You can Count Sen. Rick Scott among those who believe access to the lucrative federal spigot should be cut off for Harvard University and any other colleges that refuse to stop anti-Semitism on campus.
The Florida Republican on Thursday called for an immediate vote on the Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses Act, a bill that he co-sponsored that would prohibit colleges that “authorize” anti-Semitic events on campus from reaping federal funding through student loans and grants.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott is the author of the bill. Besides Rick Scott, the other co-sponsors include GOP Sens. Marsha Blackburn, Katie Britt, John Cornyn, Joni Ernst, Cindy Hyde-Smith, James Lankford and Ted Budd.
Sen. Rick Scott noted that motivation to pass the bill, first drafted in October, was kicked up after the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT refused to claim that anti-Semitic speech violated their schools’ codes of ethics.
“Last week, millions of Americans were disgusted to see the leaders of America’s elitist universities bow to Hamas-sympathizers and completely fail to condemn the raging antisemitism that is rampant on their campuses,” Scott said in a statement to Florida Daily.
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“That’s why I am currently fighting to prohibit colleges and universities that allow violent antisemitic events on campus from getting a single cent of your tax dollars through federal education funding,” Scott said.
“The weakness of these so-called leaders and their inability to condemn calls for genocide of the Jewish people was beyond disturbing. I’m glad that University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill did the right thing by resigning, but Harvard has chosen to lean into the horrific terrorist-sympathizing we all saw last week and protect its incompetent president that even [President] Joe Biden’s White House was forced to condemn.”
“I am sick and tired of seeing Jewish students be afraid to walk through their own college campuses and be targeted by Hamas fanatics at their homes, businesses and in their classrooms,” Scott added in the statement.
“We need to pass this important bill now in light of this ridiculous display by Harvard so all taxpayer grants, funds… every single cent Harvard receives from the U.S. taxpayers is revoked.”
As the Tampa Free Press reported earlier this week, GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson told radio show host Hugh Hewitt that federal funding to Harvard should be cut.
Harvard received $676 million from Washington last fiscal year.
“The idea that they would not call out cries for the annihilation of the Jewish state and the Jewish people is just, it’s just unbelievable to us. And so everything is on the table,” Johnson told Hewitt.
In addition on Thursday, Scott also announced that he had signed on to a resolution that condemns the pro-Hamas slogan, ‘‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
GOP Sen. Tom Cotton introduced the resolution. Besides Rick Scott, 16 other GOP senators support the resolution.
The text of the measure says the “river to the sea” slogan and similar phrases are “antisemitic and a call for genocide and the destruction of the Jewish state.”
On X (formerly Twitter), Scott said he was “proud to join @SenTomCotton in strongly condemning this vile antisemitism and standing with our great friend Israel. Hate of any kind will NOT be tolerated.”
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