The Hearing That Changed Everything - with Elise Stefanik

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0:21You are listening to an ARK Media podcast. It was a realization to me as a policymaker, the only way these schools are going to have a wake-up call is if you withhold federal funds. And boy, did it wake them up. Boy, did they wake up and they start taking this situation seriously on campus. That only happened because of the withholding of federal funds.

0:57It's 9 a.m. on Friday, August 14th in New York City. It's 4 p.m. on Friday, August 14th in Israel. As Israelis get ready to wind down for Shabbat. Before today's episode, a quick housekeeping note. On Thursday, October 22nd, just five days ahead of the Israeli elections, Call Me Back will hold a live taping at the Stryker Center in New York City, where I'll sit down with Dan Shapiro, Dahlia Scheinlin, and Brett Stevens to discuss what's at stake in Israel's 2026 election and what its results will mean for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Tickets have just gone on sale, so if you want to join us, please follow the link in the episode description.

1:35Now, on to today's episode. On December 5th, 2023, three of the most powerful university presidents in America sat before Congress and were asked a simple question. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your school's code of conduct? The answers they gave, hedged, lawyered, and morally hollow, became one of the most watched congressional moments in years. The congresswoman who asked the question was Elise Stefanik of New York. She has since written a book about what she found when she kept pulling that thread. It's called Poisoned Ivies, and it argues that what happened in that hearing room should not have been a surprise.

2:15It was the inevitable product of decades of ideological capture, governance failure, and foreign money flooding America's elite universities. Since we recorded this conversation, that fight has continued to play out, including in the courts. Just days ago, a federal judge dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuit, accusing Harvard of failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students, ruling that the incidents cited by the government were too isolated and episodic to establish an ongoing violation of federal civil rights law. The decision adds another dimension to a question that was already central to our conversation.

2:52That is, even if elite universities have badly failed their Jewish students, how far should the federal government go in trying to force them to change? At the same time, we've also seen numerous universities take steps to address the problems that Congresswoman Stefanik, her congressional colleagues, and the Trump administration had identified. That is, they are overhauling and in some cases even shutting down entirely their DEI programs, clamping down on anti-Semitism on their campuses, and a range of other actions. Is it enough? How did our universities even get to this crisis? And how does Elise Stefanik respond to some critics who ask hard questions like whether the cure might have been as dangerous as the disease?

3:35By tackling the crisis of higher education, serving in House leadership, and her work in other areas, including the House Intelligence Committee, Elise Stefanik has certainly made her mark in Congress. Our conversation about higher education right after this short break. This is the moment to send young Jewish adults on a birthright trip to Israel. Not next year, now, because after two and a half years of misinformation, reality needs to speak for itself. Over the past 25 years, Birthright has sent more than 900 ,000 young Jews to Israel. They come back more confident, more connected to each other and to Israel.

4:16They go on to build Jewish families, lead our communities, and feel part of a 4 ,000-year Jewish history that belongs to them. Birthright's new goal is to send another 200 ,000 young adults to Israel by 2029. But it takes people like you to make that happen. To help shape that future, go to onetripchangeseverything.com.

4:42Elise Stefanik, thanks for being here. Great to be with you, Dan. I'm a listener to this podcast and really honored to join you today. I know you are because you send me messages when there's a particular episode that moves you. The most recent one, which moved me too, was the one with Rachel Goldberg-Poland, who I know you have gotten to know a little bit. Yes. For very sad reasons over the last several years, she's actually mentioned you to me as well in a separate conversation. And my conversations with her have been some of the most meaningful episodes we've done these last few years. And her book is incredibly important.

5:15And I agree with you that it will go in the canon of books that are extraordinarily important in history, not just of this contemporary moment, given the very existential challenges, but historically, it's an important book. And just the strength that Rachel has shown, the strength that that family has displayed under such unimaginable circumstances is just truly exemplary. Yeah. And her willingness to share that story with the rest of the world is just yet another chapter in this unbelievable strength as a mother. So I encourage folks to make sure that they read that book. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

5:53I think it is a book that like the way I think about Elie Wiesel's books that like they live on. Yes. And then reach generations. Okay, Elise, I want to talk about December 5th, 2023, which was this hearing. I really do think that hearing was like an inflection point or a turning point in ways that would have been hard to imagine in the days or weeks leading up to it. So can you just first briefly describe what happened at the hearing and then what happened in your exchange with the university presidents? Yes. So my book, Poisoned Ivies, which is right here, it's a behind the scenes look at both the predicate for that hearing, but also in depth what happened the day of the hearing and what happened in the months and years afterwards.

6:36It really was a turning point in American higher education, not only across the country, but the world was watching. So the context of the hearing was that after the October 7th Hamas attacks against Israel, the bloodiest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, where Americans were killed, we saw an explosion of pro-Hamas encampments and anti-Semitism at our most elite universities, one of which is my alma mater, Harvard. And you saw a fundamental failure of leadership from those university presidents. I encouraged my colleague Virginia Fox that we needed to hold these university presidents accountable.

7:11So two months later, we had the presidents of MIT, Penn and Harvard. I did a tremendous amount of research hearing firsthand experiences from students on campus. And it was really mind boggling to me, Dan, and really unimaginable. It was unrecognizable, not the experience that I had as a student at Harvard 20 years ago, but just what these Jewish students were facing. They couldn't go to class. They had to hire security. They were targeted, physically assaulted, and yet a failure of leadership. In the hearing itself, it was a day-long hearing. I had asked rounds and rounds of questions and could not get direct answers.

7:49And this moment at the very end that captured the public's attention, I thought, how do I ask this question in the most direct, simplest, moral way possible to force them to answer correctly? It wasn't even a prepared question. And the question was this. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university's code of conduct? I expected them to say yes. And I was going to follow up what disciplinary action has been taken because they weren't instituting discipline according to their rules. Instead, MIT, Penn and Harvard presidents said, quote, it depends on the context. And the world heard.

8:26They did not realize at that moment how morally and academically wrong that answer was. And what was very eerie, in addition to the moral bankruptcy on display, they stood up, didn't realize anything was wrong. In fact, we know because of media coverage, some of them celebrated thinking the hearing was a success for those universities. Wow. It set off a firestorm. It was a billion views in a week. So not one of the most viewed, the most viewed congressional testimony in history, more than impeachments, more than Watergate. And it really set off an earthquake in higher education with reverberation still playing out today.

9:04Okay. I think this is going to sound awkward the way I'm phrasing it, but I'm just saying it weirdly like the stars aligned for that moment. And what I mean by the stars aligned were to the point you just made, you didn't plan to focus in on that particular question. You just thought that was a given and there would be like a consensus on that point. And you thought the point of vulnerability was, okay, so now that we all agree that calling for the genocide of Jews is a huge problem on your campus. Now we're going to focus on the vulnerability, which is you're not doing anything about it. But your point, what you stumbled into was like, wait a minute.

9:33we don't even agree that calling for the genocide of Jews is a problem. And that was like the shocker. And so that was like one moment. You're in that moment. You're a graduate of one of these institutions. So that's what I mean about like everything kind of lining up. And you really know the institution. You're a product of the institution. And your book shows, really chronicles, that the anti-Semitism, the anti-Zionism that we see today, have been seeing for the last few years, were alive and well for decades on these campuses. The foreign funding, the ideological monoculture, the Students for Justice and Palestine chapters that had been active on these campuses for years.

10:13So why did it take a massacre of Jews and then a viral congressional moment for Washington to wake up to what you show in your book has been going on for a very long time? So the book really chronicles, this didn't happen overnight, this is decades of decay, And you highlight many of the driving factors the book does as well. I talk about the foreign funding to the tune of billions of dollars annually flowing into these institutions, particularly these Middle Eastern studies departments. I talk about the percentage of foreign students. I think it is a surprise. It was a surprise to me to know that institutions like Columbia, where I have so many friends and colleagues who have either alumni or alumna from that institution, 40 percent of the student body there are foreign, Dan.

10:55and you had some of those individuals on visas who were organizing pro-Hamas encampments. In addition, you have an ideological lurch to the radical left, and you have an increasingly like-minded self-selection process of faculty outside of the norms of American values. All of these are driving factors that culminated in this moment. The reason I think it captured the public attention is the American people inherently understand that American higher education has been headed in the wrong direction. But it was such a direct moral question. It was not a political question, not a legal question. It was a moral one that really displayed in a very public setting how deeply out of touch they were.

11:37And you saw a cataclysmic impact on these institutions who fundamentally have lost their way. That hearing, of course, led to the resignation of Penn's president within 48 hours. It led two months later, the resignation of the Harvard president because it also encapsulated a plagiarism scandal. So it's not just the moral rot, the academic rot as well. It led to the preemptive resignations as we were about to issue subpoenas for the presidents of Cornell and some other institutions. And it has allowed this administration, which has correctly not only instituted a number of executive orders that we worked very closely, but to freeze federal funding.

12:16These institutions aren't going to fix themselves, Dan, and they're not entitled to U.S. taxpayer funds if they're not complying with the law. And it was very clear to me that we needed to use every lever in our constitutional authority to hold these schools accountable. I went back to the founding missions of these schools, the Harvards, the Penns, the Columbias. Many of these schools were founded prior to the founding of our country. In Harvard's case, 1636. In Columbia's case, Alexander Hamilton, one of the earliest students of King's College and one of the visionaries of Columbia. Benjamin Franklin, one of the original founders of Penn.

12:49These schools were very much very important to who we are as Americans. They no longer view themselves as American institutions. They're trying to be global ones and have lost their way. OK, I want to spend a moment on Students for Justice in Palestine, which organized a lot of the campus unrest that you describe. And you argue that it may be directly funded or tied to Hamas, which obviously there's an affiliation with Hamas, at least ideological affiliation. But in terms of anything deeper than that or more coordinated than that, can you talk a little about that? How solid is the evidence that there is a real connection between Hamas and some of these anti-Israel campus activities in the U.S.?

13:31These were not organic. These were well-organized, extraordinarily well-organized encampments that went up the day after October 7th, Literally, as the world was still reeling from seeing the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israeli Americans on October 7th, we saw you had the pamphlets ready at these schools. SJP had the iPads all prepared for these encampments. So I make the case that this is highly coordinated, highly funded, and SJP has made significant inroads in Middle Eastern studies programs on these campuses, particularly with professors. You also have in many of these schools an example where they have affiliated satellite universities in Qatar in the case of Northwestern.

14:20And because of those strings attached, because the foreign dollars flowing in, these schools failed to explicitly condemn Hamas's terrorist attacks. I think there's more work to do in this space than to really truly unravel the financial ties and the funding ties between terrorist organizations and SJP. The schools that have banned SJP have made the correct decision. And it really poses the question of why are we even allowing these foreign terrorist dollars to have any type of infiltration into American higher education institutions? We need to completely not allow that. And I've introduced legislation to do that.

14:59Oh, can you talk a little bit about that? How would that legislation work? I think we should not allow foreign dollars from Qatar into our higher ed constellation, our higher ed institutions. I think we've seen this not only in sort of pro-terror, but we've seen the CCP, the Communist Chinese Party, try to do this through Confucius Institutes. Congress banned Confucius Institutes on American higher ed campuses. And of course, China will try to work around that. But we should not be allowing that. Again, these schools have billions of dollars of endowment, billions of U.S. taxpayer funds. We shouldn't allow them to be beholden to anti-American foreign funds that are flowing into these institutions that are promoting these pro-Hamas encampments that are literally targeting American Jewish students on campus.

15:44And then on top of this, we should not allow these foreign satellites of these American institutions in particular countries that are counter to our values. All right. You talked about revoking tax benefits. for these universities and specifically for their endowments. As you just talked about banning foreign funding, using legislative authority to discipline universities, reforming tenure at universities from the outside. And by the way, I'm sympathetic to a lot of this, so you're not going to find any opposition for me. But I do wonder, there's a tension here, I guess, and that is that when others are in government, whether in the body you serve or in the executive branch, years from now, a decade from now, and they have their own ideological, will be characterized as an ideological approach to higher education, that they can use the precedent being set by the tools you want to introduce, they could use those same tools to not only undermine a lot of the change that hopefully you, we will have achieved by then, but actually take things in a very dangerous direction.

16:50So do you worry about basically giving the government all these tools and creating all these precedents that could then be used to make the universities much worse than they even are right now? So there is this tension and I get a lot of questions about the free speech aspect of this and that highlights a very important constitutional issue. But in the case of each and every one of these schools, they rank F when it comes to protections for free speech. They consistently target conservative professors, conservative alumni, conservative of speech on campus. And yet the only time they vociferously defend freedom of speech, Dan, is when it comes to calls for the genocide of Jews.

17:30You take any other demographic group and you swap out the word Jews and insert African-Americans, Asian-Americans, women, LGBTQ, whatever other demographic group, the school would not hesitate to make sure that there was disciplinary action taken and that the rules were complied with. It's only when it's when you're discussing Jewish students, that there's this equivocation. I argue that that is the dehumanization and this double standard that these schools have. I myself was canceled from Harvard very publicly because of my support for President Trump. I was removed from the bipartisan Institute of Politics, bipartisan.

18:07Now there's no no one who voted for Trump is allowed to be on the board of that institution. So I make that case. And you talk about having the perspective and the stars aligning because I can talk about that history and a deep understanding of these institutions. You have example of example where they again, they earn F's when it comes to protections for free speech on campus. It's only when it's calling for the genocide of Jews that they want to make this case. And that to me shows how far outside the norm they have become morally and ideologically. The other piece that I think is important here, you talk about the tools.

18:43These schools inherently feel entitled to U.S. taxpayer funds, and yet they're not complying with U.S. civil rights protection for Jewish students on campus. These are American students. And when they're not complying with the law, you need to make sure that the DOJ actually launches these investigations and ensures that these schools are complying with the law. The other thing that I think this reveals is this is a deep rot in these institutions. We talk about the curricula. I talk about the professors. But I believe the next shoe to drop is the admission scandals. And you're already seeing investigations in that space.

19:17I believe the anti-Semitism goes deep into the admissions process of these schools. If you look at the data, the percentage of Jewish students has declined significantly at these schools. And that's been a part of this DEI regime that is inherently anti-Semitic. So I get asked these questions all the time, Dan, but the book goes through example after example about how these schools continue to lurch further and further to the radical anti-American values and this semblance of entitlement for billions of funds. Yet they're not complying with U.S. law that Congress has written and has passed and was signed into law.

19:54We'll be right back. Hi, it's Gabe Silverstein from the ARC Media team. You may know me from Research by Gabe Silberstein. Last summer, I participated in a Birthright trip, so I can tell you exactly what they mean when they say one trip changes everything. Birthright didn't just connect me with my Israeli brothers and sisters in a spiritual and lasting way. Birthright gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Jew and where I fit into the Jewish story. It's incredible to me that this organization exists, and I know that behind every one of these trips are generous people who made it happen, People like you.

20:31Birthright Israel's goal is to inspire and empower a new generation of Jewish young adults. To help make that happen and to create more life-changing experiences like mine, please visit OneTripChangesEverything.com. Birthright. OneTripChangesEverything.

20:51And we're back with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Elise, you get, as I do, young people seeking advice, career advice, advice about where to go to college. We all get these questions. We mentor young people all the time. You know, I'm torn between two directions. One direction is, first of all, not all universities in this country are rotten. There have been some shining examples over the last few years of universities that kind of zagged when all of the others were zigging. You know, they were like exceptions to the craziness. and there's a lot we can learn from them. And students graduating high school should think about going to places like that.

21:29How do you respond to students who say, should I go to one of these elite schools that have been captured by craziness over the last few years? Or are there other options? I chronicle the ones that I believe have rotted out, but I also chronicle the positive examples. As you said, the ones that zagged while everybody else zigged. And there is an example within the Ivy League. Dartmouth had very different leadership during this very challenging chapter that we saw post-October 7th. Dartmouth enforced the rules and had zero tolerance for targeting of students on campus. And this rise of anti-Semitism, these encampments, the encampments were removed immediately to ensure that the focus remained, Dan, on the academic purpose of the university rather than this political indoctrination.

22:15I also highlight Vanderbilt, where you saw very strong leadership by the chancellor of Vanderbilt, Daniel Diermeier, who continues to set the pace in higher education in terms of not just how they dealt with this issue, but also they have very strategic partnerships, whether it's with Silicon Valley, whether it's with New York. They are going in a different direction than these more sort of traditional Northeastern Ivy League schools. I also highlight University of Florida under the leadership of Ben Sasse. Ben Sasse put out a very strong statement in the aftermath of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th.

22:52When you saw potential pro-Hamas encampments on University of Florida, they had zero tolerance. And then also passed legislation at the state level in Florida to deal with some of these higher education issues. You also have some of these sort of civic centers popping up at various Midwestern universities. You have the Hoover Institution at Stanford. So I do highlight bright spots. But you're right. A lot of parents ask me, do we give up on the IVs that so many families strive to apply to and look elsewhere? And, you know, as a parent, you have to make a decision on the safety and security of your child.

23:25You have to make a decision based upon is the focus of these universities going to be on academics and connectivity to opportunity after they graduate or is it political indoctrination? Harvard is a very different place than it was when I was there 20 years ago. I also make the case as a policymaker and a leader that we can't completely give up on these Ivy League institutions because they are important to hold them accountable and to find their way. And it's going to take decades of vigilance to ensure that happens. You know, the three schools you just mentioned, Dartmouth, Florida and Vanderbilt.

23:58What's interesting is Sian Baloch, who's the president of Dartmouth, Daniel Diermeier, who's the chancellor of Vanderbilt, and Ben Sass, who at the time was the president of the University of Florida. What each of those schools had was a leader. What you just described was decisions that the leader of the university made. Now, we sort of say that matter of factly, like it's simple. It's actually not so simple because one needs to understand the milieu, the like ecosystem that these academics who suddenly find themselves in big administrative roles. They're running these universities. Running one of these universities is like running like a municipal government.

24:31These are huge operations. And most of the people in their professional and social circles on this campus are the people you're describing as the troublemakers, as the mischief makers, as those ideologically captured. So it's not so simple for the Sasses, the Baloks, the Deermeyers, and there are others. I'm just focusing on those three because of the ones you mentioned. it's not so easy for them to go to work every day and say, you know what, if I go the direction that I believe is right, I'm going to be at war with almost everybody I work with. And yet what you're basically saying is that's what you need in a leader of one of these institutions.

25:04So when we are giving advice to young people where to go to school, who's in charge of these places actually really matters. It does matter. And leadership matters. I mean, this is a prime example, Dan, where leadership matters at these institutions. You're exactly right. These leaders were able to see through the noise. And you learn this as an elected official. Oftentimes, the loudest voices frequently are not representative of, for example, in my case, the 700 ,000 constituents that I represent. The very radicalized voices do not represent the interest of the entire district, for example. And sometimes that is a difficult lesson for these university leaders who are oftentimes in these positions for the first time.

25:43They usually come from academia, that the radicalized professors or the radicalized foreign students do not represent the mission of the school. And staying laser focused on the founding missions, the academic excellence, academic integrity is very important. So this really displayed where leadership matters. And what happened with those three university presidents is they crumbled. Not only did they crumble in the moment and the days following October 7th and the months following, but they crumbled at the congressional hearing. They didn't understand that it was a moral question, really, really questioning their leadership and were so disconnected from reality.

26:20So in the bubble about how out of touch they were with what people want to see from these higher ed institutions. Now, I'm increasingly concerned because you have a generation of politically indoctrinated graduates of these universities and you can draw a direct line, for example, of what happened at Columbia to the election in New York City, where you have a full blown socialist and I believe anti-Semitic mayor. Literally the same people that organized the Columbia encampment and the riots of Hamilton Hall were heavily involved and were some of the first guests at Mamdami's, you know, since he moved into Gracie Mansion.

26:56Mahmoud Khalil is the example I'm referring to. And I talk about that in the book, that what happens at these university campuses is a direct line to politically some of the really challenges that we're seeing happen in some of these primary elections. So on the one hand, we could say students should really consider universities that may not have been on their radar, where you have these dynamic, courageous, principled leaders. They're trying to buck the trend. A, I mean, it's kind of one direction. The other direction is you do profile in the book some very impressive young Jewish students that you got to know who were on the fight on campus.

27:27People like Shabbos Kastenbaum, A.L. Jacobs, Talia Khan. There are others you talk about who you work closely with who stood up and fought back. the counter to what I just said about like go to a university where there's a leader who's already doing the right thing. On the other hand, I do often get the question and I don't quite know how to answer it, but don't we want the Shabbos, Kassabombs and A.L. Jacobs and don't we want those people at these elite campuses to be a check on the craziness and to fight back on campuses if we believe these institutions are worth saving? You know, to abandon them is one track.

28:00Another track is to say, no, no, no, go there, go there despite the fact that there are these problems, because if you're not there, future generations of students like you won't be able to work with the future Elise Stefaniks on putting pressure on these places. Yeah, I mean, it's a tension. Looking at this as a policymaker, we have to do both. We have to encourage and see the innovation that's happening outside of, you know, the norm in higher education and continue to spot like that. And then we also have to hold these schools accountable. I view that as a policymaker. Again, every parent and student's going to have to make the decision as to what's right for their family.

28:34It's interesting that 10 years ago, if a high school senior was accepted into Columbia and Vanderbilt, they were more likely to go to Columbia. Now the data shows if they're elected into Columbia and Vanderbilt, they're much more likely to go to Vanderbilt. So this is happening in the free market system where you have a shift in matriculation, you have a shift in application rates, and it's a wake-up call for many of the traditional Ivy League schools that were viewed as the most prestigious. And the other piece of this is the employers. Employers are now questioning and really taking a hard look.

29:05And you saw some of these very preeminent business leaders saying, we are no longer hiring people from some of these poisoned ivies where you have this political indoctrination. In the book, I do talk about these courageous, extraordinary students. Again, this is not a typical political memoir. I talk a little bit about my educational background, but I tried to focus on the issue and really highlight these extraordinary voices of people who, you know, young students age 18, 19, 20, 21, who testified in front of Congress. Think about that, Dan. They are facing extraordinarily challenges on campuses, whether it's the physical targeting, incessant harassment, because they are Jewish.

29:43And they had the courage to testify at that young age in front of the U.S. Congress. That's not easy to do. And many wither under congressional testimony. So I talk about how these are the bright spots of these leaders on these campuses, and I've had the opportunity to get to know them, and they're going to continue to be leaders in their fields after they graduate. One of the other questions I get or criticisms I hear is, as the administration, as the Trump administration on this issue, which you've worked obviously very closely with and shaped, helped shape a lot of what they did, the whole cutting of funding to these elite institutions as a tool for pressuring them to change on a number of the fronts that you advocate for, while one can understand why federal funding should be cut to these places, on the other hand, it's undermining part of what America's competitive edge is globally.

30:31Some of these institutions are some of the most important research, science and medical-based research institutions in the United States, some of the most important institutions in the world. And by just cutting off funding in a very, what would argue feels like a very arbitrary way rather than a targeted and surgical way, is ultimately extremely damaging to the United States globally. I know you get these questions. I get these questions. Yes. How do you respond? So I respond that, remember, the hearing happened in December of 2023. These schools had a full year after that to start reforming and fixing themselves.

31:10And there were no funding cuts or funding freezes, no investigations from the Biden administration. What did we see in that year? We saw the schools sticking their heads in the sand and digging deeper and deeper, refusing to reform, refusing to look inward. And this is after the aftermath of that hearing in the sense that it should have been a wake up call where the schools should start to fix themselves. They show that they are incapable of even grappling with that. So I talk about that year as, hey, if the schools took action to deal with this issue, then it would be a different discussion. But instead, they failed to do that.

31:45And it was a realization to me as a policymaker. The only way these schools are going to have a wake up call is if you withhold federal funds. And boy, did it wake them up. Boy, did they wake up and they start taking this situation seriously on campus. That only happened because of the withholding of federal funds. You've seen some examples of settlements like in Columbia University. You see some ongoing negotiations. That is important and it's an important tool. The other argument I make is if these schools are so far outside of the line of not complying with U.S. law, they should not be entitled to U.S.

32:21taxpayer funds. And take it from the perspective as a member of Congress, Dan, I represent 700 ,000 constituents, many of whom did not have the opportunity to graduate from college. when they question themselves about where their U.S. tax dollars are going. And these schools are so far outside of American values, mainstream American values. People start to question. And I will tell you, there is no greater applause line than when I talk about the withholding of federal funds because these schools have lost their way. And when they get back on track and start complying with U.S. law, then they'll get those federal funds.

32:56But they're not entitled to those beforehand. And again, I think that year of where they had an opportunity and did nothing was really revealing in that they were incapable of fixing themselves. Wrapping up your tour in Congress, the hearing is obviously well behind us, but you've continued to do a lot of work. As you said, you've introduced this legislation. I presume you'll continue to work on this issue. You've named the most problematic institutions and people, the villains in this story. You've proposed fixes. Harvard's endowment is still$50 billion, which is an extraordinary amount of money.

33:27I mean, it's like the size larger than the GDP of some countries. It's unbelievable the resources that these different universities have. Tenure is still there at many of these universities. Foreign actors are still writing big checks. If you just like think 10 years in the future, 15, whatever it is, pick your time horizon. Do you see a world where American higher education will be meaningfully changed, less hostile to Jewish students, less ideologically captured than it is today? because these institutions, like back to my point about they help give America its edge. People from all over the world want to study these institutions.

34:02It's one of these sectors in American life that like is truly exceptional, historically has been truly exceptional. When you just think about what gives America its edge, we historically have thought about these elite American institutions as a part of the story. And now they feel rotten or poisoned as you describe them. Do you really look in the future and say, yeah, we may get like a little marginally better here and there, but at the end of the day, these places are implacable or do you really see a world in which they're meaningfully changed? Well, a few bright spots. The Yale report, which was issued about a month ago, that report wouldn't have happened without the hearing.

34:35Can you just summarize for our listeners who don't know about the report, the gist of what it was? Because you're right, that was like a real breakthrough, that it was produced by them. Yes. So Yale did not handle post-October 7th with strong leadership. And Yale put out a report that they conducted themselves about why there's been a fundamental lack of confidence, lack of faith and lack of value in the education that they were providing at their institution. And Yale, like Harvard, is one of the most storied institutions that is part of this prestigious higher Ivy League. The fact that Yale is looking inward and trying to grapple with this, that's a step in the right direction.

35:12Now, that poses the question, what action are they going to take? And are they really going to focus, for example, on recruiting different types of professors actually having ideological diversity, focusing academic excellence. So the question remains open. But to me, that was a step that was very important to happen and again, would not have happened without this hearing. These schools wanted to continue on this trajectory. And the hearing really was the wake up call in higher education. I also think if you look decades, Dan, it's going to take decades to fix these schools. And they have done that at places like Vanderbilt, where it's been very focused over time on building these institutions, finding their way with strong leadership over many, many years.

35:56I would also highlight there are examples of professors who many professors reach out to my office and say they're too scared of speaking out at these schools. But you're starting to see discussions among professors saying, wow, this is getting way out of the norms and out of whack and out of, you know, why I went into academia. The more we can have those professors feel the confidence to speak out and be that voice of one. An example I'll give Dan is, and I go behind the seams of the Harvard Corporation when they finally decided to get rid of the former president, Claudine Gay. Initially, they wanted to take the position that she needs to stay.

36:34And it was one strong voice that said, this is not tenable. This is not a tenable situation and we need to have new leadership. So it shows the power of one voice breaking the hold on these universities. That's extremely important. And I was proud to be the leading voice in Congress to do that. And I want to save higher education for future generations. This is not about destroying higher education. This is about saving higher education, which is one of the reasons why we are so great and the world leader in the United States of America. So I hope folks will read the book. It was the number one bestselling nonfiction book in America for a reason.

37:11And it's because people want to have these discussions about higher education. They want to fix higher education for future generations. Elise Stefanik, thank you for this. The book is really an important read. If you want to get caught up on this craziness of the last three years on campuses, it's an important chronicler of that. But it also is actually a path forward. And your story is a central character in it in ways that you probably never imagined you would be. Certainly when you were a student at Harvard, you probably never imagined that. No. No. A couple of decades later, you'd be in the middle of a fight that would lead to the toppling of the leadership of that particular institution and others.

37:47So thank you for doing this. Thanks, Dan.

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