House Republicans accuse Penn of 'failure to address antisemitism on its campus'

The Republican-led House Education Committee kicked off its formal antisemitism probe of the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, which the committee called for after an explosive December hearing where three university presidents were grilled on allegations of antisemitism at their schools.

In a letter addressed jointly to Penn's interim president and chairman of the board of trustees, Rep. Virginia Foxx, the North Carolina Republican and committee chairwoman, questioned the university's «failure to address antisemitism on its campus.» The letter said there has been a pattern of «deeply troubling» events and «multiple incidents» of antisemitic vandalism and harassment at the school.

These events, the letter said, included that «anti-Israel groups projected hateful phrases onto university buildings, including 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,'» and Penn staff receiving emails threatening violence against Jewish life on campus.

The committee gave Penn a deadline of Feb. 7 to submit documents related to all «antisemitic acts or incidents» since Jan. 1, 2021.

Similarly, the committee started investigating Harvard University on Jan. 9 by calling for the school to send letters and documents related to any and all antisemitic acts or incidents since Jan. 1, 2021. Harvard's deadline to submit those documents was Tuesday — and Foxx expressed her frustration with their submission, calling Harvard's response to the investigation «woefully inadequate.»

A committee spokesperson told ABC News that the alleged incidents of antisemitism on Penn and Harvard's campuses began prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Because of that, they said, they requested documents that went back far enough for the committee to conduct a