U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss has a simple warning for university administrators who might be thinking about taking it easy on campus demonstrators if they reprise their noisy and disruptive tactics this fall.
Those are some nice endowments you got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to them.
“The next Congress is a tax-writing Congress, and endowments are tax-preferred,” Auchincloss, D-4th District, told MassLive during a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday as the House started its six-week summer break.
Under federal law, most colleges and universities are exempt from income taxes and other levies.
But those rules, like most everything else in life, always are subject to change.
“These university presidents need to enforce their own rules of conduct and adhere to their Title VI obligations,” Auchincloss continued, referring to the anti-discrimination requirements in U.S. law for programs and institutions that receive federal money.
“Or else,” he warned, “there’s not going to be bipartisan support to continue giving the … hedge fund on the Charles River tax-preferential treatment.”
Auchincloss, who is Jewish and a Harvard University alum, made national headlines earlier this year when he called out his alma mater and other schools statewide for failing to take down pro-Palestinian encampments on campus.
The former Marine argued the encampments created a hostile learning environment for Jewish and Israeli students. During an appearance outside Harvard’s campus in May, he vowed to stand with those students.
Last week, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress that Auchincloss attended, but some Massachusetts lawmakers skipped, the lawmaker took to X to remind higher education leaders across the commonwealth of their obligations.
“The Jew hate and anti-American garbage coming out of college campuses this spring didn’t end with the last day of school,” Auchincloss wrote. “College presidents, you’re on notice: Enforce your codes of conduct from day one of the fall semester.”
Auchincloss’ warning about the schools’ endowments came when MassLive asked him about what appeared to be an unspoken “or else” at the end of his social media post.
Auchincloss’ concerns are not academic. Antisemitic incidents across New England soared by 205% in 2023, according to an Anti-Defamation League report released in April.
Much of that violence came after the terrorist group Hamas launched a sneak attack on Israeli territory last October. The ensuing war, now in its 10th month, has claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides of the border.
Terrorist violence repeated itself over the weekend, with a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that hit a soccer field, killing 12 children, The Associated Press reported.
Israel has blamed the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. On Tuesday, Israeli forces struck a Hezbollah target in Lebanon in retaliation for the attack, The Hill reported.
Auchincloss told MassLive on Tuesday that he’s spoken with Jewish, Arab, Turkish and other constituents across his suburban Boston district in the weeks and months since the Hamas attack and the outbreak of war.
They’ve all told him the same thing: These are scary times.
Jewish Americans are “hearing the echoes of history in their ears, and are feeling, like ‘We thought it couldn’t happen here. But it could, and they are disappointed, I think, in the lack of solidarity in progressive circles,” he said.
” … So there’s a lot of anxiety,” he continued. “And this is not just true of Jewish constituents. This is true of the Muslim and Arab constituents I speak to; this is true of the Turkish constituents and the Armenian constituents. People want to feel like their kids can grow up unburdened by the blood and soil saga of our history.”
And “… the promise of America really, is that regardless of, you know, the tragedies of the past, the circumstances of your birth do not determine the condition of your life” he continued. “And so they worry when blood and soil politics intrude upon their kids’ opportunities.”
Auchincloss, a father of three, said he has the same fears for his children, even if they are now too young to understand what’s happening an ocean away — and in their backyards.
“Like any parent, it’s on my mind,” he said. “And you know, there are two things that, when I talk about them on TV that get death threats in the office. One is guns, and the other is Israel.”
And that’s an abstract − until it isn’t.
