First on MRC Business: George Soros’ Open Society Foundations sunk massive amounts of cash into several universities—most of which have been a breeding ground for radical anti-Israel students and whose administrations responded poorly to protestors, agitators and rioters trespassing, breaking into and occupying buildings and harassing Jewish students.
Both the New York Post and Politico have reported on Soros’ connections to the groups leading the anti-Israel protests. And now, an MRC Business investigation exposed how Soros has also given at least $34,638,060 to the nine universities that have made headlines for their slow response to anti-Semitic protests and riots, as well as their ineffectual or possibly even sympathetic administrators.
Among the recipients of Soros funding connections were Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of North Carolina (UNC), University of Southern California (USC), City University of New York (CUNY), the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and, of course, the University of California Berkeley from 2016 to 2022.
Soros also poured money into media and journalism-related initiatives at several of these schools, including $2,399,360 to Harvard, $1,827,560 to Columbia, $366,369 to UNC and $125,000 to CUNY.
The accusations of anti-Semitic sentiments at Harvard, MIT, UPenn and Columbia were so severe that all four presidents of these universities have been called to testify before Congress. The presidents of UPenn and Harvard resigned in disgrace due to their failure to address campus anti-Semitism. Former Harvard President Claudine Gay also failed to clearly condemn the anti-Semitic phrase “From the River to the Sea,” which calls for the genocide of the Jewish people. The president of Columbia only allowed police to clear out trespassing anti-Israel agitators after they barricaded themselves inside a building, trashed it and prevented people from going in or out.
At CUNY and UNC, anti-Israel hecklers tore down the American flag while raising the Palestinian flag above the campus. Students have occupied and attempted to occupy buildings, trashed their campuses with garbage and graffiti, and acted with basic impunity due to a lack of decisive actions from their university administrations.
Other universities have taken anti-Semitism more seriously. University of Florida president Ben Sasse famously stood his ground against violations of campus policy on campus and in the pages of The Wall Street Journal.
At Florida State, the administration cleared out a prohibited encampment in five minutes, faster than former President Harry Truman recognized the restoration of Israel. The University of Notre Dame chose to have anti-Israel protestors arrested after their event continued after its allotted time. The University of South Florida has also enforced its policies against anti-Israel protesters. Princeton University took action against students occupying a campus building, having 13 arrested for this incident while having two other students arrested to enforce a policy against tents.
Of five universities that acted swiftly to condemn unlawful behavior by anti-Israel agitators, Soros gave a total of $1,685,040 from 2016 to 2022. That’s a lot less than $34 million.
MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider asked why these universities have tolerated this behavior for so long. “This draws into question whether the Hamas nine are allowing these agitators to run amok so as to keep the gravy train flowing. Columbia seems addicted to the Soros cash. Will the Hamas nine universities do anything to keep the money flowing?” Schneider asked.
Not all the anti-Israel agitators have been students, according to the New York Post. The Post, citing law enforcement sources, stated that 134 of 282 people arrested during recent violent protests at New York universities had no connection to the schools they were arrested at. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) backed the idea that campus protests were being inflated or even led by “outside agitators” during a May 1 press conference.
The Post also reported in an April 27 article that some of “the protests are being encouraged by paid radicals who are ‘fellows’ of a Soros-funded group called the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR),” which pays them up to $7,800 and trains them to organize pro-Palestinian campaigns.
Disturbingly, Soros has a long record of funding anti-Israel groups. Soros gave $525,000 to Jewish Voice for Peace between 2017 and 2022, a group that has figured prominently in campus protests.
Even POLITICO, far from a conservative media outlet, recently reported that Soros has funded three anti-Israel groups involved in the campus protests: Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow and the Adalah Justice Project. As noted by the New York Post, all three of these radical groups have been involved in anti-Israel protests since Hamas launched a terror attack against Israel last fall.
During the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack, MRC President Brent Bozell and Schneider pointed out that Soros had heavily funded seven of the groups that spoke up in defense of acts of Hamas terrorism. This included $550,000 in donations for the pro-Hamas group Al-Shabaka, which issued a horrifying statement papering over murder and rape with the phrase “decolonization is not a metaphor.”
The leftist billionaire also made an absurd comment about the terrorist group, saying that America and Israel “must open the door to Hamas.” The president of Soros’ Open Society Foundations Lord Mark Malloch-Brown has also advocated in favor of Hamas, arguing that “Hamas must be a party to a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian problem.”
Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on Soros’s funding of anti-Israel causes.
Note: The author of this article graduated from the University of Notre Dame.