Shortly before the next academic year begins, major U.S. Jewish groups called on colleges and universities to address campus antisemitism on Monday.
The Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hillel International and the Jewish Federations of North America urged the schools to comply with their obligations under Titles VI and VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by enacting a five-part list of recommendations.
Their recommendations include strict enforcement of time, place and manner restrictions on protests, rejecting the movement to boycott Israel and promoting intellectual diversity.
David Bernstein, founder of the North American Values Institute, told JNS that he was “heartened to see a statement from organized Jewish groups that urges that universities take seriously the need for structural reform that fosters genuine intellectual diversity and transparency.”
The statement was a “lost opportunity, however, not to explicitly call out university diversity, equity and inclusion programs that stifle intellectual diversity at every turn,” Bernstein told JNS. “Any university program that advances a singular oppressed-oppressor narrative creates a culture that’s permissive of antisemitism.”
“Jewish organizations know this and should stop ignoring the elephant in the room,” he said.
Dumisani Washington, founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, told JNS that “a statement about the nefarious roles of both DEI and critical ethnic studies should have been included.”
“Over the past few years, there have been in-depth studies proving that DEI and CES have great increased campus antisemitism,” Washington told JNS. “This coupled with the fact that the U.S. government has yet to address the billions in foreign funding still flowing to our colleges and universities, especially from hostile nations like Qatar and China, will mean that the problem of anti-Israel, antisemitic, anti-American indoctrination will increase.”
The Trump administration and Republicans on the Committee on Education and Workforce have made eradicating diversity programs a central part of their efforts to curb campus Jew-hatred.
Last month, Linda McMahon, secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, cited diversity programs in a statement about the Trump administration’s settlement with Columbia University, where the private school agreed to pay $200 million.
It also agreed to “discipline student offenders for severe disruptions of campus operations, make structural changes to their faculty senate, bring viewpoint diversity to their Middle Eastern studies programs, eliminate race preferences from their hiring and admissions practices and end DEI programs that distribute benefits and advantages based on race,” she said.
“The Trump administration’s deal with Columbia University is a seismic shift in our nation’s fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment,” she stated.
Earlier in the month, the House education panel held a hearing “to examine the main drivers of antisemitism on college campuses, such as polices on diversity, equity and inclusion, foreign funding, unions and faculty members that espouse antisemitism,” it stated.
Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Federation, said in the new statement that “expecting to be physically safe should be table stakes.”
“Jewish students also deserve to thrive academically and socially in their campus communities,” he stated. “These recommendations provide universities with concrete steps to create environments where Jewish students can pursue their education without fear of harassment or exclusion.”
With some 60 universities under threat of investigation from the Education Department for allegedly failing to protect the rights of Jewish students, many schools are scrambling to demonstrate that they are taking the issue seriously.
The University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia University have made multimillion-dollar settlements related to campus antisemitism, and Harvard University is reportedly considering a similar settlement for $500 million. The Trump administration has also reportedly offered the University of California system a $1 billion settlement for its alleged neglect of Jew-hated on campus.
The Trump administration is also pursuing universities that engage in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Conservatives argue that those DEI policies are discriminatory under the 14th Amendment and have been outlawed by the pair of 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decisions that found that race-based affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional.
In April, the Trump administration issued a memo asking states to certify that their schools were not practicing “illegal DEI,” or risk losing billions of dollars in federal funding.
A federal court halted that measure in April. On Thursday, a federal judge in Maryland ruled that the administration’s plan was unconstitutional because it potentially violated the free speech rights of teachers.
