Kevin Feigelis, a seventh-year physics Ph.D. student at Stanford and an organizer involved with the Blue and White Tent, urged Congress to investigate campus antisemitism at a bipartisan roundtable hosted by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce last Thursday.

“I’ve watched my campus transform from an idyllic paradise — a center of learning — into a wasteland of hatred where every interaction is a minefield,” he said in his opening remarks to the committee.

Feigelis’s comments came amid mounting congressional scrutiny around antisemitism on college campuses. After a December hearing that featured University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, Harvard president Claudine Gay ’92 and MIT president Sally Kornbluth, the committee launched a probe into the three universities. Facing backlash to their testimony, Magill and Gay resigned from their posts in December and January.

Feigelis made a direct appeal to Congress in his remarks. “It doesn’t end simply because the presidents are replaced,” he said. “Systemic change is needed. The universities have proven they have no intention of fixing this themselves. It must be you. And it must be now.”

The committee subpoenaed Harvard last month, pursuing evidence that the University had mishandled its response to antisemitism. To comply, Harvard turned over 1500 pages of documents to Congress on Monday. Committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx has suggested that more universities could face similar document requests.

Nine Jewish students participated in the discussion, sharing perspectives on antisemitism at institutions across the country including Columbia, Harvard and U.C. Berkeley in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

According to Feigelis, Foxx’s office invited Feigelis to speak as “one of the most vocal students in the nation leading the fight against antisemitism on college campuses.”

“They have a particular interest in the Stanford case,” Feigelis wrote to The Daily.

Foxx stressed that the roundtable was “not about policing speech or opinions, even if disagreeable or offensive.”

“It is about protecting Jewish students from the harassment, threats, intimidation and assaults plaguing their campuses, as universities are obligated to under Title VI but have repeatedly failed to do. That failure is unacceptable,” she said.

Feigelis’s testimony echoed Foxx and called on Congress to intervene where universities failed to protect Jewish students.

“Please step in and help us,” Feigelis told the committee. “Please hold our universities accountable. Please investigate the root causes of antisemitism in our colleges.”

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In his written testimony, Feigelis alleged numerous incidents of antisemitism at Stanford, detailing actions by specific students and faculty.

Feigelis recounted an experience while at the Blue and White Tent one November night, when a student walking towards him “became openly hostile, violent and aggressive” and called him “disgusting.”

“He called me a monster and all of ‘my people’ monsters,” Feigelis wrote. “He looked at his shoes and commented how white his shoes are, then said, ‘Your face is dirtier than my shoes.’”

Feigelis reported the incident to the University and claimed there was “zero disciplinary action” taken against the student.

Feigelis also raised the vandalism of President Richard Saller’s home on Jan. 24, alleging a connection to Saller’s appearance at that evening’s public discussion titled “Combating Antisemitism at Stanford.” Protestors, who described themselves as anti-Zionist, disrupted the panel, which featured Saller, Provost Jenny Martinez and Feigelis.

University spokesperson Dee Mostofi wrote in an email to The Daily that there is no information on the vandalism or its motivations.

Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bill Larson declined to confirm the details of the incident, writing that “victim information is confidential.”

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Feigelis called on formal investigation and legal repercussion for universities that allowed antisemitism to spread unchecked in a statement to The Daily. “For five months now, both the students and the universities have acted without consequence. That time is drawing to an end.”

According to Feigelis, Stanford was intimidated by mob tactics. He criticized the University’s refusal to enforce its code of conduct or even the law.

Feigelis cited an example of disruptions to classes by protestors in January, including during “Global Strike Week.” The primary organizer “has not been disciplined, despite classroom disruptions being explicitly against the code of conduct,” Feigelis wrote in his testimony.

A public University statement on the roundtable noted “disruptions of university events have led to citations by law enforcement and referral to university disciplinary processes,” referring to a pro-Palestine protest that disrupted the Family Weekend welcome session. 18 protestors were cited for misdemeanors and could face disciplinary action for interrupting the school event.

“Any classroom disruption is a violation of the university’s Campus Disruption Policy and is subject to disciplinary action through the Office of Community Standards,” Mostofi wrote in response to Feigelis’s claims about poor enforcement.

Feigelis also criticized pro-Palestine student protestors, the Stanford Graduate Workers Union, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and comparative literature professor David Palumbo-Liu in his written testimony.

He further criticized Hillel campus branches across the country for disengagement with Israel.

According to Feigelis, in what he characterized as extreme cases, some campus Hillels are known to support or fund anti-Israel activities by organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and JStreet.

This has led Jewish students to feel “that their Hillel is seemingly more sympathetic to anti-Israel students,” Feigelis wrote.

Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, the executive director of Hillel at Stanford, said they do not support or platform any anti-Israel programs or organizations.

According to Kirschner, all Hillel branches closely follow the national chapter’s Israel Guidelines, meaning that they do not support “events or organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace that demonize, delegitimize, or apply a double-standard to Israel.”

Organizers with Stanford Jewish Voice for Peace did not respond to The Daily’s request for comment.

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Beyond students organizations, Feigelis also criticized faculty responses to the Israel-Gaza war. Specifically, Feigelis characterized Palumbo-Liu and Ameer Loggins, a former instructor of COLLEGE 101 who was suspended following reports of identity-based targeting as “Stanford’s most racist faculty members.”

The testimony included a screenshot of a Facebook post by Palumbo-Liu which read, “When Zionists say they don’t feel ‘safe’ on campus I’ve come to see that as they no longer feel immune to criticism of Israel. Which has gained tremendously in amplitude and shows no sign of lessening. Well as the saying goes, get used to it.”

In response to the post, Feigelis said it was inappropriate for a professor to minimize student safety concerns. “Should any professor be allowed to celebrate the lack of safety of any student, regardless of how that student identifies?”

Palumbo-Liu responded to Feigelis’s claims in an email to The Daily, where he wrote that he does not celebrate any student’s lack of safety.

“My comment regards a student’s ‘feeling’ of a lack of safety,” he wrote. “I am saying that if one feels ‘safe’ only when unchallenged and, conversely, ‘unsafe’ because more and more people … are vociferously criticizing Israel’s actions, then one might have to become accustomed to being uncomfortable.”

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Lee Rosenthal ’25, a former president of Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), said Feigelis’s testimony raised “troubling” issues. While Rosenthal said he hadn’t personally experienced the antisemitic sentiments that Feigelis testified about, many Jewish classmates told him about experiences with a “culture of fear and unsafeness.”

Rosenthal said that anti-Zionist sentiment on campus was frequently wrapped up in misunderstandings. According to Rosenthal, most Jewish students are Zionists, but contrary to student perspectives “a lot of students who consider themselves to be Zionists have nuanced views on the actions of the Israeli government.”

“Zionism isn’t the undying support of the Israeli government and all of its actions. It’s just a belief that the Jewish people have a right to exist in the land of Israel,” Rosenthal said.

The congressional roundtable resonated with other members of Stanford’s Jewish community.

Kirschner commended Feigelis and the other Jewish students who testified “for their courage to speak out and share their stories at a time when the country and world needs to hear them.”

Antisemitism at Stanford and other universities presented “a fundamental threat” to the Jewish community, Kirschner wrote. “Too many students are afraid to express their Jewish identity for fear of harassment and antisemitism,” she wrote.

Students also expressed support for the roundtable participants.

Jewish Student Association (JSA) co-president Kelly Danielpour ’25 expressed that while JSA was “not involved in the recent testimonies to Congress, the nine students who went to D.C. showed incredible courage in telling their stories.”

Both Kirschner and Danielpour agreed that while University efforts to address antisemitism were a step in the right direction, more work was necessary. Recommendations from the Subcommittee on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias and implementation will test “the University’s dedication to creating safe and accessible learning and living spaces for Jewish students, and all students,” Kirschner wrote.

This article has been updated to more accurately reflect Rosenthal’s quotes.