WASHINGTON — At a full Education and the Workforce Committee hearing titled “Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology,” Vice Chair Burgess Owens (R-UT) questioned Georgetown University Interim President Dr. Robert Groves on the university’s repeated hosting of an antisemitic speaker who defended the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks.
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Owens highlighted the case of Mohammed El-Kurd, an activist who has claimed Israelis harvest organs and called for Zionists to “perish.” Despite those remarks, El-Kurd was invited to speak at Georgetown four times in the past three years, most recently in partnership with Georgetown faculty and staff.
Owens: “Would you allow a member of the KKK who wished for the deaths of Black Americans to speak at Georgetown? Why would the university allow faculty or students to invite Palestinian antisemitic bigots? Because that’s what this guy is.”
Groves acknowledged that El-Kurd’s statements were “abhorrent,” but struggled to explain why the university permitted his repeated appearances.
Owens made clear that today’s campus antisemitism is being tolerated and, in some cases, enabled by academic leadership.
Owens: “This hatred we’re seeing across the country is coming from our universities. Students arrive with dreams. They leave hating each other, and hating our country, and antisemitism is flourishing because of it.”
Owens reaffirmed the committee’s commitment to rooting out antisemitism from taxpayer-funded institutions and warned university leaders that there will be consequences for inaction.
Owens: “Either eradicate this cancer, or there will be consequences. This is top-down, not bottom-up. We are going to make sure we change that.”
The full hearing is available to watch here.
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