Georgetown University Interim President Robert M. Groves defended the university’s response to antisemitism in a comparatively tranquil testimony at a hearing before a U.S. House of Representatives committee.
The July 15 hearing was the fifth that the Committee on Education and the Workforce held on antisemitism in higher education since December 2023. Groves — alongside The City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez and University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor Rich Lyons — faced questions about the university’s response to antisemitism, campus culture and accusations of antisemitic statements against faculty members.
Past hearings questioned presidents from other universities, including Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Columbia University, Northwestern University and Haverford College, among others.
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), the chairperson of the 45-member committee, said the hearing was part of the “next phase” of the committee’s investigation, focusing on the underlying causes of antisemitism on college campuses rather than the immediacy of student protests and encampments. Walberg said the committee would be particularly interested in student and faculty groups, university policies, Middle Eastern academic centers and foreign funding.
Groves, in both his written testimony and opening statement, quickly pointed out that Georgetown never had a student encampment or serious incidents of violence on following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent intensification of hostilities. With this, Groves distinguished Georgetown from nearly all other university leaders who gave testimony.
“Georgetown is not perfect, and as events evolve, we’ve had to clarify rules of student behavior,” Groves said at the hearing. “But since Oct. 7, Georgetown has not experienced an encampment, physical violence, cancellation of commencement activities or city police activities.”
Student encampments and protests have been a flashpoint in the higher education debate since the first hearing in December 2023, when the presidents of Harvard, UPenn and MIT were unable to state whether students who called for the genocide of Jewish people violated their universities’ codes of conduct. The presidents of Harvard and UPenn subsequently resigned.
Eighteen months later, Groves, Lyons and Rodríguez appeared to have clearer answers, ensuring the hearing was largely devoid of viral moments that characterized previous testimonies. Walberg said he “appreciated” that all three university leaders could provide a clear definition of antisemitism, seemingly comparing this testimony to the past where witnesses struggled to define their institutions’ policies.
Groves referenced Georgetown’s Jesuit values throughout his testimony, which he invoked to defend the university’s diverse speakers and ideologies. He said those values guide the university’s condemnation of antisemitism.
“Georgetown’s religious beliefs have demanded the absence of antisemitism and other hatreds,” Groves said at the hearing. “Indeed, the Church has directed the Jesuits to foster dialogue across all religions. Therefore, any hatred or fear among our students destroys that dialogue. Antisemitism is incompatible with living our mission.”
Groves Offers Specific Policies, Responses in Testimony
After several university leaders struggled against congressmembers’ questioning in previous testimonies, Groves seemed to balance substantive answers with a defense of Georgetown’s free speech policies.
Groves offered previously undisclosed policy changes that Georgetown made to combat antisemitism, different from many university leaders who sought to only defend past actions.
Groves said Georgetown has a close relationship with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an international non-profit supporting Israel and combating antisemitism, to address issues on campus. He said he has met with ADL staff to improve the campus and potentially boost its antisemitism report card, a tool measuring antisemitism on college campuses. Georgetown recently moved from a “D” to “B” rating.
Groves also revealed that Georgetown recently updated its student protest policy to ban masks when violating university policy.
When faced with questions about the influence of funding from Qatar — based on Georgetown’s campus in Qatar and partnership with the state-run Qatar Foundation — Groves readily committed to full transparency, while Lyons evaded the question before saying he would “consider it” with his team.
Groves did not face questions on specific instances of antisemitism on campus, including the swastika carved into a Georgetown residential hall in June, even as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) questioned Rodríguez for a swastika drawn on a CUNY building.
Congressmembers did not question Groves about student protests and speech on campus, a core part of previous hearings. In May, the committee grilled Haverford President Wendy Raymond about the specific language protesters used and requested disciplinary details, which Raymond did not provide. For Groves, House Republicans seemed satisfied with his general definition of antisemitism and his answers regarding faculty behavior.
Groves also agreed that phrases like “globalize the intifada,” a common chant at Georgetown, constitute antisemitism when spoken “as a threat,” a marked difference from former Columbia President Minouche Shafik’s April 2024 testimony that the terms were “distressing.”
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Penn.) asked Groves about flyers critical of Israel that were slid under the doors of first-year residential dorms in August 2024, falsely claiming the students were evicted. Groves quickly condemned the actions as against Georgetown’s policy, saying the responsible students were found and disciplined.
“This was abhorrent, and for the students who saw this and were hurt by this, we apologize as a university,” Groves said. “This is intolerable at Georgetown; we cannot have this sort of behavior.”
Free Speech Defense Walks Fine Line
The majority of Groves’ questions focused on specific faculty members and guest speakers, which Republicans argued demonstrate a climate of antisemitism threatening Jewish students.
Republicans criticized multiple Georgetown professors, fellows and affiliates for alleged posts on social media that condemned Israel or appeared to express support for Hamas or Iran.
While Groves said specific actions were taken on some posts, he defended the university’s commitment to free speech.
“We police carefully the behavior of our faculty in the classroom and their research activities,” Groves said. “They are free, as all residents of the United States, to have speech in the public domain.”
Throughout the hearing, Groves focused more on the university’s overall mission, independent of faculty members’ individual statements, compared to Lyons, who said a professor whose posts seemed to indicate support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack was a “fine scholar.”
When confronted with posts from Georgetown professor Jonathan A. C. Brown (COL ’00) that appeared to advocate for Iran to symbolically strike a U.S. military base to end the recent conflict, Groves revealed that the university placed Brown on leave. Groves also removed him from his chair position in the department of Arabic and Islamic studies pending review.
Groves’ argument was similar to attempted arguments from university presidents in the hearings before, to draw the line between ideological diversity and policing hate speech. Professors, particularly those with tenure, generally are free to say what they want outside of academic settings without repercussions.
But the congressional committee’s focus on individual faculty members may signal broader discontent with U.S. universities’ historical commitment to unfettered academic freedom. Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) seemed dismissive of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding’s (ACMCU) mission of interreligious dialogue, echoing the federal government’s heavy criticism of Columbia’s Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department.
The committee’s interest in unaffiliated speakers and unofficial faculty-led events may also signal a new direction for future hearings, as Republicans seemed to expect Groves to dismiss all faculty associated with these remarks.
Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) said Georgetown should institute guardrails to eliminate antisemitic faculty and speakers, specifically pointing to a recent speech given at Georgetown by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, whom the United States recently sanctioned over allegations of antisemitism and anti-Israelism.
“For crying out loud, you’ve got to get rid of these people that are perpetrating this hate,” Allen said.
Qatar as a Sticking Point
Questions about Georgetown’s campus in Qatar (GU-Q) also followed a similar pattern to previous scrutiny from the federal government over the sources of foreign money.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) investigated Qatar’s influence and accused Georgetown of misreporting funds. At a congressional hearing in May 2024, representatives accused Northwestern University, which also has a campus in Qatar, of partnering with terrorist sympathizers and receiving $600 million from the country.
DOE later sent Georgetown a letter of commendation for its financial reporting, according to Groves.
The committee received Groves’ defense of the Qatar campus better than that of the Northwestern president, as Groves said the campus is part of Georgetown’s Jesuit mission, spreading Catholic and Western values.
“I’m convinced that gradually opening the eyes to new ways of thinking that we represent there, you can see the change occurring already,” Groves said. “Our alumni are taking positions of great importance over time in many countries of the world.”
Rep. Robert Onder (R-Mo.), who questioned Groves about GU-Q, recognized the campus’s mission of spreading “Western-style, Jesuit-style education in the Middle East,” thanking Groves for his answer.
Foreign financial influence has come under increasing scrutiny from the federal government during President Donald Trump’s second term. Trump and his allies have criticized the presence of international students on campuses and the prevalence of funding from China and the Middle East. However, Trump has recently come under fire himself for accepting a $400 million plane from the Qatari royal family.
The hearing seems unlikely to significantly impact Georgetown’s immediate future or prompt intense criticism from the university community, unlike previous hearings that led to national calls for university president’s resignation. Groves did not face threats to federal funding, as did Raymond in May, nor did he struggle to answer any core questions from the committee.
The hearing did, however, reflect a growing divide between House Republicans, House Democrats and university leaders on the nature of higher education, and could indicate increasing congressional interest in overseeing day-to-day university operations as the federal government broadly assaults longstanding norms of academic independence.
In his written testimony, Groves acknowledged that antisemitism and other forms of discrimination remain a problem at Georgetown but said the university is committed to improving itself in line with its Jesuit values.
“Georgetown is not perfect. We have confronted issues not anticipated by our original conduct policies,” Groves wrote. “When we encounter unanticipated challenges, we attempt to improve policies and practices. This is never-ending. This is part of the Jesuit model of ‘discernment,’ where one prayerfully reflects on the past in order to do better in the future.”