As U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, heads into the final months of her sixth and final— at least for now — term, she’s added a new profession to her resume: author.
Her first book, “Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities”, came out on Tuesday, April 14.
The book tells the story of what Stefanik — whose 21st Congressional District covers half of Oneida County as well as the North Country — calls the “hearing heard around the world,” a Congressional hearing in 2024 on antisemitism on college campuses in which Stefanik played a prominent role in questioning the presidents of three top universities. Stefanik also explores how she believes many elite universities have become centers of far-left indoctrination, moral rot, antisemitism and anti-Americanism.
Stefanik, a Harvard University graduate, was elected to the House of Representatives back in 2014 at the age of 30, which made her the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at that time.
President Donald Trump nominated Stefanik, one of his most loyal Congressional allies, as ambassador to the United Nations earlier this year. But he later pulled her nomination to shore up the Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House.
In November of last year, Stefanik announced that she would run for governor of New York. But she faced an opponent in the Republican primary and Trump did not endorse her. She announced in December that she was dropping out of the governor’s race and would not seek re-election to the House. She said she wanted to spend more time with her 4-year-old son.
But her career turned a new page with the publication of her first book. Stefanik has been busy doing interviews to promote the book, which has also been reviewed or led to opinion pieces in numerous publications.
In an appearance on The Huddle, a daily political show on YouTube, Stefanik said she’d save some of her stories about her career in Congress for her second book.
“Poisoned Ivies” was listed as number 37 on Amazon’s bestseller list as of the afternoon of Friday, April 15. It was also listed at number 1 for both political conservatism and liberalism, and for education and teaching; number 2 for political leader biographies; and number 3 for leaders and notable people biographies.
It had been ranked as #19 on the bestseller list a day earlier and several media outlets reported that it had topped the Amazon bestseller list on the day of its release.
What hearing led to the book?
On Dec. 5, 2024, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing on alleged antisemitism on college campuses in conjunction with protests against Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. Israel launched that war in retaliation for a Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 in which an estimated 1,200 people died and 251 more were kidnapped.
The presidents of three universities testified at the hearing: Liz Magill, of the University of Pennsylvania; Claudine Gay, of Harvard University; and Sally Kornbluth, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
During the hearing, Stefanik asked about whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate the codes of conduct at the universities.
All three presidents spoke about context. Gay said, “It can be, depending on the context.”
Their answers provoked a firestorm. Stefanik and other Republicans called for all three to resign.
Video of the hearing was racked up more than a billion views, making it by far the most watched video of any Congressional hearing ever, Stefanik says in her book.
Magill resigned on Dec. 9. Gay resigned on Jan. 2, 2024 but she had also been hit by allegations of plagiarism.
“That’s just the beginning of the reckoning,” Stefanik said afterward, according to a Jan. 2, 2024 New York Post article by Josh Christnson. “This is long overdue.”
What else is the book about?
The book is apparently Stefanik’s attempt to continue that reckoning.
“This book is a deep dive into what happened on the most storied American campuses in the aftermath of October 7th,” reads a book excerpt on the Amazon website. “These elite schools, revered for their rich history and important contributions to our nation’s identity, were among the worst offenders propelling the scourge of antisemitism. The events in question were a seminal turning point in higher education. This book investigates how we got here and charts the path ahead to save American higher education.”
Stefanik goes on to argue that Americans wants things that many elite universities don’t provide or encourage: moral leadership, academic excellence, independent thinking, basic decency and the prioritization of American students. And she accuses them of being anti-American and anti-West.
“Americans want academic exceptionalism, not indoctrination,” she writes. “This was never about a few presidents or a few universities. It’s not just about antisemitism. It’s about saving American higher education because it has proven incapable of saving itself.”
What have reviewers and opinion pieces said about the book?
Not surprisingly, reaction to the book seems to be divided along political lines. Just consider the diverse headlines:
What did President Donald Trump say?
The president plugged Stefanik’s book in a Truth Social post with an Amazon link to the book on April 9.
He wrote:
“My friend, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, of New York, has written a new book, “POISONED IVIES: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities.” There is nobody more qualified to speak on this important subject than Elise, who totally exposed the Crooked Former Presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT, in a Congressional Hearing that was seen and heard around the World. Elise is strong, smart, and tough.”
What do readers say on Amazon?
As of the afternoon of Friday, April 17, 15 buyers had rated the book, giving it an overall rating of 3.8 out of 5 possible stars. But the reviewers were unusually polarized over their reaction to the book.
The book received a perfect, 5-star rating from 70% of reviewers with one commenting, “This book hits hard. Read this before it’ too late.”
But the other 30% of reviewers gave the book just 1 star. “If you like right wing talking points,” one wrote, “this fits. For honesty, look elsewhere.”
What did a favorable, published review have to say?
A review by Editor-in-Chief Zachary Marschall posted to the website of Campus Reform, a project of the Leadership Institute, on April 12 said:
“(During the hearing) Stefanik exposed the critical contradiction at the center of contemporary collegiate culture. What had long been known by some was suddenly impossible to deny by all. Anti-Semitism is the expression of academia’s amorality.
“Yet the book makes a larger argument, one even more important than holding academia accountable.
Poisoned Ivies posits that the failures exposed after Oct. 7 were not episodic, nor administrative but symptomatic of institutionalized anti-Semitism. The moral rot at America’s most prestigious universities runs deeper than any single hearing, president, or scandal. It is entrenched in the culture of these institutions, contaminating faculty, students, and staff alike.”
What does a critic say about the book?
An article by Rebecca Onion, posted to the Slate website on April 14, says:
“Instead of trying to see Stefanik’s future in this book, you can read ‘Poisoned Ivies’ as an alternate reality: a narrative of what happened on campuses after Oct. 7 that manages to avoid description of any aspect of what was occurring in Gaza, to characterize Jewish campus response without mentioning that there were many Jewish students and faculty members who publicly declared themselves to be nonsupporters of the war, and (in one vivid and illustrative example) to describe the occupation of Hamilton Hall at Columbia without telling the story of Hind Rajab, whose name the occupiers used to rename the hall.”
Hind Rajab was a 5-year-old Palestinian girl whose family tried to flee Gaza City during the war. Hind and a cousin telephoned for help after the rest of their family was killed by shelling. Then the cousin was killed and Hind waited alone in the car for several hours. Days later, her body and the bodies of two paramedics who had gone to rescue her were discovered.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik’s first book is out: What to know
Reporting by Amy Neff Roth, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
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