WASHINGTON — Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has revealed she’s publishing a ebook exposing the “far-left indoctrination, division, and ethical rot” at Ivy League universities, as she attracts a direct line from elite campus tradition to the rise of Zohran Mamdani.
Stefanik informed The Submit in an unique interview that her insider’s account, “Poisoned Ivies,” will elevate the curtain on the decline of American larger training — however she famous it could even be “newsier than ever, given the administration’s determination to, accurately, withhold billions of {dollars} of funding” from the colleges and the upcoming New York Metropolis mayoral election.
“In the event you take a look at the rise of an antisemite socialist, Zohran Mamdani, you can not have that with out a direct line from these poisoned Ivy League faculties,” she went on, “main on to this ethical rot that’s at the moment manifesting in what’s enjoying out within the mayor’s race in New York Metropolis.”
Mamdani, who could possibly be elected the Massive Apple’s first Muslim mayor subsequent week, graduated from Bowdoin School in Maine and his father teaches at Columbia College. He’s tapped into help from the far-left that has permeated on school campuses.
Stefanik who grilled Ivy League campus presidents in 2023 on the explosion of antisemitic harassment and intimidation on their campuses — and ultimately sparked the resignation of their presidents — mentioned the issues persist.
“Antisemitism on school campuses is the canary within the coal mine of educational and ethical rot that has been taking place for many years,” mentioned Stefanik, a Harvard College alum.
“Whether or not it’s the tenured school, whether or not it’s the bloated tuition, whether or not it’s the curricula, whether or not it’s the overseas funding, the share of overseas college students, the ebook actually goes via all elements of what I imagine has been transferring larger training within the unsuitable path that basically culminated on this explosion of antisemitism on school campuses.”
Stefanik additionally mentioned: “This is a vital chapter within the historical past of American training to inform in a single ebook of simply the actually sick state of affairs that was occurring on these campuses, whether or not it was the assaults of Jewish college students, whether or not it was the chants of ‘Loss of life to Israel,’ ‘Loss of life to America’ and the school and administration’s lack of ability to indicate any ethical compass and any robust management.”
The Upstate congresswoman added that she has been drafting the ebook for a number of years after her “listening to heard world wide” of Harvard College President Claudine Homosexual, MIT President Sally Kornbluth and College of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill racked up billions of views on-line.
Within the Dec. 5, 2023, grilling, Stefanik demanded to know whether or not anti-Israel demonstrators “calling for the genocide of Jews” violated campus insurance policies — and not one of the presidents definitively acknowledged that it ran afoul of pupil codes of conduct.
Homosexual, who was additionally going through a plagiarism scandal, and Magill resigned shortly after, setting off an “earthquake” in American larger training, Stefanik mentioned.
A 2022 Harvard Crimson survey discovered that 45% of its school self-identified as “very liberal,” whereas 37% mentioned they had been “liberal,” 16% mentioned they had been “reasonable” and simply 1.46% recognized as “conservative.” None went for the “very conservative” moniker.
“In the event you take a look at the matriculation charges, they’ve elevated considerably with a number of the public larger ed[ucation] establishments down south, whether or not it’s College of Georgia, College of Florida,” she added, “You’re additionally seeing new startup training establishments just like the College at Austin, which accurately was birthed out of the failures of conventional larger ed.”
Free Press and CBS Information editor in chief Bari Weiss — who resigned from the New York Occasions in 2020 — was one among a number of cofounders for the Austin-based college dedicated to “open inquiry and civil discourse.”
Within the latter a part of the ebook, Stefanik mentioned she would tackle cures for a lot of that rot in addition to plans to ban overseas funding of US faculties and universities and root out Variety, Fairness and Inclusion litmus exams from admissions and college hiring.
“These faculties usually are not entitled to taxpayer funds if they’re selling anti-American beliefs that aren’t consultant of the morals of the American individuals,” she mentioned. “Why are we permitting overseas adversaries to fund packages on these campuses?”
The Trump administration earlier this yr, for instance, launched a probe of the College of California, Berkeley, over $220 million in funds from the Chinese language authorities for a joint institute of studying.
Columbia College and others have additionally entered into a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}’ price in agreements searching for to guard Jewish college students and curb DEI insurance policies — however there’s extra work to be achieved, in accordance with Stefanik.
“That may be a crucial first step, and solely President Trump would have been able to doing that,” she mentioned. “This didn’t occur in a single day, and it’s not going to be a fast repair. … That is going to take a long time of effort,” involving coordination with Congress however “additionally a cultural shift … a big shift in academia.”
Requested about the right way to halt efforts by faculties to disregard federal legal guidelines and insurance policies already banning DEI, Stefanik mentioned her workplace “discovered that “exposing this for the general public — that may be a very highly effective software.”
However “we have to use the flexibility of the billions of {dollars} of taxpayer funds. That’s the solely manner these faculties will repair themselves, plus the general public publicity,” she mentioned.
Although she hasn’t determined but whether or not to enter the 2026 New York governor’s race, Stefanik famous the difficulty of defending college students’ rights on campus and offering oversight of prime universities will “be one among many” matters she tackles within the subsequent yr whereas serving in Congress.
“We’re going to proceed to be the congressional workplace that leads on this situation,” she vowed.
“Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Educational and Ethical Rot at America’s Elite Universities,” will probably be launched by writer Threshold Editions on April 7, 2026.
