Democrats face challenges navigating anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses

Congressional Democrats are struggling to coalesce around a unified message as antisemitic and at times violent anti-Israel protests play out on college campuses.

The demonstrations, which have led to mass arrests as students break campus rules and the law, have been condemned by Democratic leaders, but some lawmakers have been more forceful than others as the issue threatens to weigh the party down ahead of the 2024 elections.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), tasked with getting Senate Democrats elected as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, emphasized the First Amendment in defending the campus protests.

“People have a right to protest and get out and speak their mind. And that’s what we’re seeing happen,” Peters told the Washington Examiner. “You have protests on both sides of the issue. People are very passionate about the issue, and it just shows the American political process working itself out.”

But the chaos surrounding the demonstrations, including instances of vandalism and harassment, has caused a political headache for battleground Democrats, who don’t want to be seen as condoning violence even as they defend free speech. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), running for a fourth term in Ohio, sought to walk back previous comments from earlier this week that “people always have the right to speak out and should.”

“Antisemitism and hate and violence are unacceptable on campuses,” Brown told home-state reporters Wednesday. “If students want to make their voices heard, they need to do it in a way that’s nonviolent. They need to do it in a way that doesn’t spew hatred. And the laws need to be enforced.”

Bernie Moreno, Brown’s Republican opponent, said the Democratic incumbent “has made it clear that he stands with the illegal encampments and anti-Israel demonstrators wreaking havoc on college campuses in support of Hamas.”

National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Philip Letsou responded, “No one is buying his election-year flip-flops.” The NRSC has a series of new ads targeting at-risk Senate Democrats, including Brown, over the Biden administration’s efforts to cancel student loans, which Republicans say is now propping up “antisemitic mobs taking over universities.”

Dozens of students at Ohio State University were arrested last week during protests.

The demonstrations have created an uncomfortable divide for the party. Some Democrats have signaled openness to pulling funding from schools that can’t get the protests under control, as Republicans have demanded, but Democratic leadership has so far held off on saying whether it would support such a legislative step.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the highest-ranking elected Jewish leader in the United States, sidestepped questions Wednesday about whether the public should hear directly from President Joe Biden amid the heightened tensions.

Hundreds of New York Police Department officers, donned in riot gear, on Tuesday night removed pro-Palestinian student protesters who had barricaded themselves inside a Columbia University building.

“There’s no place for violence or antisemitism,” Schumer said at a Wednesday press conference before referencing lengthier remarks he delivered on the subject earlier this week.

Also on Wednesday, the House passed with large bipartisan support the Antisemitism Awareness Act to bolster Department of Education discrimination rules. However, Schumer would not commit to bringing it to a floor vote in the Senate, saying that senators “haven’t seen what the House is sending us yet.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that Biden is being kept up to date on protests and is “monitoring the situation closely.”

“No president has spoken more forcefully about combating antisemitism than this president,” she said. “[Americans] have a right to peacefully protest as long as they’re within the law, and that it’s peaceful. Forcibly taking over a building is not peaceful.”

Some congressional Democrats have been unequivocal in their condemnations, including Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who are both up for reelection. Rosen suggested Biden should play a more direct role.

“A teenage college student, 18 or 19 years old, has nothing to do with the decisions that another country’s government makes,” Rosen said. “This is antisemitism. We have to call it out, and it has to be stopped.”

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Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who is also facing reelection in Montana, said he’s open to the idea of stripping colleges and universities of public funding if they fail to quell religious discrimination that runs afoul of Title VI.

“If the school’s turning a blind eye to it, yeah, let’s take a look at it,” he said.