Republican lawmakers in a Wednesday letter applied more pressure on Sarah Lawrence College to prevent pro-Hamas activists from terrorizing Jewish students as part of their expanding antisemitism probe.
The House Education and Workforce Committee is asking the New York-based school for answers about allegedly antisemitic professor and student behavior in a letter signed by Republican Reps. Tim Walberg of Michigan and Burgess Owens of Utah that was obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Among the first of the committee’s examples was the school’s diversity office hosting an event with the pro-Hamas group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) following the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre in Israel.
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“Two days after the October 7th terrorist attack, Sarah Lawrence’s Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) invited Jewish students to attend a so-called ‘solidarity with Palestine’ event sponsored by SJP, the same group whose members have allegedly harassed Jewish students on Sarah Lawrence’s campus,” the letter said, citing a Jewish student’s March 2024 civil rights complaint. “SJP’s own social media post advertising this event featured an image of a bulldozer on October 7th with the caption, ‘long live Palestine.’”
“The DEIB Director’s invitation allegedly caused significant distress to Jewish students as an apparent institutional endorsement of
National SJP’s position celebrating the terrorist attack as a ‘historic win,’” the committee wrote.
Sarah Lawrence’s communications team and its SJP chapter did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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The committee also asked Sarah Lawrence for records in a March letter that focused largely on a disruptive protest encampment that anti-Israel activists set up in November. “[Sarah Lawrence] allowed this building takeover and encampment to persist for a week before yielding to encampment organizers’ demands,” the committee wrote then, referencing protesters’ requests for no disciplinary charges and disclosures about the school’s supposed financial ties to Israel.
“Although we recognize your response to our letter, our investigation has raised additional questions regarding the environment Jewish students have faced on campus, prompting the need for additional information,” the new letter reads.
The letter also brought attention to Sammy Tweedy, the student who filed the complaint against Sarah Lawrence. Tweedy reportedly left the college after he said he experienced bullying and threatening text messages from SJP members on campus, including one that allegedly said he “should have been killed in Israel.”
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The committee wants Sarah Lawrence to hand over records about its response to complaints of antisemitism, communications from facilities such as the DEIB office and antisemitism awareness trainings, according to the letter.
The Trump administration and House lawmakers have investigated several public and private campuses over alleged antisemitism since October 2023. The Department of Education has threatened to strip schools of hundreds of millions of federal dollars from universities over the issue, while Republicans in Congress seek tax increases on university endowments.
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