Is the Tide Turning? Ivy League Resignations Showing America’s Support for Israel

Today on Sekulow is the tide beginning to turn.

Ivy League resignations showing America's support for Israel. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Well, as our good friend Congresswoman Elise Stefanik said, one down, two to go. The President of Penn is gone. Liz McGill, she has resigned. So has the chair of the Penn Board of Trustees.

Now, interesting note, Dad. Still a professor at Penn. Tenured professor at the law school. So, you know, to think that these people have been totally removed from pretty high positions is not the case. Now, listen, that's a different move, though, to go after tenured law school professors different than a university President at a school like Penn.

But what I do want you to realize is that even there, they were unwilling to say, you're out the door, pack up your boxes. In fact, she remains President until they find a new President, which at those schools can take a significant period of time. Well, also she's a tenured law professor, which means she's not going anywhere unless she decides she wants to go somewhere.

So the reality is, but look, it's the right move because there is no context in which the genocide of Jews is a good thing. So that's number one. Harvard's meeting today, so that's number two. Number three, MIT is also in process of discussions. It's both because of what the board's saying, what some of the faculty are saying, but also some of the, frankly, the donors. I mean, the donors having a big impact on it.

Yeah, absolutely. The donors are having a big impact on it. We know that in the case of Penn, there was one hundred million dollar donation on the line if she was not removed. And we saw the board of trustees also resigning.

Her statement was, it was my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution and honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, community members to advance Penn's vital mission. I mean, this shows you the power of a congressional hearing. It's been a while since we've seen congressional hearings lead to action this quickly. I'm trying to remember when. I can't really recall.

Maybe those lowest learner years. Yeah, that took months. She took the fifth so many times, took the fifth so many times, then all that stuff kept piling up, but it did take months. And in this situation, this spiraled out of control on these Presidents since October 7th.

Yeah, very quickly. So look, what they said was outrageous. What they were thinking was outrageous.

Their process was also outrageous. So it's no shock that now they're going to, you know, does it cure it? Well, the curing will be what is the actual actions of the universities? That's going to be the cure of this whole thing.

So we'll see how that goes. We'll take your calls on 2-1-800-6431-10. Something I also want to throw out to you is that we were at my son's Christmas sing performance for his preschool this morning. And you know, this is a time of year where, listen, there's less and less of it, but we always see that people have trouble sometimes putting up a Christmas tree, singing songs, Christmas songs in public schools, putting up a nativity scene. If you are running into any of those issues, maybe you're trying to rent a public space at a public park to put on a live nativity, and you're having issues getting permits because they're saying, oh, that's separation of church and state, you need to contact us at aclj.org slash help.

You still have time because we can handle these very quickly. So if you're having any issues, whether it's with schools, whether it's with songs, whether it's with nativity scenes, again, give us a contact and attorneys will be right with you at aclj.org slash helpdad. That is core work we've done, and we can handle it quickly for people, but it happens just about every year, at least somewhere.

Yeah, it's either the nativity scene, the menorah can't go up, or something in the school. So again, we've got resources at aclj.org, but we'll be happy to help you out as well. Hey folks, we are, our faith and freedom drive is now well underway. It's the most crucial month of the year for us, the month of December, and we need your support.

As you know, Israel, of course, is literally fighting for survival, and we are standing with Israel, we're defending Israel, we're defending these families of hostages. Your support's crucial, donate now at aclj.org and have your gift doubled. We're currently working to combat antisemitism, as we just were talking about on college campuses, we're getting ready to send out a letter on that. We're purring legal briefs at both the ICC and at the UN, some have been filed, some to be filed, and taking legal action against the deep state. We're going to talk some more about that in the next segment of the broadcast. Today we're filing an amicus brief and a federal court of appeals case to stop the misuse of quote, what's called the Presidential communication privilege to avoid FOIA disclosures.

Your support is critical, aclj.org, your donations are doubled. Well, we just mentioned at the beginning of the broadcast, so the University of Pennsylvania's President has been removed or she resigned as President of the university, even after she sent out her explanation as to why she said what she said. She's still a tenured law professor in their law school. Professor Harry Hutchison's with us. I asked Harry at lunch the other day, what is it with the proliferation of these Presidents of universities not being able to say that calling for the genocide of a particular people group, which includes students on your campus, is not some kind of violation of the conduct code at these universities? And they're hedging.

And Harry, I'll ask you that question again. Why are they hedging? They're hedging because many of these individuals are ideologically and morally incapable of speaking with clarity with respect to opposing genocide and calls for genocide on their campus. They believe that we can simply divide human beings into an oppressor versus victim category. And victims are so-called individuals that are seen as being oppressed by those that are successful.

And if they are seen in that particular way, they have free expression rights and they have the capacity to demand the genocide, if you will, of individuals who are placed in the so-called oppressor class. Now, it's important to keep in mind that this goes back to a Marxist ideology and it is furthered by the actions of individuals who support mediocre scholarship. So in addition to Claudine Gay's incapacity to forthrightly denounce calls for the genocide of Jews, it's important to keep in mind that she is a breathtakingly mediocre scholar who has arguably plagiarized her PhD dissertation. She has, according to news reports, taken some of her dissertation from Carol Swain and she has failed to properly attribute some of her other scholarship. And at the same time, at Harvard, she went after the most distinguished professor at Harvard, Roland Fryer, an African American.

Why? Because he disagreed with her views on race. And he has a breathtakingly brilliant scholarly record, she has a breathtakingly mediocre record, and she sought to detenure Roland Fryer. So I think at the end of the day, we live in a world, the academic world, where the calculus is all upside down and it favors individuals who can claim the mantlehood of victimhood. But one thing they seem to not understand, Harry, is that context really doesn't matter when you're calling for the genocide of a people group that are aimed at the students who are on your campus and are part of that people group.

Absolutely. But what individuals like Claudine Gay and others are quite willing to do is to ignore that. And so they are willing to legitimize the claims of Palestinian students on the campus at Harvard who claim that Israel is an apartheid state. Now, I would argue that claim is nonsense on steroids, but nonetheless, it resonates within the academic community. And if you look at Claudine Gay's scholarship, much of it is focused on this oppressor victimhood analysis. And it's also important to keep in mind that she was not a great scholar at Stanford, she was not a great scholar at Harvard, but nonetheless, she ascended to the presidency of Harvard University. So I think there are lots of factors in play here, and I think she is ill-equipped both morally and in other ways to deal with the complexity of certain issues, but she is also morally ill-equipped to deal with simple issues. It is a simple matter to denounce genocide. It is a simple matter to oppose the brutality, the burning alive of individuals on October the 7th. It does not take a PhD in political theory to be able to do that.

Most Americans can do that. And sad to say, individuals like Claudine Gay at Harvard and the President at the University of Pennsylvania, they had difficulty doing that. One last point, and that is at the University of Pennsylvania, before the termination or resignation of the President, it would be important to note that the University of Pennsylvania Law School is in the process of attempting to take away the tenure of Amy Wax. Who is Amy Wax? She is a distinguished law professor.

She is indeed Jewish, but she has said unpopular things. And so I think the contrast is enormous between the willingness of the University of Pennsylvania to consider detenturing Amy Wax, for instance, and at the same time, the fact that the President of the University of Pennsylvania has difficulty criticizing calls for genocide against the Jews. I just think that is an amazing contrast. It is an unbelievable contrast, and you would think it wouldn't be that hard of a situation to get your head around, but apparently for these at Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania, they're not teaching that.

Absolutely. What people, I think, are wanting to see is that there is some hope in the world of higher education. Listen, they might be liberal, but they are not going to be supporting the genocide of specific racial groups, and that they will take action against their leadership when they fail tests, like going before Congress. They knew what those questions would be. They knew they were going to be asked about it, and they all used the same answer.

It's like they all got together to come out and say, let's use the word context over and over and over again. This is from Adam Grant, who is a professor at UPenn, and he just kind of lays it out straight forward about what happened to the President there. Well, Jen, look, this is a tough time to be a university President. There have been many tests this fall, and I think Congress was the final exam, and unfortunately, we heard from lawyers when we needed leaders. And I think, as every professor knows, when you fail a test that big, you don't get to keep your job. I think after losing the trust of a lot of stakeholders and many followers, you're no longer capable of leading effectively.

Yeah. They tried to use fancy words like context in this and that, and instead of just saying, no, when you're calling for a genocide of Jews, that's more than speech. That's saying kill people. That's not protected speech under the First Amendment. It would just have been such an easy statement for them all to make, and the hearing would have moved on with little to no attention.

They would have all kept their jobs. But they were so committed to standing with the violent rhetoric of their pro-Palestinian students that I guess they were willing to go down with the ship. Here's the interesting thing to me, and I wonder… The first time we've really seen this level of leadership willing to go down with its ship with Palestinian causes like this, calling for the extermination of Jews.

Here's the thing I'd like to know. I don't know what the state sunshine laws are, which is basically the state equivalent of a FOIA. But I'd sure like to send out, if there was a way to get, I'd like to see the internet email exchanges between the President and her staff and the university, maybe the state government, as it related to once she made the statement, what letter to make that statement, and then the subsequent trying to mea culpa statement and try to fix it.

I'd love to see what was going on there. Let this be a lesson to university Presidents that you're not going to get away with this. This was at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the most prestigious institutions in the United States. And groups like ours and others are maintaining a high vigilance here. In fact, the matter is, Harry, these boards of directors responded. They did and they should. And also the donors have responded by being prepared to withhold future and even present donations, because many of the donations were subject and are subject to conditions.

And I believe the performance of the President of the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates the unwillingness, at least on her part, of complying with the conditions of perhaps one big donation of $100 million. I'm sure the same will apply at Harvard. Very good.

All right. So, folks, this is a great example of what the work of the American Center for Law and Justice is all about. And that is standing up for these students and standing up for our faith and freedom. And we're in our faith and freedom drive. We had Jordan mentioned about the Christmas nativity scenes.

When we come back from the break, we've already got one of those that are now developing as soon as we talked about it. So we're fighting for Israel. We're fighting for students. We're fighting for university professors that are saying they're pro-Israel. We are also fighting for students that do not want to read obscenity and pornography in their classroom.

And on and on it goes. We're fighting for election integrity. They're expecting a decision out of the Colorado Supreme Court literally today. We filed briefs in another case, in the 14th Amendment case, another one's going in.

And we filed an amicus brief on this whole issue of executive privilege trying to avoid FOIA. So all this is going on at the ACLJ. That's why we need your support. Please stand with our thousands of supporters who have said they have reported for duty in this very, very important fight.

Have your tax deductible gift doubled through our year-end drive. Donate now at ACLJ.org. Yeah, we need your support. We need you to be part of this faith and freedom drive. December is the most important month to us financially at the ACLJ, not just to end the year, but to start the year off with the resources necessary to continue to expand the work we do. Donate today at ACLJ.org. Double the impact of that donation.

We'll be right back. All right, welcome back to Secular. We will take your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. I said early in the broadcast, you know, it is that time of year where those groups like Freedom From Religion Foundation and other individuals, groups, to have that animosity specifically towards Christians, it seems. We're seeing it a little bit more targeted even at the Jewish community this year as well, too. And they'll go after longstanding traditions in towns and cities. And I said, if anything's happening like this in your city, like you're being told you can't put up a nativity that's been going up for 15 years, you can't say that prayer, can't sing that song at the school.

You need to contact us immediately at ACLJ.org slash help because these are things that have to be handled very quickly. Christmas is just around the corner. The holidays are just around the corner. So you've got to give us time to get on the phone and get it handled. And usually we're able to do it very quickly and have a lot of success. Literally, as I was saying that, this morning, this came in through ACLJ.org slash help. I'm going to read it out for people.

Good morning. My wife and I have supported American Center for Law and Justice for many years and have what we hope is a simple question. Recently, a group known as Freedom From Religion Foundation drove through our small town. It's in, let's say, you would call this one, I wouldn't name it yet, but again, Will, would you say? It's in the Midwest. Yeah, Midwest. Okay. All right.

We won't name the town yet. So Freedom From Religion Foundation drove through our small town in the Midwest and told us that we cannot have a nativity scene set up on city property. It was set up and has been set up and displayed the last 15 years at the local fire department with no objections. They followed with a letter threatening us. This is what they want to know. Is this a fact? Is this legal?

It seems like to us this violates our First Amendment rights as well as our freedom for religion. We're meeting today at 5 p.m. with the community and the city council. Can you please provide us information on the matter and in trust and faith? They signed their note. We already have one of our attorneys. Nathan has already reached out to those individuals so that they will have the information that they need for that 5 o'clock meeting.

And I wanted to make sure Nathan knows this as well. I'm sure we'll get it resolved. If they need to put Nathan on a conference call to talk to the city council or anybody from our legal team to walk them through it, we'd be happy to do it as well. We're happy to do that.

We are happy to do that and we do do that. And like you said, we just got this in this morning and we already have an attorney on it. And the meeting is at 5 o'clock today and we will have it handled. Yeah, let's make sure if they need us, we've got somebody ready to talk at that 5 o'clock meeting. Absolutely. Yeah, because you can often get these resolved at that 5 o'clock community conference. They're concerned they're going to get sued.

It's going to cost the city a lot of money. They need to know we'll stand with them. Absolutely. At no charge. We absolutely defend these at no charge.

And that's what she said. I always want to remind people about the ACLJ.org when you're supporting us financially. Yes, we talk about some of these big, huge issues. But we get just as excited when one of these come through in a small town in the Midwest that's been putting up on nativity for 15 years because this is the true defense of the free speech of First Amendment and the freedom of religion. Yes, and really what shuts them down, you're saying it, is they're afraid of the cost.

They're afraid of the cost. We're going to sue you and the cost of defending it. And so donations that our supporters give us are so important because these little towns don't have to pay for the ACLJ to come in and defend them.

And listen, if you're the city attorney or the county attorney and you're in a private practice and you do this part time and all of a sudden you get a letter from these groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation, you say, whoa, this is going to be the end. And what we have always offered is to counterbalance that at the American Center for Law and Justice. And we should have up on our website by now. We may have it up there already in our, you know, what you can do at Christmas as far as nativity scenes, Hanukkah, menorahs and so forth being displayed.

And what you can do in community centers. So that's important. We'll make sure that's put up on the way.

If it's not up there right now, which it should be, if it's not, it'll be up there later today. So we'll have that information up and available. But like Jordan said, we take these cases as seriously as we take any other case. And we get lawyers on these cases immediately. And if a lawyer is needed this afternoon for that particular case, we'll have them come in by Zoom or a conference call, whatever needs to be in order to get justice. We're also filing a major brief in the Federal Court of Appeals to stop the Biden administration from further shielding the deep state from accountability. And what I'm saying is, you know, we've had this issue where we'll go to court, we'll get an order finally from the court. The court says, yes, you got to produce these documents.

Then we get the documents and they look like a blank page with black redactions all over it. And that's this overly broad interpretation of executive privilege. We're filing a brief on that one today. So our FOIA practice, Freedom of Information Act practice, where we ask for documents from our government, this is extremely important to us. Because this court, the lower court, has said basically the President's communication privilege allows this FOIA to be denied, that they don't have to turn over this information. And we have actually won on this issue before that, listen, this Presidential communication privilege is only for when the President is soliciting private advice. So you can't then retroactively say everything that the President is asking for is under this privilege.

This specifically asked for strategic plans to promote voter registration for all of these administrations to absolutely provide this strategic plan. And so we are filing in this case an amicus brief saying this is not privileged information that they are entitled to receive these plans. Very good. All right. We've got phone calls coming in on a variety of issues at 800-684-3110. We're going to keep our phones open this entire broadcast today.

So let's go ahead and take one. Yeah, Jerry in Rhode Island, online one. Hey, Jerry, welcome to Sekulow.

You're on the air. Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to the whole team. Thanks, Jerry. And because of the nativity story, I'm going to have a check in the mail. That's a great story. I'm glad you jumped right on. Great.

Thank you. My question is about the Ivy League. I have read 30 to 35 percent of the largest donations to the Ivies in question are coming from overseas.

You guys got any information on that? It may actually be more than that to some of these universities. And they come in and a lot of it's from China.

And some of it is from the Gulf states as well. The Muslim world has been donating to American universities. That's also true at the University of Oxford in England. And you'll see programs canceled because of their donors.

So it works both ways. Yeah, I mean Penn, I just pulled this up quickly. They've got the Wharton China Center in Beijing and the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India in Delhi, India.

That is just something, I mean, I just pulled up very quickly. I'm sure there are more. We know Johns Hopkins has a huge overseas outreach. Yeah, so a lot of the ones that have medical, is it MIT that's in Dubai or UAE or one of those places or even Qatar. I mean, so yes, these places of higher education have started receiving significant foreign money, not just from European kind of U.S. allies, which is not really where the money came from.

It's coming from China and it's coming from the Middle East. Look, I don't think that's going away, but the point is what we're trying to do is shed some light on all of this. Again, your support of the ACLJ is critical.

There's another example we talked about and that is our whole government oversight project at the ACLJ. None of this happens without your support. As you know, we are in our faith and freedom drive.

We are 11 days in. We're fighting for Israel. We're fighting for election integrity. We're fighting for free speech on college campuses and the protection of students from being totally harassed because of who they are and what they believe in. We're fighting for students that are being put in situations that are inappropriate and we're fighting for nativity scenes and Christmas displays in town squares.

And then we have teams in, our European team is still on the field. They're now back in Shropsburg with the Israeli families and lawyers working on meetings there. And I just got word there's going to be another big meeting now in London in the first week of January or second week of January on that issue with the hostages. So ACLJ.org support our work. Any amount you donate to the faith and freedom drive is doubled. ACLJ.org.

Welcome back to Secular. We're taking your calls. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. As we've told you, one of those three university Presidents that testified before Congress last week because of the questioning from our friend Alistair Fonic has resigned. That is from PEN. So has the PEN board, the chairman of the board there.

We know that the Harvard board of directors was meeting yesterday amid calls for the removal of its President. As Harry went through, there's a few ways they could go about that. There's a new plagiarism concern with her PhD thesis and some issues with some other professional writing she's had submitted that would amount to particularly plagiarism as well. So if they wanted to go about it a different way, they could. Obviously many of these ended resignations where they still continue on with some kind of role at the university. But there's a big difference, Dad, between being the President of Harvard or MIT or of PEN and being a law professor at PEN.

Oh, sure. Look, this was a big... Economically and everything else. Oh, this was a big loss for her. She was President of one of the leading universities in the world. And she should have been fired and they all should have been fired for their, you know, out of context, quote, unquote, statements. I'm surprised they didn't just fire because I know that tenure fight is nasty. Tenure is nasty and it's tough to do it. But look, it is what it is.

She's not the President. I think that's a win. We've got calls coming in on this. We're taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. Mike Pompeo is going to join us next.

He put up a great article at ACLJ.org that we're going to talk about. It's called Dear University Presidents Calling for Genocide of Jews is Wrong in Any Context, which is exactly correct. Let's go ahead and take Joanne's call out of Ohio on Line 2. Joanne, welcome to the broadcast. And if you want to speak to us on air, 800-684-3110. Hi, guys.

Here in Ohio, you would think Nashville is completely obliterated, so I'm glad everyone is safe. Yes, we are. Just to say that. Yep. But I got two real quick points. First of all, the one thing I will disagree with, Elise Stefanikon, is these aren't the only three.

I mean, there's a bunch of them. And J.D. Vance, my senator, wrote a letter to the new incoming President at Ohio State asking him what he's going to do about all this DEI and this oppressor, oppressed nonsense in the colleges. And he wants to know what he's going to do, and he's threatening funds. And unfortunately, money is what talks. Yeah, I think, listen, I think the role of Congress, and let me just say for Elise, I don't think she thinks it's these only three.

It's that if you can take out the top three, how much easier is it to take out the head of Ohio State? How much more scared is a level two liberal arts school, which sometimes is even more liberal than these institutions, going to be when they know that if they get on the radar, not even of members of Congress, but on their state legislators or their senators, congressmen, governors, that they are on the chopping block. So if they get asked about this now, they know that you better not say, well, when you talk about genocide, it's really in context.

Are you intifada, which is a call to kill people and to target specific people and to kill them? If you're just using it as words, but there's no actions with it, you know, that's probably protected at the first minute. The sad thing is I didn't know she was an attorney. Now that I know that she was an attorney and she thought that was protected speech, my God, would she really think it would be protected speech if it was about any other group in the world? No, of course not. I mean, I said it before, I said it again, like, could you imagine saying about Muslims? Could you imagine saying it about people who are gay or people who are the trans community right now? You would be, by the way, if you had your tenured position, you'd be fired.

As you should be. If you target a group for who they are. Still, it was about Jews. She lost her presidency. She keeps her law school job. We'll see how long she keeps that law school job.

If you target any of the groups you just mentioned for annihilation. Corporate America is canceling you. I mean, you should be exactly right. All right, we're taking a break. Coming up, Mike Pompeo, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. By the way, we have people like Mike Pompeo and Tulsi Gabbard and Rick Grinnell and these experts that you see on our broadcast every other day because of your support of the ACLJ. We're in our faith and freedom drive day 11. We are about even with last year and we really want to pull ahead, folks. Important for us to close a gap.

So go to ACLJ.org. Any amount you donate, it's going to be doubled. I love the fact that we've got donors calling saying they're reporting for duty. We encourage you to do that.

And there's something else. If you make the donation and you're able to do that as a monthly donation, you become an ACLJ champion. And I would encourage you, if you're able to do that, to do that as well at ACLJ.org.

Those champions are really making a big difference in our overall budgeting for the year. We'll be back with more in just a moment. All right, welcome back to Secula. We are joined by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He's got a great new piece up at ACLJ.org and this is unique.

You'll only find it at ACLJ.org by Mike Pompeo. Dear university Presidents, calling for genocide of Jews is wrong in any quote. That was the word of the day that day at that hearing.

Context. So first, Secretary Pompeo, I think this is what people really want to know because it's so important whether you're going to have kids at Penn or just the fact that these are leading institutions that are putting out leaders and future leaders in the United States and around the world, that we saw the University of Pennsylvania President resign late last week. What does that do, if anything, you think, to fix the obvious anti-Semitism problem that is happening at Penn and some of these other institutions? Well, Jordan, we always should live and help. The President moving on is a good thing.

It is better than nothing. But we've known for a long time. You and Jay and ACLJ have been working inside these institutions where the central thesis was there was an oppressed and an oppressor class. The departure of one President from one of our major universities doesn't resolve that core challenge, which is that for so long we've not had American universities being either very American or being universities. Universities teach and explore and they're wide open. And American universities recognize American greatness and our traditions and our histories. And they teach those traditions and histories. The departure of this professor, I think it's indicative of how deep the rot is inside our major elite liberal universities. But there's a long way to go, much work to do to bring them back to the place where they can once again be great assets for the United States and a great place for young people to go learn and make themselves ready to deal with the complexities of our world. You know, Mike, I've lectured at Harvard, I've lectured at Penn, I've lectured at Yale, I mean, at all of them.

But when I say that, I say that was 10 years ago. Because if you go on the college campuses now, and I've done some, including my own alma mater, and it's an unbelievable hostile environment that the speaker is subject to. Even if you're trying to do this in like a debate format or a, you know, a firing line kind of format, the vitriol is unreal. And I think the university professors, unfortunately, have fostered a lot of this.

Yeah, I think that's definitely true. Look, I hope the solution to this isn't just to say, well, now there's another protected class, Jewish people are a protected class. What we want is the First Amendment to be properly treated inside these institutions. We want every speaker to be able to come and speak her mind or his mind on whatever topic it may be.

That's your point, Jay. You or I who goes to Yale or to MIT or to Penn, we should feel perfectly safe, perfectly secure, and our ideas should be taken on board. It is just perfectly fine for those students to disagree with us and make impassioned arguments against the things that we're proposing or our ideas.

But that's not what's been happening for these last 20 years. And it is, in fact, the faculty. If you want to know why that hearing went so badly for these Presidents, it's because the last voices that they heard in their head before they answered were the progressive liberal faculty. That was the ones and they did not want to cross them. They fear them.

And so that was the when they got asked a complicated question that was off what it was they were expecting. They immediately reverted to how do I make sure I don't upset this progressive liberal faculty at my institution upon whom my daily existence depends? You know, what I'm interesting to know is that I know these schools would love the PR nightmare to go away. And so they think with these quick press releases, the board chair resigns, the President resigns. But we've already had calls from people say, you know, there's these top schools that we all know in the United States are known around the world. But we also know this is happening at state universities across the country and major institutions. And I think what was started in Congress, Secretary Pompeo, needs to continue. We need to continue bringing these university Presidents forward, whether it's in the federal legislature or state legislatures, because they receive money from both of those at these institutions, even if they're private and start asking these questions, because I think we're going to find out it's not just the top Ivy Leagues and the top five or six schools that are this out of control when it comes to this issue of anti-Semitism and this hatred that they are OK in context, that they need to just start holding hearings and all the people receive money so they can ask all of them to come appear and ask the same questions.

Jordan, two thoughts. One, I completely agree. This is not limited to the top three or the top 30 or even the top 300 public universities and private universities across America. This is a problem throughout the way you get promoted to these places and as faculty is to write papers that are consistent with the reigning orthodoxy. And so we ought to ask hard questions about how they are hiring, what their policies look like, how they're deciding on merit, who gets into these schools. We've we know these fights very well. The ACLU has been at the center of some of these fights about college admissions and the like. These are all part and parcel of a system that came to view this as a group based phenomenon with a progressive left bias. And we can fix it.

We know how to do it. I was I was at Liberty University just a few days ago. I assure you, it's not happening on that campus.

There are places in America that understand freedom and our foundational ideas. We just to make sure that any university that's receiving any public money ought to be held accountable if they vary from that very central thesis. No, Regent University, same thing.

We're not worried about it there. But you do worry about it in other institutions. I want to go back to the influence of the Chinese, too, because I am seeing these, you know, these Confucius Centers have opened. We're not just Harvard, Yale, MIT, University of Virginia, but like in community colleges. I mean, they are so ingraining themselves, Mike, into the culture of these campuses that I think it's kind of it's a subtle form of spying, if you will. Jay, it is a intentional influence campaign inside the United States of America. You identified it on campuses. They call it the Confucius Institutes. They call it Chinese Friends of the United States.

There are multiple front names, but the effort is to make friends and then exert influence. And we see it, by the way, not only colleges, it's all across city councils, county commissions. We saw what they've done to members of Congress.

This is a global effort to conduct what is a classic influence operation, an intelligence term. And it is a shape the narrative and the narrative that the Chinese want in our schools is one of American decline. That's what these universities have been teaching.

It's false. We're not in decline, but that's the methodology. We have to shake that from our schools as well. And there is an awful lot of Chinese money in every major institution in America. We ought to get it out.

I want to switch gears here. You and we really appreciated this spent time in our offices in Washington when we had those families of the hostages as the hostage representatives delegation in Washington, D.C. Our team this week from our European Center for Law and Justice has been with another group of families. One of the brothers, the two brothers were still in the in the group, but there was another group of families. I have been at the Brussels. They've been in Paris. They're now in our offices in Strasbourg. The reality and now they're looking at a big event in meetings in London.

But there was something interesting that Kalev Myers said, who's the lawyer we're working with very closely on this, who you met. And that is Madrid. Spain has been very difficult on all this.

And we've got good relationships with Spain in the United States. What's your sense of secretary of state that would be motivating this? Were they almost to the point where they didn't want the families coming? It was it's a very interesting dynamic. We we all need to stay focused. We're now two months and a couple days out, 64 days barbaric attack in history, news and coverage seems to move on. And the world seems to forget so quickly today. We can't let that happen. My guess is that some of these governments would prefer not to meet with them because it puts them in a tough place because you can't go to the United Nations and vote for a cease fire and meet with these families, because you would fundamentally understand that that cease fire is going to put those lives of those family members at risk.

So I think they're hoping to push it off. I pray that the world will never forget. I pray that the United States won't abandon the Israelis as they go to do whatever it is they need to do, not only in the north of Gaza and in the south of Gaza, but to take care that the risk from Hezbollah in the north is eliminated as well. These are tough tasks and they will be difficult times. They're going to need American and European support. And I'm so glad that the ACLJ is staying engaged to encourage these nations to stay at this. We are working with world leaders around the globe. I'm going to be meeting next week in Washington with the prime minister of South Korea, as well as Israeli diplomats and other South Koreans and South Korean businessmen trying to draw these ties together.

We had a friend of ours reach out to a conference of former world leaders to start garnering support, basically to counteract what's going to happen at the ICC. Mike, thanks so much for meeting with them. I appreciate your insight and thanks for the help with those families. They really appreciated you being there that day. It meant a lot to them. It was a blessing to me. Thanks, Jay. Thank you.

Thank you, Secretary Pompeo. And because of your support, we have that team, as my dad said. Folks, we're in our faith and freedom year-end drive right now.

It's the most crucial month, December, the final month of the year. And we need your support. As we were just talking about, Israel is fighting for its survival against threats to the Jewish state. We're seeing this rise in anti-Semitism all over the world, including in our own country.

Your support is crucial. Donate now at ACLJ.org and have your gift doubled. We are currently working to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses at UC, preparing legal briefs to the ICC and the UN, and taking legal action against the deep state. Today, we're also filing an amicus in federal appeals court to stop the misuse of the Presidential communications privilege in FOIA cases to keep information from the American people. And we fought against that with the Biden and Obama administrations and won.

So we will likely win again. Stand with our thousands of supporters who have reported for duty and donated and made that tax-deductible gift today at ACLJ.org. Double your impact. Donate today. Welcome back to SECU. We've been asking folks to also call in about, you know, we did this last week, why they support the ACLJ. People were writing in, and one of those people who wrote in was Annabelle out of California, and she's actually calling in the broadcast today.

And so we wanted to let her join the show and be able to talk to you about why she supports the ACLJ and why she became an ACLJ champion. Annabelle, it's great to have you on SECU. Thanks for calling in. Thanks for holding on through that segment with Secretary Pompeo. It's great to have you on the air.

Hi. Well, as you said, this is Annabelle, champion reporting for duty. I wanted to take an extra step to support the ACLJ, so I reached out to 10 people who are only slightly acquainted with you.

I told them as much information as I could impart and to do their own due diligence. Five became champions, two made donations. I'm urging listeners to first give and then recruit other soldiers to battle alongside the ferocious and effective ACLJ for freedom and justice.

And God bless your team and everyone who supports you. Well, Annabelle, we appreciate the concept of reporting for duty, that we've been able to turn that into a theme. And also, we had a program years ago called Friends and Family, and it was exactly that. Recruiting other people that you're in your circle of influence to support the work of the ACLJ. Let me tell you the two aspects of this that are so important. Number one, any donation, especially this time of year, is great because it is doubled.

It's matched, so that is huge. And then we have this program we've just started called the ACLJ Champions. We started with about 15,000. We are just shy, about 200 shy, of hitting 18,000 in two and a half months.

We started the program October 1st, so October, November, and now December 11th. So that means anybody that donates monthly recurring giving. And that is going to have potentially a huge impact on the ACLJ because as a champion, we then can set a budget.

And we're already seeing that number grow every single day in our daily report. So when you donate this month, of course, it's matched. And if you can only do one gift, that's great. A lot of you have done larger gifts, that's great. We don't expect you to be able to do that every month.

But others of you who give, you know, 20, 30, 40, whatever dollars it is a month are saying, you know what? I am exactly what Annabelle said. I am going to become a champion. I am going to report for duty. I'm going to be with you each and every month. And that makes a huge difference.

So we encourage you to do that at ACLJ.org. Annabelle, thanks for calling and we appreciate it. You started a whole program here for us because we listen to our donors.

Very, very important. For example, I was on the phone today as we were coming into the office. And after my son's Christmas performance, I thought about, you know, we haven't yet said that on the air.

He's at a Christian preschool so he doesn't have the same issues. But about the nativity scenes and the issues that come about in towns and cities and it happens every single year. And I said, hey, let's check to see if any of those have come in. I know that usually we handle those pretty quickly.

And our team did. And one had just come in from a town in the Midwest and they needed help because they've got a meeting tonight. And I could say our attorneys have already reached out. They're already on the phone with the people who contact us about a nativity scene that had been outside a fire, a fire station for 15 years. The Freedom for Religion Foundation, I guess they said they randomly drove through this small town and they're threatening to sue them, which is who they always pick on. Exactly. And the small town's got a meeting tonight at five o'clock because they're worried about the lawsuit costs, dad. That even if they want to support the nativity, they say, how much is this going to cost our town budget?

You know, we're a small town. So we right away let them know the ACLJ is there to cover that. The ACLJ is there to stand with them.

And if they need somebody from the ACLJ on the phone tonight or out there tomorrow, we'll be there. You remember as a kid how many of those you went to, those hearings with me and mom? I mean, dozens. But it works. Yeah. I mean, we would go around the country and just go to these hearings and get these things resolved. And it does work. And it's important to do it because we want you to be able to celebrate the meaningfulness of the holiday.

Because if you don't have groups like the ACLJ, these towns unfortunately have to be like a cost benefit analysis. Of course. And you understand it. And they say, you know what, if we get sued, it's going to cost us this many ten thousands of dollars.

We're going to have to hire this law firm and then win or lose, we're still going to be out money over these years. So maybe we shouldn't put the nativity there this time. And then guess what?

There's no more nativities out. Then they'll start targeting something else. It's also, you know, part of schools. Can you sing a Christmas song at schools at a school production?

It doesn't force them to, but can it be part of the production? All of those kind of issues that you have to handle these very quickly, dad. Because they come in really right around this time of year and, you know, a lot of the schools are out in the next week or two. Exactly right.

So we move quickly on those. Let me also say something else about Christmas that we've done, and that is we have got a movie. It's an ACLJ film and it's called Jingle Smells.

And do we have the trailer? I would like to play it because I'm going to end each program each day between now and the end of the year with hope and laughter and positive. And this movie touches on critical issues. I mean, the military, it touches on cancel culture, supporting our troops. But it also does it in such a way that's both funny and heartwarming at the same time. I have watched it for the third time this weekend. Now, this isn't only because my grandkids are in it and the J-Sec Hill bands in it. It's because it is a great story.

I've watched it on Rumble and then I watched it on Voodoo, which is Fandango. Let's go ahead and here's the trailer for it. I'll tell you how you can get it.

You know, it's very hard to find a place that even comes close to being worthy of your beauty. It's romantic. It's about you and me alone.

Wow, look at the two of you. Merry Christmas, America. Hollywood has canceled Mason's Stone. Stone will be digitally replaced by A.I. Boycott Stone!

We will no longer be manufactured Mason's Stone characters. Get them all out of here by Christmas Eve. You gotta be kidding me.

How'd you get it? Oh, fell off the truck. There was a truck involved. The mysterious gift giver has struck again. If you get busted with those toys, you're done. And you made me an accessory.

Well, you know what they say, some accessories are required. Am I smiling? No. Jingle Smiles, Jingle Smiles, thinking all the way. They call me Jingle Smells. Yeah, I know. Let's see if they take it.

All right, so the movie is Jingle Smells, and that's part of the theme of the movie. You go to Rumble, excuse me, the best way I guess to go now because it's available. So here's three platforms it's available on.

You can get a DVD through John Schneider Studios. You can, of course, our preferred providers, Rumble, they have it available on Rumble. It's also now on Voodoo, which is a huge movie site, which is owned by Fandango.

Smart TVs, especially if you've got an older smart TV. It's got it in there. Voodoo's got it. So some of the newer, older smart TVs, I mean like even like four or five years old, so still pretty new, might not have Rumble's app yet. But you can download it.

You definitely have Voodoo. Yeah. And by the way, so go to jinglesmells.movie, and a portion of those proceeds from that, of course, it's an ACLJ film, go right back to the American Center for Law and Justice. So we encourage you to get that movie. We're really going to do that. We're hosting the Hannity program.

The plan is on Friday, and we'll talk more about some of the movie stars on again and have a good time with that on Friday's broadcast. Also, we want to encourage you to support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice as well as through the movie, but also directly at aclj.org slash faith and freedom. We are in our faith and freedom drive.

We are starting the second week. You know what we're dealing with, whether it's the University of Pennsylvania and what they've said about Jewish students and antisemitism, when it's defending the hostage families, working with the European Parliament, working with the United States Congress to defend Israel, all of that's going on. Briefs on election integrity being filed coast to coast, expecting the Colorado Supreme Court decision any day now.

May well go to the Supreme Court of the United States, and if it does, it'll move very, very quickly. Your support of the ACLJ right now this month when your donations doubled, okay, makes a huge difference. This is our biggest month of the year, so go to aclj.org and donate.

There's a button right online. If you can make a monthly donation as well, you become an ACLJ champion, and we encourage you to do that if you're able to do that at aclj.org. Yeah, again, it's such an important time of the year because of, again, the Christmas cases that hit, and we got to handle them really quickly. We've got our team on. The first one that came in today, our team is already on it, and there's a meeting at five o'clock tonight that they may have to participate in to help this town fight back against you-know-who this time of year, Freedom From Religion Foundation, who just hates Christians and hates the Christian holidays, but we fight back and we win for those towns, those cities, so donate to the ACLJ. Protect those activities, protect that Christian heritage, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.