Biden's education chief to talk with Dartmouth students about Islamophobia, antisemitism

President Joe Biden’s education chief planned to meet Wednesday with students at Dartmouth College to discuss antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses amid the the Israel-Hamas war.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will hold a roundtable including Jewish and Muslim students as part of recently launched Dartmouth Dialogues, an initiative that aims spark conversations bridging political and personal divides.

Fallout from the Israel-Hamas war has roiled campuses across the U.S. and reignited a debate over free speech. College leaders have struggled to define the line where political speech crosses into harassment and discrimination, with Jewish and Arab students raising concerns that their schools are doing too little to protect them.

The issue took center stage in December when the presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and MIT testified at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. Asked by Republican lawmakers whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate campus policies, the presidents offered lawyerly answers and declined to say unequivocally that it was prohibited speech.