish a system and ensure compliance” and “terminate federal financial assistance to any college or university that fails to comply with these new reporting requirements.” Mace explained in the press conference that she is circulating the draft letter amongst her colleagues and cited the spike in antisemitic incidents on college campuses since Oct. 7.
“We ought to have a zero-tolerance policy for any antisemitism, period, in our country,” Mace said. “And the stories we’re hearing are awful.” Mace, herself the mother of two teenage kids about to go to college, said she couldn’t “imagine the kind of hate that any child would find on a college campus that should be a safe place for them.”
“We ought to have a zero-tolerance policy for any antisemitism, period, in our country,” – U.S. Rep Nancy Mace
At the press conference, she claimed: “We know that American money is being funneled to UNRWA, an organization that enables and employs Hamas terrorists — this is a proven fact — it’s better spent on resources for colleges … and to support Jewish students right here at home. Rather than sending money overseas that supports terrorism, that money should be right here in the United States to support our Jewish citizens and our Jewish students.” The congresswoman added that her proposed measure to the Department of Education would provide “Jewish students with a vital voice and a safety net.”
Jankelow and Kahlon are part of a group of 25 students who are visiting D.C. as part of the #ZeroTolerance initiative by the Jewish group Olami. Mace’s office is partnering with Olami on the initiative. Olami Executive Vice President & Managing Director of Vision and Partnerships Rabbi David Markowitz and Strategic Advisor Charlie Harary as well as Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Vice Chair Emeritus Malcolm Hoenlein, who currently serves as the president of Abraham Spirit, also spoke at the press conference.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.