Dozens of Yeshiva University faculty say they “deplore and oppose” the school’s decision to give its highest award to Rep. Elise Stefanik, saying the prize politicizes commencement ceremonies and rewards an extremist official.
Stefanik, a member of House Republican leadership, will receive the school’s Presidential Medallion. She is being recognized alongside Rachel Goldberg-Polin, who will give the main address and who is known for her global advocacy for her son, slain Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and for the other Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Stefanik gained widespread attention in late 2023 for grilling the leaders of three elite universities about campus antisemitism and has become one of the most prominent pro-Israel voices in Congress. The New York representative’s nomination last year as United Nations ambassador, since withdrawn, received praise from Jewish groups.
The award recognizes Stefanik’s “strong leadership for the United States, bold resoluteness in the fight against rising antisemitism and her outspoken support for Israel and the Jewish people in the wake of the October 7 attacks,” the school said in an announcement. Last year’s award went to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, another outspoken Israel advocate.
“Thank you to @YUNews for this tremendous honor,” Stefanik tweeted on Monday. “I am particularly humbled to attend as you recognize Rachel Goldberg, mother of Hersh, for her tremendous & powerful advocacy.”
Yeshiva University did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Letter decried elements of Stefanik’s record
The nearly 50 faculty names on the protest letter, ranging from a Bible professor to the former dean of the law school, decried elements of Stefanik’s record, including her close alliance with President Donald Trump, her support for his false claim that he won the 2020 election and her endorsement of a conspiracy theory with antisemitic roots.
“In Judaism, truth… is recognized as a sacred principle, woven into the fabric of ethical conduct and moral leadership,” the letter says. “According to the Talmud, it is the very seal of the divine. To award Stefanik the Presidential Medallion is, effectively, to endorse dishonesty, an act that runs counter to the Jewish values of integrity and righteousness that Yeshiva professes to uphold.”
The protest at Yeshiva, a modern Orthodox flagship whose undergraduate school is split between separate men’s and women’s campuses in Manhattan, is the latest flap over Israel politics to rattle a 2025 university commencement. Others have seen student speakers penalized over commencement speeches that denounce Israel.
It also follows on the heels of another controversy at YU, which recently rescinded approval for an LGBTQ+ student club two months after approving it.
The faculty letter was signed by more than 50 people, including eight anonymous entries and several emeritus professors. Signatories teach at Yeshiva College, the men’s undergraduate school; Stern College, the women’s school; the Cardozo School of Law; and other schools. It does not appear to include any rabbis or faculty at the university’s rabbinical school.
The letter accuses Stefanik of gaining prominence “by advancing extremist positions,” including some that relate to Jewish issues. It cited her January 2024 description of those arrested for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as “hostages,” The letter’s authors write that that word, “as we have all come to feel acutely, should be reserved for actual cases of abduction and not applied to legitimate criminal prosecutions.”
The letter also pointed to an instance when Stefanik used rhetoric that, critics say, amplified the “Great Replacement” theory, a conspiracy whose original version posits that Jews are orchestrating the replacement of majority-white nations with immigrants of color.
The theory was invoked during the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, rally in chants of “Jews will not replace us” and by the gunman in the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, who murdered 11 Jews at prayer, as well as by other violent extremists.
“By deploying xenophobic rhetoric such as this, Stefanik has provided crucial ideological support for the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda, which has been marked by severe violations of civil and human rights,” the letter read. “That a Jewish university would elevate an elected official who is complicit in such abuses is both morally indefensible and deeply irresponsible.”
The letter called for the school’s commencement ceremony to be a “day of joy and celebration.” In a reference to Goldberg-Polin, the letter said the event should focus on sharing in the “grief of another family whose tragic plight serves as an urgent reminder of the pain that is inflicted when people embrace hatred and violence.”
It continued that attendees “should not also be required to applaud a politician whose rhetoric has undermined democratic principles, emboldened racist conspiracy theories, and contradicted the core Jewish values of integrity and truth.”