A replica of a World War II-era document that Jews had to fill out stating that they received proper services and supplies in a concentration camp hangs on one wall in Leo Terrell’s office at the U.S. Justice Department. It was a gift, the chair of the federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism told JNS, from a colleague at the department.
On another wall in Terrell’s office, a framed print lists the names of Israeli soldiers who have died protecting the Jewish state, JNS saw during a recent visit.
A civil-rights attorney of three decades and senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Terrell told JNS that he rejects the concerns of some, even among Israel’s supporters, who fear a backlash for what they worry is the Trump administration going overboard in its defense of Israel and Jews.
Some worry that this is particularly the case with the administration’s decisions to cut billions of dollars in federal funding for universities, to insist that Columbia University place its Middle East studies program under receivership and to ban Harvard University from enrolling foreign students.
“I think those fears are false,” the former Fox News commentator told JNS.
“It’s very, very clear what hate crimes are and how they exist. You cannot justify Jewish American students being denied access to buildings,” Terrell told JNS. “This is not a free speech issue. So when people talk about the Trump administration’s approach, I submit to you the previous four years, they did nothing to stop the harassment on these college campuses.”
“They did nothing to enforce hate-crime laws,” he said.
The Trump administration was reportedly open to negotiations with Harvard last month after the university pushed back on the White House’s actions through the courts. But Terrell told JNS that he doesn’t think the university is acting in good faith.
“I don’t trust Harvard,” he said. “I’m sick and tired of $10,000 public relations letters stating, ‘We’re combating antisemitism.’ That’s a lie.”
“I don’t care if people can shout from the rafters that they hate Jews. I’ve got no problem with that. There have been people trying to validate antisemitism under the umbrella of First Amendment free speech,” Terrell told JNS. “I hate it when they conflate the First Amendment with criminal conduct, and that’s what you have at Harvard.”
The Trump administration is demanding that educational institutions “follow the law, follow the Constitution, follow Title VI, follow Title VII,” he said.
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. Title VII bars employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
“You want government funding? You cannot discriminate,” Terrell told JNS. “It is following the law like you follow it with every other class of citizens in this country, and until they do that, there’ll be no backroom deals.”
“The public has a right to know,” he said.
“I want to reject the notion that the Trump administration is too aggressive or has the wrong strategy to enforce the civil rights laws,” he added.
Terrell rejects “the notion that the Trump administration is too aggressive or that it has the wrong strategy to enforce the civil-rights laws.”
‘Boatloads of evidence’
He told JNS that the administration plans to file a lawsuit against the entire University of California system, which has 10 campuses, including its flagship in Berkeley and UCLA.
The latter, Terrell’s alma mater, was the site of a spring 2024 encampment, through which students and faculty, who refused to denounce Israel or displayed Jewish symbols or clothing, were prevented from accessing parts of campus.
Terrell’s task force announced a probe of UCLA in March, which aimed to assess whether the university “has engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, religion and national origin against its professors, staff and other employees by allowing an antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses,” it stated.
The task force said in late February that it planned to visit 10 university campuses—Columbia, George Washington University, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Northwestern, University of Minnesota, USC, UCLA and Berkeley—which have experienced Jew-hatred in the wake of Oct. 7.
But those visits, which were supposed to include meetings with school leaders, impacted students and staff, law enforcement and community members, haven’t occurred due to “resistance,” Terrell told JNS. Instead, the Trump administration plans to litigate to force schools to comply with Title VI and Title VII.
“We have tried to make offers to resolve these problems by way of consent decrees,” he said, of court-approved settlements without findings of guilt.
“They have failed,” Terrell told JNS. “So we have to take these individuals to court. There are boatloads of evidence.”
“We have to sue them to get them to comply with fundamental rights for Jewish American students to be allowed to go to school without being harassed,” he said.
“We have to get these local city officials, prosecutors and mayors to enforce hate crime laws, because Jewish American students are not only being denied the right to go to school without being harassed,” he said. “They are basically facing criminal attacks by individuals who are definitely antisemitic. Those individuals should be prosecuted.”
The Trump administration is using visa cancellations for those known to have participated in anti-Israel campus protests, which have often turned violent, “as a weapon,” Terrell said. “We’re also having the U.S. attorney’s office prosecute hate crimes that the local officials have failed to do.”
Terrell has been particularly troubled by the fact that campus Jew-hatred hasn’t been limited to progressive bastions on the coasts. “This is across the country. I just talked to Jewish students from Northwestern,” he said of the Evanston, Ill., school in the Chicago area.
“The same problem that we’re having at Harvard and Columbia and on the West Coast is happening in the Midwest,” he said.
Terrell blames the media, including CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post, which he said explain and excuse growing antisemitism.
“They justify it. I’ll challenge anyone in this country to tell me what’s happening at Harvard, what’s happening at Columbia is First Amendment speech,” he said. (Terrell told JNS he is ashamed to have gone to UCLA for law school given what’s happening at that campus.)
“We can’t have success unless every university, in every blue city, in every red city, treats Jewish Americans like they treat all Americans,” Terrell said.
Jewish Americans “have to pay for security to go to school, to walk the streets, to go to their synagogue,” he added. “We don’t need a Jewish tax in this country for security.”
Terrell likened that “Jewish tax” to poll taxes that made it difficult or impossible for black people to vote during the Segregation era.
In fact, Terrell told JNS that he prioritizes reminding black audiences that Jews marched alongside black people in support of civil rights in the 1960s. He made that point earlier this month when 90 black pastors visited the White House.
“I reminded them of the history between Jews and blacks, about the help, the financial aid that the Jewish community gave to help create the NAACP,” he said. “How two Jewish Americans lost their lives in June of 1964 when they went down to Mississippi to help blacks register to vote.”
“I reminded them that there has been a strong history of blacks and Jews in this country, and the Jews are facing the same problems that blacks faced,” he added. “We have an affirmative obligation to make sure Jewish Americans are protected like we’re protected.”
