Yeshiva University faculty protest commencement honor for Republican star Elise Stefanik
The group said Stefanik’s record ‘runs counter to the Jewish values of integrity and righteousness’
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) on March 03. Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Anti-Defamation League
By Jacob Kornbluh May 21, 2025
A group of more than 50 faculty members at Yeshiva University have signed a public statement opposing the university’s decision to award Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, its highest honor, the Presidential Medallion, and to feature her as a speaker at Thursday’s commencement ceremony. The school’s president, Rabbi Ari Berman, delivered a benediction at President Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January.
The faculty members cited Stefanik’s close alignment with Trump, including signing an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election, calling Jan. 6 defendants “hostages,” and invoking the antisemitic great replacement theory.
“To award Stefanik the Presidential Medallion is, effectively, to endorse dishonesty, an act that runs counter to the Jewish values of integrity and righteousness that Yeshiva professes to uphold,” the statement reads.
The university reports some 4,500 professional, managerial and support staff across its campuses in its literature.
Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Leadership, 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. Earlier this month, she pressed the president of Haverford College in Pennsylvania over her handling of antisemitism on the campus.
The school said Stefanik earned the award for her “bold resoluteness in the fight against rising antisemitism and her outspoken support for Israel and the Jewish people in the wake of the October 7 attacks.”
Last year’s honoree was Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who has publicly defended Israel’s actions in Gaza. Fetterman used his commencement address to criticize his alma mater, Harvard University, for what he described as its failure to adequately support Jewish students.
The commencement speaker at this year’s ceremony, to be held at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York, is Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of slain American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
The YU group opposing Stefanik’s invitation said that while the audience gathers to share in the grief of a family whose tragedy highlights the pain caused by hatred and violence, “they should not also be required to applaud a politician whose rhetoric has undermined democratic principles, emboldened racist conspiracy theories, and contradicted the core Jewish values of integrity and truth.”
Trump withdrew Stefanik’s nomination for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to preserve the GOP’s razor-thin House majority. She is expected to run for New York governor next year.
