Haverford president draws fire in latest GOP hearing over campus antisemitism
Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat, accused the GOP of ignoring antisemitism on the right and in Trump’s orbit
President of Haverford College Wendy Raymond testifies on May 7. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh May 7, 2025
House Republicans sharply criticized the president of Haverford College in Pennsylvania over her handling of antisemitism on the campus, a replay of the grilling other university leaders have faced at House hearings since the Hamas massacres on Oct. 7, 2023.
A Democrat on the Education Committee called out GOP colleagues for downplaying antisemitism on the right and overlooking the Trump administration’s ties to individuals with antisemitic views.
Wendy Raymond, who has served as president of the elite liberal arts college since 2019, testified Wednesday with two other university presidents, Robert Manuel of DePaul University in Chicago and Jeffrey Armstrong of California Polytechnic State University.
She was the focus of most of the Republican criticism for tolerating pro-Palestinian protests and refusing to disclose what disciplinary actions were taken in cases of antisemitism.
“Respectfully, president of Haverford, many people have sat in this position who are no longer in the positions as president of universities for their failure to answer straightforward questions,” Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York told Raymond in a tense five-minute exchange. Stefanik alluded to the presidents of Harvard and of the University of Pennsylvania who were forced out of their jobs last year after contentious hearings.
Stefanik highlighted a student group’s statement advocating for the “complete dismantling of the apartheid settler colonial state of Israel by all means necessary.” She pressed Raymond on what the phrase implied and whether any disciplinary action had been taken.
Raymond called the language “repugnant” but declined to discuss specific disciplinary measures, citing privacy concerns. Another student-organized event held at Haverford last year invoked antisemitic tropes by suggesting that Israel intentionally spread COVID-19 to harm Palestinians.
Wednesday’s hearing was the fourth in a series of House Education Committee sessions in which Republicans have sharply criticized college presidents over their handling of antisemitism.
Stefanik earned plaudits in the pro-Israel community after challenging the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania on whether calls for the genocide of Jews violate their campus codes of conduct.
Her remarks on Wednesday marked her first return to the spotlight since former President Donald Trump withdrew her nomination for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a move aimed at preserving his agenda in the GOP’s razor-thin House majority.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a first-term Republican from Washington, accused Raymond of lacking basic awareness and downplaying antisemitism after she was unable to say how many Americans were killed or taken hostage during the Oct. 7 attacks. He asked whether her ignorance stemmed from the victims being Jewish, which Raymond firmly denied.
Baumgartner also criticized her for failing to issue a forceful public statement immediately after the attack, contrasting that with a statement she released following the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, in which she described the rioters as antisemitic.
Hearing comes amid GOP infighting over antisemitism and Israel
The hearing comes as Christian conservatives are pushing back on recent legislation aimed at addressing rising antisemitism on college campuses and curbing anti-Zionist rhetoric. Last week, Senate Republicans added an amendment to the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act legislation to protect those who preach that the Jews killed Jesus, widely considered an antisemitic falsehood.
House GOP leadership also withdrew a bill this week intended to protect Israel from boycotts, after facing vocal opposition from Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Both have been accused of trafficking in antisemitism.
“Congress should just stay out of these fights to crack down on free speech,” Massie, the only House member in 2022 to vote against a resolution that calls on the government to take comprehensive measures to safeguard Jewish individuals from antisemitism, told Punchbowl, an online political newsletter. “It’s not illegal to be antisemitic.”
At Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, used his allotted time to press Republicans on whether they would condemn a series of antisemitic incidents and statements within their own ranks.
Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, the committee’s chairman, refused to engage, prompting Casar to proclaim that not a single Republican on the panel was willing to condemn the examples he cited and accused them of enabling hate through their continued allegiance to former President Donald Trump.
“This is a party of ‘very fine people on both sides’ and ‘Jewish space lasers’ does not give a damn about stopping antisemitism,” Casar said, referencing Trump’s comment about the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and past comments by Taylor Greene. “If my Republican colleagues want to stop the spread of antisemitism, maybe they should stop apologizing for and promoting antisemites … If Republicans want to fight antisemitism, they shouldn’t go groveling to the most antisemitic president in modern American history.”
Randy Fine, a newly elected Jewish Republican congressman from Florida, said he donned a yarmulka for the session upon the advice of his 17-year-old son, Jacob. “I don’t do it often,” Fine said, “but that may change in honor of all of the students at these campuses that don’t feel safe to wear it themselves.”
