Police clear anti-Israel camps at MIT, UPenn as protests continue across US

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC., chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, sent a letter Friday to Northwestern University leaders demanding answers about an agreement with anti-Israel agitators.

In the letter, Foxx announces that her committee has launched an investigation into the university’s “response to anti-Semitism and its failure to protect Jewish students.” It seeks, among other materials, documents and communications about the camp and alleged anti-Semitic incidents that have taken place at Northwestern since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

“I have grave concerns about Northwestern’s continued failure to combat anti-Semitism,” Foxx wrote.

The letter comes after Northwestern’s top administrators — including President Michael Schill — faced intense criticism over an agreement with student protesters to end an illegal encampment on campus.

Schill wrote an editorial in the Chicago Tribune on Thursday that said, “University presidents find themselves in a bind when it comes to the wave of protests and encampments on our campuses.”

The column was titled “This is why I reached an agreement with the northwest protesters.”

Schill wrote that anti-Israel protesters at Northwestern “demanded several changes in university policy, including withdrawal from Israel and the end of an academic program focused on Israeli innovation. We said a clear no to both. But we said we understood their isolation and alienation and wanted to work with them to improve life at Northwestern for Muslim students and students from the Middle East and North Africa.”

“Ultimately we agreed that they would demolish the camp and bring the demonstration into compliance with our rules and regulations,” Schill said, adding that the school agreed to “build a house for Muslim and Middle Eastern students.” “Eat, pray and socialize, something our Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Black and female students already enjoy,” among other changes.

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.