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To hear U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik tell it, her viral question of former Harvard University President Claudine Gay at a 2023 congressional hearing not only led to Gay’s ouster but to a nationwide reckoning over higher education in America.
And it almost didn’t happen, Stefanik said, because she had the flu.
The outgoing congressmember’s new book, “Poisoned Ivies,” recounts the lead-up to that hearing before launching into a scathing critique of the campus protests that unfolded in the months after Hamas militants’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
She traces her path from Harvard undergrad to antagonist, devotes a chapter to Columbia University and declares that American higher education is beset by “moral rot.” Ivy League schools, Stefanik writes, have become “hotbeds of radical ideology, groundless elitism, intellectual laziness and anti-American hatred.”
She described her book in an interview as an important contribution to the historical record, given that “traditional media would sort of brush this under the rug saying this was only a few incidents at a few different campuses.”
“The book captures that this was a widespread systemic crisis at a very important moment in time that is the hinge point of having to rebuild higher education,” Stefanik said.
It is far from a nuanced history. Stefanik describes the demonstrators as “pro-Hamas” and recounts the worst antisemitic incidents on campuses. Her tone is angry and incredulous.
According to Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick, while the demonstrations included a number of indefensible actions, many students were trying to advocate for Palestinian rights and dignity.
“If everything is antisemitism, nothing is antisemitism,” Spitalnick said. “And part of what the work is right now is to help people distinguish between criticism of Israeli policy and advocacy for Palestinian rights and where the line is crossed into antisemitism.”
Harvard spokespeople didn’t return a message seeking comment. A Columbia spokesperson said the uptown Ivy “is committed to confronting antisemitism, and all forms of discrimination, through a sustained, multipronged approach.”
“Poisoned Ivies” is the biggest move this year from Stefanik, 41, who was once New York’s most prominent Republican. “Author” wasn’t supposed to be on the agenda.
President Donald Trump nominated Stefanik to be United Nations ambassador, but withdrew the offer out of concerns about the GOP’s narrow margin in the House of Representatives. She then launched a campaign for governor, but dropped out after Trump refused to endorse her in a primary against Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
Stefanik won her first term in Congress in 2014. She’ll leave Congress at the end of this year. In the interview, she declined to weigh in on who should succeed her, and said she was focused on her book when asked about Blakeman’s campaign. She said she had no future plans to announce.
As in most politicians’ books, Stefanik is the main character. But she told me she didn’t want to write a typical political book, where the author presents the entirety of their experiences to explain what drives them.
Instead, the book can be read as a long job application for a role running an institution of higher learning, or setting education policy in a Republican administration. When I said so, Stefanik didn’t disagree.
“I had amazing teachers and that changed my life for the better, the quality of education that I had, particularly growing up in K-12,” she said. “I'm excited about the next chapter and I know that education will likely be a part of it.”
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