The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee announced an investigation Thursday into an anti-Israel group behind several campus protests that has “extensive” terrorist ties.
The committee sent letters to Columbia University, Barnard College, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and George Washington University (GWU) asking for more information on the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) group’s involvement on campus, according to letters obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The committee also sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Kash Patel requesting information on any actions their respective agencies have taken to investigate the matter.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has chapters at several colleges and has also faced consequences at many schools over their involvement in the antisemitic protests on campuses, has apparently been supported by AMP, which the committee says “has personnel with reported ties to the Foreign Terrorist Organization Hamas.” (RELATED: Trump’s Plans To Deport Foreign Radicals Temporarily Halted)
AMP members have allegedly “directly addressed students” at the schools. HELP also claims several current and former board members, speakers and organizers of AMP have sent money to Hamas, directly engaged with Hamas leaders or have otherwise expressed support for the terrorist group.
“AMP’s alleged ties to Hamas, which the U.S. Department of State has designated as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization,’ are extensive,” the letter to the FBI and Department of Justice reads. “AMP has also been actively involved in organizing college students. It has worked for more than a decade to support SJP campus groups which, according to reports, have been actively involved in campus demonstrations.”
HELP is also asking the schools for all information regarding SJP and AMP’s involvement on campus; including any infractions to university policy, university funding provided to the groups and staff affiliated with the groups. Committee chairman and Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy also asked AMP for all communications it has had with SJP and any other communications with universities and students.
“AMP’s close ties with campus SJP groups raise serious questions about AMP’s involvement in planning, organizing, and funding campus demonstrations that have posed significant threats to campus safety,” HELP’s FBI letter continued. “While college campuses should welcome free speech and the free exchange of ideas, they should not be havens for terrorist organizations to exert influence or instigate conflict for their own political purposes.”
SJP, AMP, DOJ and FBI did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 25: Pro-Palestine demonstrators occupy an encampment on the campus of UCLA on April 25, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Activists at UCLA have joined a range of campuses across the United States who have started encampments to call on their universities to divest financial ties from Israel. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
At UCLA, the SJP chapter was involved in an illegal encampment that lasted weeks on campus and included the creation of a “Jew Exclusion Zone.” An independent investigation conducted in 2024 found that the school was in need of “fundamental, structural changes” after administrators failed to put a stop to the antisemitic incidents.
At Columbia and its affiliate Barnard, protests amounted to the overtaking of a campus building, an action which allegedly resulted in a university employee being taken hostage. The failure by the school to punish protesters for their involvement in the violence and discrimination against Jewish students resulted in the Trump administration pulling $400 million from the school, though Columbia has since agreed to a list of preliminary demands to regain its funding, including punishing several students. (RELATED: Linda McMahon Points To Massive Flaw In Major Universities’ Vetting For Foreign Students And Teachers)
Columbia, Barnard, UCLA and GWU did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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