The presidents of Yale University and the University of Michigan will not appear before a full congressional committee as previously expected and be subjected to a public grilling about their responses to alleged antisemitism on their campuses.
Instead, Peter Salovey of Yale and Santa Ono of Michigan will be questioned on June 20 and August 9, respectively, on Capitol Hill in transcribed interviews by U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee “”counsel(s) and/or Committee staff designated by the Chair and Ranking Member, respectively,” according to letters sent to them Thursday by committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx and included in a committee press release.
“The Majority and the Minority will question you in alternating, hour-long rounds, beginning with Majority staff, until neither side has remaining questions,” Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, said in the letters, which also informed the presidents that their universities were being investigated for their “failure to protect Jewish students.”
“These interviews are part of the Committee’s ongoing investigation into antisemitism at Yale and Michigan,” the press release said.
The press release did not provide an explanation for the format change for interviewing the presidents who were expected to get the same hot-seat treatment as the seven other college presidents who participated in hearings held by the committee in the last six months, most recently last week. The presidents of Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania were forced to resign after their remarks at a December hearing were widely criticized.
“The Committee has identified patterns of antisemitism on Yale’s and Michigan’s campuses and a general failure by these universities to protect Jewish students that must be addressed,” Foxx said in the press release. “Presidents Salovey and Ono will be required to appear before the Committee for transcribed interviews and answer questions on their records.”
(The headline on this article was corrected. It originally said the president of Harvard University was scheduled to participate in the upcoming House committee hearing. It is the president of Yale University who will be interviewed by the committee. )
