A strong call to the Congress from Restore Our Campuses Coalition (ROCC).
The Restore Our Campuses Coalition (ROCC), a newly formed grassroots organization of students from colleges and universities across the United States, has sent a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, requesting Congressional intervention to stop the “tsunami” of antisemitism sweeping American campuses.
Students from more than 50 universities signed the letter, citing inaction by university leadership in the face of escalating incitement to violence, threats, and harassment of Jewish students. ROCC’s mission is to restore college campuses to be safe environments for learning, intellectual inquiry, and freedom of expression, where all students are included and welcomed.
In their mission statement, ROCC wrote: “It is no exaggeration to say that many school administrators have appeased the antisemites, and surrendered our campuses to terror-supporting hate mobs. This is an absolute disgrace and a complete abdication of all sense of principle, morality and professional responsibility. As the saying goes, “where are the grown ups in the room?”
The open letter to the US Congress calls out that the chaos on many campuses has been orchestrated by groups of students, faculty, and outside instigators who are declaring their support for proscribed terror organizations, calling for the destruction of Israel, and creating “Zionist free zones” in public spaces on university campuses.
“As students and as Americans, we embrace and revere the right to free speech and expression—even when the speech is uncomfortable. However, what is happening on campus is not an exercise in freedom of speech. It is a regressive, coordinated campaign that includes targeting of Jewish students because of our beliefs and identity, with a clear goal of sewing mayhem, disrupting the functioning of our universities, and depriving students of the ability to safely learn and study,” said Eden Yadegar, an undergraduate student at Columbia University.
The letter requests a series of specific measures by Congress, including:
- Enforce Title VI violations and withhold federal funding for identified violations.
- Call for the termination of faculty and expulsion of students who are in breach of university codes of conduct—including for social media posts that specifically support violence against Jews (including Israelis). Freedom of speech does not include freedom to incite, threaten, or create a discriminatory environment for Jewish students on campus. This is particularly egregious when it comes from the very people who are supposed to be educating and teaching students. Instead many are engaged in polemics and propaganda.
- Work with the Administration to initiate and enforce deportation of non-U.S. students who engage in antisemitic activity.
“This is a moment that demands leadership by those who are responsible for our campuses. Instead, unbelievably many of our university leaders have taken no meaningful action to reassert control over our campuses. What they have done is demonstrate continued fecklessness, with a lack of resolve and have taken few concrete steps to enforce rules by which all members of our universities are required to abide,” said Sabrina Soffer, an undergraduate student at George Washington University.
And ROCC concluded on its website: “The events we have been experiencing on campus are not centered on peace and co-existence. Demands for an “intifada revolution,” creating “Zionist-free zones” at American universities, and violent takeovers of university buildings expose the true face of many of the so-called protestors (who often hide behind full face masks). Much of their rhetoric is focused on calls for violence and the elimination of the nation-state of Israel, a democratic close ally of the United States.”