Linda McMahon, Trump’s education secretary pick, says she’ll fight antisemitism — but offers few specifics
McMahon’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday explored her vision for a department Trump may seek to eliminate
President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Education, testifies during her Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on February 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. McMahon, the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment, is under fire as Trump has announced he plans to eliminate the Department of Education and pass its function to the states. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(JTA) — At her confirmation hearing Thursday, Linda McMahon made clear she expected to face questions about how she would combat campus antisemitism as secretary of education.
“If I am confirmed, the department will not stand idly by while Jewish students are attacked and discriminated against,” McMahon told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during her opening statement. She also said she would fight “for the college freshman facing censorship or antisemitism on campus.”
But when asked how she’d differ from the Biden administration’s approach to the issue, President Donald Trump’s nominee offered few specifics — beyond saying she would “make sure that the presidents of those universities and those colleges are taking very strong measures not to allow this to happen.”
As education secretary, McMahon would be tasked with fulfilling one of Trump’s central pledges to Jewish voters: to take an aggressive posture toward campus antisemitism.
The Republican Party platform last year vowed to “deport pro-Hamas radicals” — and Trump signed an executive order to that effect last month, directing the removal of foreign students who support terrorism. On the campaign trail, Trump also promised to remove federal funding and accreditation from schools that host “antisemitic propaganda.”
But at the same time, Trump has mused about abolishing the Education Department entirely. The department’s civil rights office, which handles antisemitism complaints, has recently begun laying off workers.
When Democrats asked her about those layoffs, McMahon demurred.
“I have not yet been in the department. I don’t know about all the administrative people that have been put on leave. I want to look into that,” she said in response to Sen. Andy Kim, from New Jersey.
Kim had noted that some of the laid-off employees “were in the process of investigating cases directly related to antisemitic harassment” under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Title VI investigations were the anchor of the Biden administration’s response to the proliferation of campus antisemitism following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war 16 months ago, and his education department promised to investigate every complaint it got. Now, dozens remain unresolved.
Republicans faulted the Biden administration for the large number of outstanding cases, even as many were resolved in the waning days of Biden’s term. Since Trump took office, more investigations have been opened.
At the hearing, Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, pressed McMahon multiple times on how she’d handle the “backlog” of Title VI investigations. McMahon declined to offer specifics, saying only that she would examine the issue.
“I’d like very much to be confirmed and to be able to get into the department and understand that backlog,” she told Cassidy. That answer led Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, to praise McMahon’s “strong commitment” to dealing with Title VI.
McMahon, a former executive with World Wrestling Entertainment who led Trump’s Small Business Administration during his first term, is one of Trump’s more polarizing cabinet nominees, largely due to her relative lack of experience in education. She has served on the Connecticut state board of education as well as on a Catholic university board.
Trump’s first-term secretary of education, school choice advocate Betsy DeVos, was likewise controversial and was narrowly confirmed. School choice remains a priority for Trump, and he could get a boost from the Supreme Court, which is set to rule on whether states must allow publicly funded religious schools. McMahon’s hearing was interrupted multiple times by protesters, several of whom identified themselves as public school teachers.
McMahon defended Trump’s policies on campus antisemitism and, at other points, appeared to endorse campuses’ existing policies. She suggested that university presidents could “call in the police” and “set standards” to contend with violent pro-Palestinian protesters — both steps multiple university presidents have already taken. She also endorsed a continued emphasis on Title VI.
The only new idea related to antisemitism McMahon committed to was a request from Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall to form an “antisemitism commission,” though neither Marshall nor McMahon offered details on how such a commission would differ from an existing federal task force on the issue. At times during the hearing McMahon seemed more animated by other issues, including school choice and barring trans girls from playing girls sports.
Campus protests have cooled considerably under Trump, with only one encampment, at Maine’s Bowdoin College, so far lasting for a few days before the school suspended eight students for participating. University boards also remain a target of student activism, with Michigan State University protesters shutting down a meeting of the school’s Regents last week to push for divestment from Israel. Protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles, meanwhile, targeted a Jewish regent at his home with violent messaging.
Antisemitism also remains in the spotlight for university leadership: Harvard recently settled lawsuits from Jewish groups in part by promising to more stringently enforce policies on dialogue around Israel, which led two of its prominent pro-Palestinian faculty members to exit the school.
Meanwhile, Columbia’s faculty senate voted Wednesday on a new resolution to combat antisemitism, shortly after a Jewish professor at the school publicly announced his own exit owing to what he described as “systematic” anti-Israel bias. Columbia has also handed down harsh disciplinary measures to student protesters in recent weeks.
Faculty conduct around Israel and Zionism also remains under scrutiny. A recent Brown University conference on “non-Zionist Jewish traditions,” headlined by several prominent Jewish academics, drew opposition from a local pro-Israel group.
In her hearing, McMahon voiced support for freedom of speech on campus tempered by concern for public safety, echoing language used by university leaders. Pro-Palestinian activists have contended that they are being censored under the guise of fighting antisemitism, while campus administrations have responded by saying their protests often violate school policy.
“I fully believe that there should be First Amendment protection for discourse and for freedom of speech,” McMahon said in response to a question about campus antisemitism from South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. “But when you become involved in activities that are actually endangering the students that are on campus, then that is not what should happen.”
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