Senate candidate Steve Garvey: College campus protests over Gaza could trigger less federal aid to schools

Republican Senate candidate Steve Garvey strongly condemned campus protests critical of Israel’s war in Gaza and warned he’d push to take away federal aid to schools that appear to encourage dissent that’s antisemitic.

He told a Los Angeles news conference that “demonstrations that allow people to build encampments that obstruct the pathway to classes and the opportunity to learn is terrorism.”

Garvey made his comments at the news conference, standing in front of a wave of Israeli flags. Protests have spread at campuses across the country. It was a rare public appearance by Garvey, who since he began his campaign six months ago has rarely taken questions from the media.

Protesters are demanding an end to Israel’s invasion of Gaza, where it is seeking to destroy Hamas after the militant organization killed 1,200 people in an Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and took an estimated 250 hostages. The Gaza Health Ministry estimates 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israel military since the war began.

In California, students protested at University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, USC and elsewhere. At Cal State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, students took over a campus administration building and barricaded themselves inside. They demanded that the school cut ties with Israel and supporting companies. The school plans to remain closed through the weekend.

At USC, more than 90 people were arrested Wednesday at a pro-Palestinian protest, and on Thursday, the school canceled its main graduation ceremony, scheduled for May 10.

Garvey’s news conference was a rare public appearance by the candidate. He took three questions Thursday, all about his views on the protests.

If elected to the Senate, he said, he’d show “political courage.”

Among his ideas are to have leaders of the academic institutions explain “why they have forsaken their mission statement of providing an education for the future and protecting those students.”

Washington could take away federal aid to the schools, he said, and tenure could be revoked for professors who engage in what Garvey called incendiary acts.

...continued

swipe to next page