Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Workforce are ramping up an investigation into Bowdoin College’s handling of a student-led pro-Palestine encampment last winter.
In early February, Bowdoin College in Brunswick closed its campus hub as students camped out inside the building and roughly 90 people gathered outside to urge the school to take action against Israel’s war in Gaza. The students urged the college to financially divest from arms companies that support Israel in its war.
In March, the college declined to divest from those companies. But, it did agree to make a one-time disclosure of the parts of its endowment that are invested in 10 specific defense and aerospace companies, a decision that officials say was unrelated to the protest and was already in the works.
Later that month, on March 27, Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, the Republican who chairs the education committee, sent a letter to Bowdoin College President Safa Zaki and Board of Trustees Chair Scott Perper requesting answers by April 10 on what meaningful discipline has resulted from the encampment.
The point of the investigation, according to the letter, was to “inform the Committee’s consideration of whether there is a need for legislative reforms to protect Jewish students on college campuses and, if so, what those reforms should be.”
Other colleges that were investigated by the committee include Georgetown, City University of New York and University of California Berkeley.
On June 2, Walberg and Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah, the chair of the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, sent a follow-up letter to Zaki and Perper claiming that Bowdoin did not follow through with providing relevant documents.
The documents that Bowdoin did provide, according to the letter, contained “publicly available policies and procedures”; “an abbreviated table or ‘list’ that lacks the individualized detail requested”; “‘Group’ emails from administrators to the campus community or segments of the community describing the encampment at various stages”; and “Bowdoin’s narrative description of the production.”
Walberg and Owens claimed in the June 2 letter that Bowdoin “failed” to produce disciplinary records for the students involved in the protest.
“If Bowdoin should continue to refuse to fully comply with the Committee’s requests, the Committee will proceed with issuing compulsory process,” Walberg and Owens said in the letter.
The deadline for Bowdoin to comply was June 16. It’s unclear if the committee has taken any action against the college.
Doug Cook, a spokesperson for Bowdoin College, declined to comment. Staffers from the Committee on Education and Workforce did not respond to a request for comment.
Bowdoin officials said in March that the college placed the organization Bowdoin Students for Justice in Palestine on temporary suspension following the encampment. Its members were unable to engage in any activities, including postering and reserving space on campus, under the banner of the organization. Suspensions for eight individual students involved in the demonstration were lifted.
