In recent weeks, local and federal law enforcement officials found guns and pro-terror materials in the home of two George Mason University students and arrested a third for plotting a terror attack on the Israeli consulate in New York. It was against that backdrop that Virginia Democrats in the state senate blocked a leading expert on anti-Semitism to serve on George Mason's board.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin tapped that expert, Kenneth Marcus, to serve on the board in June. Described in the New York Times as "the single most effective and respected force when it comes to both litigation and the utilization of the civil rights statutes" to combat anti-Semitism, Marcus founded the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and served as assistant secretary of education for civil rights during the first Trump administration. Youngkin appointed him for the board alongside Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former vice president Mike Pence and has spoken out against campus anti-Semitism.
In the months following those appointments, George Mason students experienced a string of high-profile anti-Semitic and terroristic events. In November, police searched the home of two Students for Justice in Palestine leaders suspected of defacing George Mason's student center and found firearms, scores of ammunition, Hamas and Hezbollah flags, and signs that read "death to America" and "death to Jews," the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time. Shortly thereafter, in mid-December, the FBI arrested a George Mason freshman, Egyptian citizen Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, for plotting a terror attack on the Israeli consulate building in Manhattan.
"Two options: lay havoc on them with an assault rifle or detonate a TATP vest in the midst of them," Hassan wrote in an online message to an agency informant.
The decision from state Democrats to block the appointments in the wake of those events reflects the increasingly partisan lens through which campus anti-Semitism is viewed. Last spring, for example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) visited the illegal anti-Israel encampment at Columbia University to show support for student participants. Around the same time, then-Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) advised Columbia's leaders to "keep heads down," adding that the school's "political problems are really only among Republicans."
Democrats serving on the state senate's Privileges and Elections Committee rejected Marcus and Short's appointments on a party-line vote last week. For Youngkin, the move was the product of "extreme partisanship."
"Stunningly, Senate Democrats rejected a George Mason University board member who is one of the nation’s leading legal experts in combatting antisemitism," Youngkin said in a statement. "His leadership at the University is invaluable at a time when there is an ongoing investigation into activities that warranted actions to protect Jewish students on campus and a student has been arrested for plotting a terrorist attack on the Israeli consulate in New York."
Local Jewish leaders have largely praised George Mason for its handling of the incidents. The school suspended its SJP chapter after the two student leaders, sisters Jena and Noor Chanaa, allegedly vandalized the George Mason student center with anti-Israel graffiti warning of a "student intifada." It also immediately expelled Hassan following his arrest.
Still, in its statements discussing the incidents, the school has not referenced the Chanaas or Hassan's anti-Semitic sympathies. It has also failed to explain how Hassan was admitted to the school so soon before plotting a high-profile terror attack. For George Mason law professor David Bernstein, the incidents reflect the need for "a reckoning to what extent the environment at the university has become conducive to radicalism and extremism and antisemitism."
"There haven't been a lot of terrorism cases on campuses around the country," Bernstein told Jewish Insider. "Why is it that there are several at our university? Could we be speaking up more about antisemitism and extremism? Should we have made greater efforts to disassociate the university from pro-Hamas sentiment which appeared on campus almost immediately after Oct. 7?"
Board appointees assume their posts upon their announcement, but the state legislature must confirm the nominations once they convene. Marcus said the "recent highly publicized incidents at George Mason" make it "more important than ever to make sure that we have procedures in place to address anti-Semitism and to protect all students."
"It's been an honor to receive the appointment and to spend the last several months working to improve quality of the life for George Mason students, as at so many American universities, we have serious issues involving anti-Semitism that need to be addressed," he told the Free Beacon. "My hope is that the work that we have begun will continue, because this is certainly not a time to take our eyes off the ball."
State Democrats blocked Marcus and Short's appointment alongside Virginia Board of Education appointee Meg Bryce and two picks for the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors, Quintin Elliott and Clifford Foster.