Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) sent a letter criticizing the U.S. Department of Education (Department of Education) after a watchdog report revealed the federal government is using taxpayer money to fund the salaries of multiple professors who hold anti-Israel or antisemitic views, including one educator who described the October 7 attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians as a “stunning victory” for Palestine.
The letter came in response to an October report by Open the Books, a nonprofit whose mission is to “capture and post all disclosed spending at all levels of government,” which revealed the Department of Education funded professors with antisemitic, anti-Israel, or pro-Hamas views at Columbia University, Indiana University, and Georgetown University, as part of two federal grant programs.
According to the report, the Department of Education accepted grant applications from those schools despite the applications highlighting “professors with radical anti-Israel ideas, and in one case, a disinterest in their school’s code of conduct.”
Open the Books identified professors including Dr. Joseph Massad, a professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia, who published an article describing Hamas’s October 7 attacks as “a stunning victory for the Palestinian resistance.”
Hamas killed more than 1,200 people on October 7, and Israel has been in a state of war with the terrorist group since the attack.
According to Open the Books, Massad was mentioned by name in a successful 2018 grant application from Columbia. It reportedly listed Massad among professors who educate Ivy League students with a “focus on the modern history, gender, political economy, international relations, politics and culture of the region.”
Blackburn and Lummis wrote in their letter to Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, “The Biden-Harris administration should not channel American taxpayer dollars toward extremist professors who inculcate their students with hatred of America’s strongest ally — and sole democracy — in the Middle East,” and warned the “potential abuse of taxpayer funds is not just wasteful but may run contrary to the intent of the programs and the law.”
With a November 29 deadline, the senators demanded the federal agency explain whether funding anti-Israel professors is consistent with the Department of Education’s mission if it would commit to auditing its grant programs to ensure recipients abide by the agency’s mission, and whether it would sever grant funding to institutions “found to be abusing such funding to indoctrinate their students with anti-Israel propaganda.”
Blackburn and Lummis also demanded to know whether the Department of Education would denounce the federal funding of anti-Israel professors.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised he will dismantle the Department of Education, and Governor Bill Lee last week said he would welcome the effort to return control over education to the states.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Marsha Blackburn” by Marsha Blackburn.
