00:00I recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Harris.
00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank all of you for your time and your patience and being in the panel.
00:09I appreciate your written testimonies and had an opportunity to review those as well as hear you today.
00:16Dr. Groves, in your testimony, you said, and I quote,
00:20As a Jesuit university, we believe that working with someone with conflicting views to yours does not imply that you've been captured by their beliefs, end quote.
00:32And I agree with that statement.
00:34Unfortunately, it seems that some at Georgetown have been captured by the beliefs of some ideologies that are at odds with Georgetown's Catholic and Jesuit mission.
00:44In fact, it looks like you are celebrating ideas that are in direct opposition to those values.
00:52Earlier this year, you awarded a medal to Sheikha Moza Bent Nasser, the mother of Qatar's emir and chair of the Qatar Foundation.
01:04Yet months prior to giving this award, Sheikha Moza had posted on social media comments praising the October 7th attack on Israel.
01:14She praised the mastermind of the October 7th attack, Yaha Senwar, saying, quote,
01:20The name Yaha means the one who lives.
01:24They thought him dead, but he lives, end quote.
01:28And she added, apparently referring to Israel, quote,
01:32He will live on, and they will be gone, end quote.
01:37I mean, I have to ask, why did you give a medal to someone who had made such anti-Semitic comments
01:45and represents a government that supports a U.S.-designated terror organization like Hamas?
01:55Thank you for the question.
01:56And the award to Sheikha Moza was given for her work, decades-long work,
02:04for educating, getting access to education to the poorest children around the world.
02:10At this point, there are 22 million children in the world that would not have had access to education without her work.
02:17It was for that work that we honored her.
02:19Okay, and I hear that, but you also said at the award ceremony that the medal, quote,
02:26is reserved for individuals whose contributions reflect the university's deepest commitments, end quote.
02:35Is the destruction of Israel something Georgetown would support?
02:39The deepest commitments of Georgetown stem from our Jesuit heritage of educating youth around the world.
02:49And she implied, she's a great example of that through her work over the decades.
02:57But I'll repeat the question.
02:58Is the destruction of Israel something Georgetown would support?
03:02I don't support that tweet.
03:05That tweet is not consistent with Georgetown policy.
03:09We honored her for her decades of work in access to education to the poorest children of the world.
03:15Okay, if her remarks don't reflect the university's deepest commitments, would you consider revoking the medal?
03:24We will not revoke the medal because the reason for the medal remains true.
03:30Her decades-long work in educating the poorest children of the world,
03:3422 million children having education that they wouldn't have had without her work.
03:39Chancellor Matos Rodriguez, a Jewish student withdrew from Brooklyn College after her professors repeatedly described Jews as white oppressors.
03:50They told her that Jews, therefore, had no right to speak about their history of oppression.
03:56Are Jews white oppressors?
03:59I do not share that belief.
04:01I find the commentary entirely unacceptable.
04:04And I also find deeply disturbing that a student that was accepted to one of our schools felt that needed to do something like a transfer because of that.
04:15DEI is fundamentally based on dividing people by the color of their skin and categorizing them on that basis as oppressor or oppressed.
04:24With that in mind, do you believe that DEI ideology makes campuses a safer place for Jewish people?
04:31Diversity has been part of the City University of New York since its founding.
04:38We represent the diversity that we have all across our five boroughs.
04:43It's been one of the key elements of the DNA of CUNY since the founding of the Free Academy.
04:49So we are committed to that work of diversity, and it's been part of CUNY's work since its founding.
04:57So are DEI programs an effective way, you would say, to address anti-Semitism?
05:04We, in our work, when we work with students who are coming in and we teach them about the diversity of all our communities,
05:10we include anti-Semitism and the members of the Jewish community as part of that diversity effort.
05:17Okay.
05:18Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
05:20I thank the gentleman.
05:21I now recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Messmer.
05:25Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:28Mr. Meadows-Rogriguez, following up on Ms. Stefanik's line of questioning from earlier,
