• USC celebrates Jewish-American Heritage Month—first time ever!

• USC student for the “Lunatic of the Year” award?

• Updates from UCLA and UC Berkeley; more candidates for the award;

• Harvard lawsuit;

• Antisemitic vandalism in Swarthmore and Cornell;

• A couple of longer reads worth your time.

Jewish-American Heritage Month at USC

Last Wednesday, USC students, faculty, and staff gathered near Tommy Trojan to celebrate Jewish-American Heritage Month—the first time ever! The celebration on Wednesday featured warm greetings from Provost Guzman; a live band performance on stage; Israeli music; and a pita, hummus, and falafel lunch—courtesy of Chabad. Perhaps surprisingly, the event was not disrupted and was highlighted in USC Today! It was a nice get-together on a sunny day, and Anna had a chance to wave the Israeli flag and make new acquaintances.

The event marks a small miracle—Jews have been elevated to join other identity categories recognized on USC campus under the big tent of diversity, equity, and inclusion engagement and belonging. Jewish-American Heritage Month is now listed on the USC Cultural Heritage Celebrations website, alongside (in alphabetical order): Arab American Heritage Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, Black History Month, Juneteenth, Latinex/e Heritage Month, LGBTQ+ History Month, Native American Heritage Month, Pride Month, Veterans/Military Appreciation Day. Not listed on the Cultural Heritage website, but included in the USC events calendar and various newsletters, are Armenian History Month, Women’s History Month, Earth Month, Mental Health Awareness Month, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Wellness Week, Earth Week, Green Week, Sex Week, Transgender Day of Remembrance, and Arbor Day. Apologies if we missed anything.

According to the Cultural Heritage Celebrations website:

This approach enhances educational opportunities, strengthens a deeper cultural understanding across the campus community, and supports student engagement and belonging at USC. Cultural Heritage Celebrations are supported by teams across the university, including HR, Ethics, and Compliance; Cultural Relations and University Events (CRUE); Student Life; and USC Communications.

We have mixed feelings about such initiatives—especially about the Culture Journey facilitated by the Culture Team (we appreciate that the team has been recently considerably downsized) and the actors driving cancel and snitching culture on campus (that is, the HR and compliance folks). Why should a university engage in these celebrations? Given our financial strain, why do we support departments that do not meaningfully contribute to the university’s function? How many different and ever-more-granular identities and pet causes do we need to recognize? We argue that a university should focus on research and education and drop all this feel-good-but-good-for-nothing stuff. That said, as long as the university celebrates all other identities, the Jews should have their share of festivities, too.

Lunatic of the Year?

It has been a while—5 years—since a USC student and DEI ambassador who railed on social media to “kill all m*f*cking Zionists”—was nationally recognized as one of the 10 antisemites of the year. Now we have another candidate for a similar—or worse—honor, this time from USC Thornton School of Music.

You can read about the incident, which took place on campus on May 3, and watch it on video on X.

Lunatics at UCLA

UCLA Student Government Condemned an Event Featuring an Israeli Hostage, UC Regent Blasts the “Lunatics”

UCLA’s student government published a statement condemning an on-campus event that featured a freed Israeli hostage, Omer Shem Tov, who survived brutal torture at the hands of Hamas. The event, hosted by Hillel, was a part of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The statement said such an event could “obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence.” UC Regent Jay Sures, who called the students “lunatics,” chastised the students in a scathing letter—a rare and much-needed rebuke. The statement by the student government was all but predictable, but the rebuke feels like a miracle. Thank you Regent Sures for your courage and moral clarity.

More on the incident below:

‘Appalled’: Regent Rebukes UCLA Students for Condemning Event Featuring Israeli Hostage (Gabrielle Temaat, The College Fix, 04/28/2026)

Sures also told Jewish Insider that anyone who signed the condemnation letter would “have to be a complete lunatic.”

He added that there is a “small number of people who have a very loud voice that love to spew antisemitic hatred” on UCLA’s campus. The “administration has done an excellent job at cracking down on this and having a zero tolerance towards it.”

Hamas Hostage Tears into UCLA over Vile Condemnation—As Council Chief Issues Furious Statement (Zain Khan and Ross O'Keefe, New York Post, 04/23/2026)

“If you are willing to silence a survivor of 505 days in captivity to protect a preconceived narrative, it’s worth pausing,” Omer Shem Tov exclusively told The California Post, after the university’s Undergraduate Students Association Council blasted his April 14 visit to the school to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

UC Regent Jay Sures Slams ‘Antisemitic’ UCLA Student Government for Attack on Hamas Hostage (Katie Jerkowich, New York Post, 04/23/2026)

In a rare rebuke, A prominent Hollywood Jewish leader has slammed a group of “lunatic” UCLA students after their antisemitic condemnation of an on-campus appearance from a Hamas hostage.

UC Regent Jay Sures, the vice chairman of United Talent Agency, issued a scathing letter Friday saying he was “disgusted” and “appalled” by members of UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Council who said a visit from Omer Shem Tov—a 23-year-old who survived 505 days in Hamas captivity—“obscured the broader reality of ongoing state violence.”

More Lunatics: UCLA Professor Calls Jews “Parasite Class”

After October 7

Palestinian-American Filmmaker Exposed for Calling Jews ‘Parasite Class,’ Spreading Child Sacrifice Libel While Teaching Screenwriting at UCLA

Palestinian-American filmmaker Rolla Selbak, who teaches screenwriting at UCLA Extension’s Writers Program, was outed Friday as an unapologetic anti-Jewish bigot who openly brands Jews a “parasite class,” promotes medieval blood libels suggesting they practice child sacrifice, and calls for the destruction of Israel, the United States, and the “Western Zionist Imperial World Order…

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3 months ago · 13 likes · 1 comment · Kevin Deutsch

Palestinian-American filmmaker Rolla Selbak, who teaches screenwriting at UCLA Extension’s Writers Program, calls Jews a “parasite class,” promotes medieval blood libels suggesting they practice child sacrifice, and calls for the destruction of Israel, the United States, and the “Western Zionist Imperial World Order.” You can watch Rolla on X, courtesy of Canary Mission.

Jewish UCLA Faculty Move to Join Civil Rights Lawsuit

Seven Jewish UCLA faculty and staff filed a motion to join a pending civil rights lawsuit against the University of California, asserting that antisemitic actions, largely in the form of anti-Zionism, targeted their Jewish identity. The lawsuit follows an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission finding of reasonable cause that UCLA subjected the plaintiffs to a hostile work environment based on their Jewish identity and religion, in violation of Title VI. It also follows more than two years of work by the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFRG) to document anti-Jewish hostility and seek institutional accountability.

For full details, read the press release and complaint. As we covered on these pages (see also here, here, here, here, and here), UCLA has repeatedly failed to protect Jewish students and to enforce their own policies on protests and disruptions. We stand with JFRG and wish them the best of luck in court!

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UC Berkeley Student Groups Host Talk by Convicted Palestinian Suicide Bomber (Gabrielle Temaat, The College Fix, 04/28/2026)

And what are Berkeley lunatics are up to? Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine organized an event called “Palestinian Political Prisoners Day”—and invited Israa Jaabis, who was convicted for attempting a suicide car bombing in Jerusalem in 2015, to speak at the event.

Now she is addressing students in a Berkeley Law School classroom via video call, according to The Jerusalem Post….

The groups described the event as a chance for students “to hear experiences of Palestinian torture survivors and prisoners of conscience.”

Protesters Shut Down Berkeley Forum Event Hosting Google AI Scientist (Madeleine Kashkooli, The Daily Californian, 05/01/2026)

Protesters interrupted a Berkeley Forum and College of Engineering event featuring Google chief scientist and Gemini lead Jeff Dean, purportedly motivated by the use of Gemini AI in the “genocide in Gaza.” The school failed to enforce their own Time, Place, and Manner policies and the event was shut down.

Approximately 20 protesters marched over from the May Day rally held at noon in front of California Hall. After the rally concluded, a student organizer announced that a speaker from Google’s Gemini AI was speaking at the Grimes Engineering Center and called on rally attendees to join him in disrupting the event, which had started at 1 p.m. The group of protesters headed over to Grimes and entered the event, held in the Eugene Jarvis Auditorium, at 1:37 p.m.

One of the student protesters, a member of Students Organizing for Liberation at UC Berkeley, walked onto the stage with a megaphone and interrupted Dean’s speech. The student led the other protesters, who lined up in the aisle of the event, in a chant of “UC, UC, you can’t hide, you are funding genocide.”

“What do you say for your AI being used to kill Palestinians?” the student asked Dean.

Dean responded that he appreciated the students’ message but was trying to deliver a “scientific lecture.”

During a 10-minute back-and-forth between the protesters, event organizers and attendees, the audience largely expressed support for Dean, chanting his name and cheering when asked if they wanted to hear from him, and booed the protesters. …

Organizers from the Berkeley Forum and the College of Engineering, as well as UCPD officers, repeatedly asked the protesters to leave the event. Electrical engineering and computer sciences department chair Jelani Nelson walked on stage to the microphone and offered to speak with the protesters outside the auditorium so the event could continue, but the protesters did not agree to Nelson’s request.

At approximately 1:47 p.m., event organizers announced that they were shutting down the event, and attendees and protesters left the room. A UCPD officer followed some of the protesters out of the event.

Trump Administration Sues Harvard over ‘Hostile’ Environment for Jewish Students (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, 03/20/2026)

On March 20, the Trump administration filed a new lawsuit against Harvard, claiming that its leadership violated the civil rights of Jewish students by failing to address ongoing antisemitism that has roiled the campus since the Oct. 7, 2023.

In the 44-page lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, the Department of Justice said that Harvard unlawfully discriminated against Jewish students by its “intentional conduct and its deliberate indifference to discriminatory harassment of Jewish and Israeli students and creation of a hostile educational environment” since Oct. 7 and “up to the present day.” Jewish and Israeli students “were repeatedly denied access to educational facilities by antisemitic demonstrators. Fearful for their safety, Jewish students wore baseball caps to conceal their yarmulkes or kept out of sight, effectively denying them access to federally funded educational opportunities,” the lawsuit argues.

Read the full story here.

You can view the complaint here.

More coverage:

• Justice Dept. Again Sues Harvard, Alleging ‘Failures’ to Combat Antisemitism (Sonel Carter, The Chronicle, 03/20/2026)

• Ivy League Schools Are Cutting Jewish Admissions, While Faculty Attack Israel and Jews (Alex Joffe, Algemeiner, 04/07/2026)

• Harvard Got Sued. Why It Deserves It. (Gerard Filitti, The Times of Israel, 03/21/26)

The last piece, written by Gerard Filitti, a lawyer, political strategist, and regional expert on the Middle East and Central Asia, provides an in-depth analysis of the case:

The government’s theory has two distinct prongs, and both are well-constructed.

The first is deliberate indifference. Under Davis v. Monroe County, a federally funded institution violates Title VI when it has actual knowledge of severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment and responds with deliberate indifference. Harvard’s own Presidential Task Force – commissioned by Harvard, staffed by Harvard, published by Harvard – concluded that Jewish and Israeli students faced “dire” conditions, were subjected to “social exclusion,” experienced “widespread” discrimination by peers and professors alike, and that Harvard’s complaint mechanisms lacked even “foundational awareness” of how to handle antisemitism reports. Harvard’s own task force said that. The government didn’t manufacture that record. Harvard produced it.

The second prong is more interesting and, in some ways, stronger: intentional selective enforcement. The complaint documents a pattern of Harvard enforcing its rules vigorously against everyone except those targeting Jews. In 2017, Harvard rescinded ten admissions offers over offensive private Facebook messages. In 2022, it canceled a lecture by a feminist philosopher over her views on transgender identity. When a gay law student was assaulted, Harvard sent a campus-wide email condemning the attack the same day. When a Jewish student was assaulted – physically attacked while trying to film a demonstration – Harvard awarded one attacker a $65,000 fellowship and named the other a Class Marshal. That is not indifference. It is the inverse of indifference.

Under Arlington Heights, discriminatory intent is established through circumstantial evidence of exactly this kind of differential treatment. The complaint’s factual record on selective enforcement is, frankly, devastating. And it draws almost entirely from Harvard’s own documents. …

Here is what most of the coverage will miss entirely: this complaint is not the same legal action as the funding freeze Burroughs struck down last September.

When the administration unilaterally froze $2.6 billion in Harvard’s research grants, it skipped the mandatory Title VI enforcement process. There was no notice, no investigation, no opportunity to respond, no judicial involvement. Burroughs correctly found that violated both the statute and the First Amendment. That ruling was about how the government acted, not about what Harvard did. It was a ruling about process, not about the merits.

Today’s complaint is the opposite procedural posture. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) opened its investigation in February 2025. It issued formal findings of violation in June 2025. It met and conferred with Harvard in July 2025. It negotiated for eight additional months. When those negotiations failed, it filed in federal court and asked a judge to order relief. That is textbook Title VI enforcement. Same statute. Right procedure. The Burroughs ruling does not govern this case, and treating it as dispositive is an error….

The case is assigned to Judge Richard Stearns, a Clinton appointee who handled Shabbos Kestenbaum’s Title VI lawsuit against Harvard and is known as a careful, precise jurist without an ideological axe to grind. He will read the Burroughs opinion. He will also be aware that this complaint followed the procedure Burroughs said the prior action violated. The legal question before him is narrower than the culture war questions the press will insist on litigating: did Harvard violate Title VI, and did it breach its contractual compliance certifications? On those questions, Harvard’s own record is its worst enemy….

But here is what should not get lost in the noise: Jewish students at the most prestigious university in the world were spat on, stalked, and physically assaulted. They hid their yarmulkes under baseball caps to walk across campus. They reported their assailants, and their assailants were promoted. They asked Harvard’s diversity office for help, and its staff had locked the door.

“Harvard earned this lawsuit, and it is well-deserved,” concludes Filitti. We concur.

Protesting Students Break the Rules (and the Law) at Swarthmore and Cornell (Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution Is True, 05/02/2026)

On May 1, protestors, acting illegally, caused trouble—vandalism in the form of graffiti “Intifada” and “Divest,” disruption, etc.—at Swarthmore College and Cornell University. In response, the presidents of both colleges wrote letters to their respective campis communities, but the hooligans faced no real consequences. Jerry Coyne, who covered both cases on his website, asks:

When the obstructive students, who were of course pro-Palestinian, started banging on Kotlikoff’s car and blocking him, they were engaging in criminal activities. (Vandalism is also a crime.) Again, you don’t see pro-Israel students disrupting talks like this or engaging in vandalism. Why doesn’t anybody ever point that out? You tell me. Or rather, don’t bother—I already know.

I also know that if the students who break the rules while protesting aren’t punished—as they aren’t at my University—then they’ll keep breaking the rules. Why do these presidents think that simple announcements that “this behavior is bad” would do the trick?

The ‘Verbal Swastika’, #FreePalestine (The Gadfly, 05/03/2026)

Commenting on the topic of moral posturing of Jew-haters, Gadfly dissects the fallacious nature of progressive blood libels and explains how the progressive movement subverts empathy and compassion to justify their antisemitism:

The irony is that they think they’re the anti-fascists, the morally sane ones correcting a terrible evil, when the opposite is the case.

Gadfly compares progressive antisemitism, regretfully, promoted on our campuses, with computer malware and offers an antidote:

There’s effective antiviral software for all this, and it’s called critical thinking. But that’s also the first thing a certain kind of university education drags to the trash can, if it was there to begin with. Too many universities, which once at least pretended to be about the pursuit of truth, now function like churches with a new theology formed of social justice slogans and critical theory. How easily antisemitism slots into that oppressor/oppressed framework, the easiest virtue-signal machine ever invented, overwriting critical thinking and corrupting the operating system it runs on.

He observes that the haters fall into six categories:

The Hallmark Card. The “let’s all just be nice to each other” person, who imagines that if we all stood around holding hands in a circle and singing “Imagine”, somehow these problems would go away. It’s a form of cowardice – a deeply unserious response that solves nothing except the user’s bad conscience at looking away from what they know is a crime. The same person will rarely, if ever, respond to anti-Muslim hatred with the same prescription.

The Whatabouter. “What about Israeli apartheid? What about Palestinian children?” The Whatabouter doesn’t necessarily deny the antisemitism, but they’re not interested in talking about it; instead, they prosecute Israel’s so-called crimes and acts of genocide. They will never “whatabout” in the other direction – the Uyghur Muslims, Yemen, Sudan. They only get animated by the Jews, whose suffering is an annoying detail at best. Over a thousand Israeli citizens, including children and even babies, were murdered in a sadistic frenzy of violence, you remind them. “What about the settlements!” they reply.

The Context Guy. “Well, you have to understand the context – colonialism, the Nakba, 1948…” The Context Guy saw a report on CNN and thinks they’ve grasped some important historical nuance, which excuses them from outright condemnation of the Nazi salutes. They’ll say “it’s complicated” when they mean “they had it coming.”

The Tone Police. “I agree antisemitism is a problem, but you’re being too aggressive, too one-sided, too inflammatory.” The Tone Police are friends of the Hallmark card, but wear lanyards rather than yoga pants. Their message is essentially: “You might be right, but please stop making a fuss about it.”

The Sophist. The hardest to deal with, because this person is a practised debater who makes calculated concessions, then shifts the goalposts. The sophist is manipulative for a living, which is why they appear on TV panels when they’re not writing Guardian op-eds doing the same thing. Borrowing from the Context Guy, they always arrive at “it’s more complicated than that” to buy time while thinking of a new diversion. …

The Distinguisher. "I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-Zionist." This is the most important deflection and the one we must take most seriously, because it draws a distinction that is theoretically real.

Introduction to Gazology (Matti Friedman, The Free Press, 04/21/2026; archived version here)

Matti Friedman argues that the Gaza war has spurred “a new literary genre” that “refashions the ruins of Gaza into a dark political parable with a predictable villain.”

It’s a longish, but very worthwhile, read.

In this newsletter:

• Report on antisemitism on college campuses by the House Education and Workforce Committee

• Report on Jewish enrollment at Harvard and its peers

• Trump administration considers new tools for combating campus antisemitism

• Berkeley settles with Brandeis Center

• Updates on campus antisemitism from Cornell, Columbia, and other places

• Antisemitic unions and the imminent threat to USC

• AMCHA petition

• New column from The Free Press to cover antisemitism

And in case you can do with some laughs—check out our recent newsletter “You Can’t Make It Up: When Reality Outruns Satire.”

Education & Workforce Committee Releases Bombshell Report on Antisemitism in Higher Ed (Press Release, 03/17/2026)

Under the leadership of Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI), the [House] Education and Workforce Committee released a new majority staff report on antisemitism on college campuses.

“Antisemitism continues to spread like wildfire at schools across the nation,” said Chairman Walberg. “Over the past several years, we’ve seen university leaders surrender to the radical demands of terror-supporting mobs targeting Jewish students and faculty. This weakness has emboldened hatred and allowed campuses to devolve into hotbeds of radical antisemitism.

The report found evidence to support four conclusions:

1. University leaders are still failing to show strong, decisive leadership to address antisemitism on college campuses. In every case examined, the Committee found strong leadership to be critical to stopping antisemitic harassment. At many schools, a lack of decisive leadership allowed antisemitism to spread as leaders caved to the radical demands of faculty and student groups.

2. Faculty members are legitimizing and amplifying antisemitism on college campuses. Across multiple universities, the Committee discovered many faculty members who promoted antisemitism. Faculty members sought to strip Jewish students of protections against harassment, incited or celebrated violence, and left Jewish students isolated and alienated.

3. Student groups are acting as ringleaders driving antisemitic harassment and hostility. Groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are ringleaders for the antisemitic harassment faced by Jewish students on campus, often with the support of faculty members.

4. American universities operating campuses in the Middle East are failing in critical ways to fulfill their stated goal of promoting American values. These satellite campuses host faculty and students that perpetuate antisemitism without apparent consequence and also struggle to uphold free speech principles.

Click here to read the entire report and here to read the appendix. See also Education Committee finds SJP and Faculty Groups Play Central Role in Campus Antisemitism (Matthew Shea, Jewish Insider, 03/17/2026).

The report is a “bombshell” insofar as it is comprehensive and the product, not of a Jewish advocacy group, but of a governmental body—otherwise, it contains no real surprises. We have extensively covered the actions of radical faculty here, here, and here. Radical faculty are also the main concern of the AMCHA petition that we cover below. The report paints a far less-rosy picture than the most recent ADL Campus Report (which gave USC a grade of “A”).

The Decline of Jewish Enrollment at the Ivies

The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance, the university’s official Jewish alumni group, released a 64-page report, A Narrowing Gate: Jewish Enrollment at Harvard and Its Peers, 1967-2025. The report documents a significant decline in Jewish enrollment in several Ivy League schools, especially prominent in Harvard and Yale.

The report documents what we already knew anecdotally—that academically outstanding Jewish students are being excluded from the top schools. Jewish erasure from various sectors of intellectual and public life is a thing.

This report asks whether Harvard’s outcome is explained by forces operating across American higher education, or whether it requires a different explanation. It can only be answered comparatively. The metric is the J/WNJ ratio: the rate of Jewish enrollment change at each institution measured against White non-Jewish enrollment change at the same institution over the same period. That comparison, applied across nine universities, produces a clear pattern with two striking exceptions. Harvard and Yale both saw Jewish enrollment fall far faster than their White non-Jewish peers. At Princeton, operating under every similar structural pressure in the same decade, the outcome was better than proportional — Jews declined at less than a fifth of the rate of White non-Jewish peers. At Brown and Cornell, Jewish enrollment held or grew. The schools that declined did so at sharply different rates under otherwise similar structural conditions. That variation is where the analysis begins.

The report looks at the data in several ways, attempting to find plausible explanations for the exclusion of Jewish students. After discarding several hypotheses, it concludes:

Of the mechanisms that remain after the structural analysis in Section III, holistic ratings calibration is the most parsimonious single explanation consistent with what the data show. It is documented in the institutional record: the SFFA litigation established that trained admissions readers assigned Asian American applicants systematically lower personal ratings on subjective traits, producing measurable group-level disparities without any discriminatory instruction. The mechanism is real, it operates without explicit policy, and it is capable of producing school-specific outcomes at the scale documented here without leaving traces in the structural data that the stacking analysis would capture. Whether an analogous pattern applies to Jewish applicants is not a finding of this report. It is a hypothesis the data are consistent with and that Harvard is uniquely positioned to test. No outside party can answer it from the data that are publicly available. Harvard can.

The report calls on Harvard to take the following three actions:

COUNT. Track Jewish enrollment — applicants, admits, enrolled students — using the same voluntary self-identification Harvard applies to race, gender, and geography. Publish the results annually. Harvard collected this data through the early 1990s and stopped. That gap is why this report had to be written by alumni.

AUDIT. Review whether admissions policy changes over the past two decades produced disproportionate effects on Jewish applicants. Harvard has the internal records to answer this question. We are asking them to look.

CORRECT. If the audit reveals disproportionate impact, fix what caused it — not through quotas or targets, but by removing the blind spot that allowed a 50 percent decline to go undetected for a decade. …

One thing this report does not ask for: punitive enforcement or funding withdrawal. Each of these asks is within Harvard’s power to initiate and direct, accountable to its own community. The same monitoring infrastructure this report asks Harvard to build for Jewish students should apply consistently to all protected groups. Consistent monitoring is the standard. It is not currently being met for any religious or ancestral group.

In our opinion, this is too lenient. Such discrimination violates federal civil rights law and should be punished with fines or loss of federal funding. How much more evidence does it take to realize that universities will not otherwise comply with the law?

Harvard to Recruit at Jewish Day Schools After Study Finds Steep Decline in Jewish Enrollment (Ira Stoll, The Washington Free Beacon, 03/17/2026)

Here’s one that surprised us: According to the Washington Free Beacon, Harvard is planning to address the loss of Jewish enrollment by targeted recruitment.

Harvard College’s dean of admissions and financial aid, William Fitzsimmons, says Harvard is following Brown University’s lead in admissions outreach targeting Jewish day schools, and that results so far this year have been encouraging.

The dean’s remarks, made February 20 at a Harvard Chabad shabbat dinner at Harvard Business School where a former Brown chancellor was the honored guest speaker, are being reported here for the first time. Fitzsimmons also joined Harvard president Alan Garber and Harvard Chabad in December in publicly lighting the Harvard Chabad chanukah menorah in Harvard Yard.

Is this a serious recruitment effort? Is the problem that Jewish students are not applying to Harvard, and if it is, why aren’t they? Could it be that Harvard has earned a reputation for antisemitism and a hostile campus culture to Jewish students? Or is the problem that Harvard is discriminating against Jewish applicants? Whatever it is (and we suspect it is both), we think it would be preferable for Harvard to correct the root causes of the problem than to make recruitment speeches at Chabad dinners. But these hopes seem futile in light of Harvard having taking the lead in the resistance movement in higher education—the resistance to expunge DEI, the resistance to depoliticize, the resistance to institute reforms to restore trust in higher education.

Trump Official Says Tax Code Could Be Tool in Fight Against Campus Antisemitism (Gabby Deutsch, Jewish Insider, 03/11/2026)

This sounds like an interesting idea—use the U.S. tax code to curb campus antisemitism.

Speaking at a conference about antisemitism organized by the Republican Jewish Coalition and National Review, Noah Pollak, a senior advisor to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, said that making changes to American tax policy could be a useful vehicle to fight antisemitism on campuses.

His argument was a wonky one, suggesting that changes to IRS rules regulating nonprofits could increase transparency—and require the organizations fomenting antisemitism at U.S. universities to reveal much more information about their operations and staff.

Pollak called for the federal government to create limits on fiscal sponsorship, a tool by which an existing nonprofit incubates a new one. This allows a new nonprofit organization to launch quickly, with donations passing through a larger, more established organization. The idea is that once the new nonprofit has a steadier foundation, it will eventually incorporate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the IRS, after which point it must meet certain federal requirements and make information about its finances and activities publicly available.

How Colleges and K-12 Schools Are Marching Forward with an Anti-Israel Agenda (Alexander Joffe, The Algemeiner, 03/09/2026)

Universities continue to protest the Trump administration’s efforts to expunge DEI and rein in costs, while receiving help from Congress, which has restored funding to schools. Scientists in particular have resumed their complaints regarding Federal budget cuts and increased oversight, while the media have resumed stories about the economic and social impacts of cuts on sciences, states, and individuals.

The place of antisemitism in the priorities of the higher education industrial complex were reflected at the American Association of Colleges and Universities annual meeting. In contrast to the many sessions on DEI and artificial intelligence, only one was devoted to antisemitism, which was paired with the topic of “Islamophobia.”

In a sign that senior university leaders have simply decided to wait out the administration regardless of appearances, Georgetown Law School appointed Elizabeth Magill, former University of Pennsylvania president, as dean. Magill resigned her position after a disastrous appearance before Congress, where she failed to stand up to hate against Jewish students. The committee that appointed her at Georgetown was comprised largely of leading Democratic donors.

A Labor Union Anti-Semitism Monitor

Labor unions are driving campus antisemitism. (We discussed it here, here, and here.) They supported the encampments, they sided with Hamas, and they continue to demand that universities embrace BDS. This is not surprising, given that the unions are animated by the same progressive ideology that feeds campus antisemitism. If we are serious about driving antisemitism from our campuses, de-unionizing them would be a step in the right direction.

The Union Anti-Semitism Monitor provides a comprehensive compilation of resources documenting the antisemitic actions by the unions. Here is one recent item:

Columbia Student Worker Union Authorizes Strike Amid Contract Talks, Israel Boycott Demands (Mike Wagenheim, JNS, 03/12/2026)

Student Workers of Columbia, a union representing roughly 3,500 graduate and undergraduate student workers at Columbia University, has “overwhelmingly” authorized a strike as part of ongoing contract negotiations with the university, including demands for an institutional boycott of Israel.

The union, affiliated with the United Auto Workers, wrote in a social media post on Wednesday that “it’s time to turn up the pressure.” The vote allows union leaders to call a strike at a future date but does not constitute an immediate work stoppage.

Union leaders say their bargaining agenda goes beyond traditional labor issues, including demands tied to recent campus political conflicts. Among the proposals are amnesty and reinstatement for students disciplined after the April 2024 occupation of Hamilton Hall during pro‑Palestinian protests, restrictions on campus police use of force, and removal of university security cameras.

Grant Miner, president of the union, was expelled and banned from campus for his role in the Hamilton Hall takeover, and is still paid $46,000 a year by the union, according to The Free Press.

Unfortunately, USC has failed to thwart the unionization of students and postdocs, and we are already paying the price. Now we face a vote of our non-tenure track faculty on whether to unionize (USC Faculty Will Vote on Union Effort in April, Tomo Chien, Morning Trojan, 03/20/2026). If this vote passes, it will not only further undermine the functioning of the university, it will strengthen the antisemitic contingent on campus. Let us pray for a Passover miracle to thwart this pestilence!

Updates from Cornell

Cornell, which has a large population of Jewish students, remains a hotbed of antisemitism. The most recent development—a Student Assembly vote to cut ties with Technion. Why students consider this to be their business is baffling. The students also condemned the university for hosting Tzipi Livni, a former Knesset member and minister who previously led Israeli peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Read about the resolution with all its libels—“serious ethical concerns,” “complicity in genocide,” “use of programming to platform individuals implicated in war crimes”— in the following articles.

We are happy to report that Cornell’s President, Michael Kotlikoff, had the integrity to push back and reject these resolutions.

Cornell Student Assembly Backs Cutting Ties with Technion as Rally in NYC Praises October 7 Attack (Daniel Edelson, YNet Global, 03/14/2026)

Undergraduate body votes 17–5 to end Cornell-Technion partnership and condemns hosting Tzipi Livni; tense meeting sees president booed as pro-Iran rally in Manhattan praises October 7 terror attack.

Cornell Student Assembly Votes to Cut Ties with Israel’s Technion (Luke Tress, The Times of Israel, 03/14/2026)

Resolutions Pass on the Invitation of Alleged War Criminals, Cornell-Technion Partnership, Kotlikoff Speaks at Packed Student Assembly Meeting (Vivienne Cierski, The Cornell Daily Sun, 03/19/2026)

Cornell President Rejects Students’ Anti-Israel Resolutions, Citing ‘Political Bias’ (Luke Tress, The Times of Israel, 03/20/2026)

Cornell University’s president forcefully rejected two anti-Israel resolutions from the student government, one of the latest developments on the US campus battlefields….

Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff wrote Wednesday to the head of the student assembly that the resolution to cut off the Technion “fundamentally conflicts with Cornell’s principles of academic collaboration and our core commitment to academic freedom.”…

Kotlikoff said that ending the Cornell-Technion collaboration for political purposes “would not only hinder our research, teaching and public engagement; it would imperil our academic principles,” such as academic freedom, institutional excellence and a commitment to public trust.

The article raises broader concerns, calling attention to the role of antisemitic unions:

The Cornell assembly’s resolutions are part of a broader, ongoing assault by activist US university students and faculty against any connections to Israel. Jewish students and federal authorities have said the activism veers into discrimination against Jews.

Student unions and governing bodies have played a role in stigmatizing Israel, as do unions representing other industries that are nominally dedicated to improving worker conditions.

Columbia University’s administration is feuding with its graduate student union over the union’s anti-Israel demands.

Late last year, Cornell’s graduate student union adopted a boycott resolution targeting Israel that supported Palestinian resistance “by any means necessary,” a slogan seen as endorsing violence. The university distanced itself from the union and condemned antisemitism.

Accountability Updates: UC Berkeley Settles with the Brandeis Center

Berkeley Settles with Brandeis Center over Allegations of Antisemitism (Cam Lippincott, The Daily Californian, 03/19/2026)

The UC Board of Regents voted in closed session Wednesday to settle the Brandeis Center’s 2023 lawsuit which alleged UC Berkeley failed to respond to antisemitic harassment and discrimination on campus.

More broadly, the agreement includes mandatory antisemitism and anti-discrimination training for students, faculty and staff, creates a Title VI officer to oversee investigations and requires an annual campus student life survey that includes questions on campus climate for Jewish and Israeli students.

The UC Regents will also pay the Brandeis Center $1 million in legal fees.

Apart from the standard (and, in our view, useless) bureaucratic provisions (mandatory trainings, expansion of Title VI, campus surveys), the settlement agreement contains several substantive items:

• Commitment to consider the IHRA definition when assessing discrimination and harassment complaints. Although cases will still be adjudicated under existing policy standards, the definition will now officially inform the investigative process. This is a positive change.

• Commitment to strengthen existing curriculum. According to the agreement, Berkeley is to continue operating the Tel Aviv–Berkeley Executive LLM Program, the Israel Studies Winter Trip, and to resume the Berkeley Global Internship Program in Haifa when safety conditions permit.

• Commitment to improve disciplinary processes. The agreement requires Berkeley to process complaints more quickly and to improve transparency in reporting outcomes. It also lists concrete measures for enforcing time, place, and manner rules.

• Commitment to strengthen the role of several campus bodies. The Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Jewish Life will receive reports on Office for the Prevention of Harassment & Discrimination (OPHD) complaints related to academic courses and will produce a public written report with recommendations regarding curriculum and leadership in Jewish and Israel studies.

• Commitment to monitor compliance. The Brandeis Center will receive annual OPHD reports and hold annual meetings with Berkeley administrators to review compliance.

AMCHA Petitions UC Regents to Stop Faculty from Fueling Antisemitism

On March 9, the AMCHA Initiative sent a letter to the University of California Regents urging them to address the growing politicization within faculty and academic departments across UC campuses. The letter follows a report released by AMCHA last month documenting a sharp rise in antisemitism across the UC system, particularly since October 7, 2023. The report highlights how some faculty members and departments have leveraged their academic authority and university resources to advance political advocacy that has contributed to a hostile environment for Jewish students. We invite our readers to sign the AMCHA Initiative Petition.

The Free Press Launches a New Column to Cover Antisemitism: Tracking the Virus of Antisemitic Violence

The Free Press has launched a project to track antisemitic incidents. As reported in their article Tracking the Virus of Antisemitic Violence (03/13/2026):

Today, we’re launching a new, weekly roundup. This Week in Jew-Hate is meant to summarize the speed and severity of the virus. Not exactly the most fun read of the week (but then, you have TGIF for that). But we think it’s work worth doing. By collecting these incidents in one place each week, we hope to restore a sense of perspective that was lost after October 7. To make sure these attacks are shown for what they are. To see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. You can read the first installment here: The Virus of Antisemitic Violence.

This is going to be our go-to resource for updates on antisemitic incidents. Unfortunately, we think the Free Press is going to have its hands full.

Story #1: Terror Attack in NYC

First, the real story—what happened on March 7 at in NYC—by The Free Press and Jewish Insider.

Terror on the Upper East Side (Mene Ukueberuwa, The Free Press, 03/08/2026)

Two men tried to detonate homemade bombs on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Saturday. They had, according to reports, been inspired by ISIS videos. In a video from the scene, you can hear someone scream, “Allahu akbar.”

But you would never know any of that from the mayor’s statement—or from much of the mainstream media’s coverage. If you were reading that, or listening to the words of the city’s top elected official, you would assume the bombs were placed by white supremacists.

Alleged Perpetrators of Attempted Bombing at Anti-Mamdani Protest Claim ISIS as Inspiration (Will Bredderman, Jewish Insider, 03/09/2026)

The two Pennsylvania men who allegedly hurled improvised explosive devices toward a protest against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will face federal charges for “ISIS-inspired terrorism,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch revealed Monday….

Neither bomb ultimately detonated. The criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York Monday stated that both men waived their Miranda rights and explicitly identified ISIS as their inspiration.

“This isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the Prophet [Muhammad],” Balat told police, according to the charging documents. The complaint continues that Balat requested and received writing materials, and jotted down: “All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds. I pledge my allegience [sic] to the Islamic State. Die in your rage yu [sic] kuffar!”

What CNN Had to Say About the Attacks:

CNN eventually deleted the tweet and posted the following “correction,” which the incisive Konstantin Kisin calls out as disingenuous.

The Babylon Bee lampoons CNN, giving us…

10 Famous Terrorist Attacks As Described By CNN (Babylon Bee)

CNN has been a mainstay of the American media since its inception in 1980. The prestigious network has won several awards covering everything from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to 9/11, making it the most trusted name in news. Aspiring journalists, take note! CNN’s reporting on terrorist attacks is second to none.

Here’s some of their award winning reporting on terrorism in action:

Story #2: Mamdani Reacts to the NYC Attack

Here is the real story:

After Islamist Attack, Mamdani Slams Victims as White Supremacists (David Volodzko, The Radicalist)

Responding to the attack, Mamdani condemned white supremacy:

Good morning. On Saturday, a protest was held outside Gracie Mansion, where I live with my wife, Rama. Neither of us were home at the time. This was a vile protest rooted in white supremacy entitled, “Stop the Islamic takeover of New York City.” I’m the first Muslim mayor of our city. Anti-Muslim bigotry is nothing new to me, nor is it anything new for the 1 million or so Muslim New Yorkers who know this city as our home.

Volodzko comments:

I really hate how white supremacists always go around blowing people up in the name of Allah. That passage, by the way, was the only reference Mamdani made to Islam in his speech, framing Muslims as victims in the wake of this Muslim attack…

The New York Times didn’t perform any better. After Mamdani blamed white supremacy, the Times ran a story headlined “Mamdani Chooses His Words Carefully After Alleged Terror Attack.” Aside from the offensive claim that blaming white supremacy was a carefully thought-out choice—hell, maybe it was, maybe Mamdani knows exactly what he’s doing — there’s also the fact that this story ran on March 9, three days after the attack and long since half the internet had already seen the footage of the terrorists literally throwing the bombs. So why in the world are they saying alleged terror attack? Generally, you use that term when a crime has not yet been adjudicated in court because guilt is undetermined. But that rule doesn’t apply when you have footage of the crime. But the Grey Lady didn’t stop there. Behold:

Accused of bringing a bomb? As the journalist Melissa Chen wrote, “Bro is literally holding a looney toons ass bomb with a lit fuse and it’s SMOKING.”

And here is Babylon Bee’s take:

Mamdani Condemns New Yorkers For Making Muslims Throw Bombs At Them (Babylon Bee)

Click the headline, to read the story.

Story #3: Make Love, Not War

Real communication from the Pope:

Pope Leo: May Weapons Fall Silent in Iran (Vatican News)

Stability and peace are not built with mutual threats, nor with weapons, which sow destruction, pain, and death, but only through a reasonable, authentic, and responsible dialogue.

The Babylon Bee responds:

Pope Condemns Allied Forces For Not Just Talking It Out With Nazis (Babylon Bee)

VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo issued a forceful condemnation of the Allied Forces resorting to violence instead of simply talking things out with the Nazis.

The Pope warned that stability and peace in places like Nazi-occupied France could never occur through the use of weapons, but only through thoughtful dialogue with Hitler.

“We must not stoop to violence against Nazis,” said Pope Leo in a general address. “When the Nazis loaded millions of people into gas chambers, that was the time for sincere dialogue. If only the Allied Powers had laid down their weapons and just hugged it out with Nazis, peace could have returned once more.”

Several Vatican aides attempted to point out that the Allied Powers actually did achieve a lasting stability and peace by militarily defeating the Nazis, but to no avail.

Story #4: Tweets by Wives

Selective Scrutiny: How Media Covered Two NYC Political Wives (Melissa Weiss, Jewish Insider, 03/09/2026)

Recent days have offered a tale of two New York public officials’ wives and a revealing look at inconsistent standards from some mainstream media outlets on how they scrutinize the families of elected officials depending on the political viewpoints expressed.

The first was a New York Times story focused on the pro-Israel social media posts of Rep. Dan Goldman’s (D-NY) wife. Under the headline “Congressman Faces Questions About Wife’s Social Media Stances on Israel,” the Times wrote of the instances—believed to be 10 in all—that Corinne Goldman, who served as treasurer on her husband’s campaign, liked posts related to the Israel-Hamas war in the weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, including one comparing “Jews for Palestine” to “Chickens for KFC.”

Days later, Jewish Insider uncovered the social media activity of Rama Duwaji, the Syrian-American wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in the days after the attacks. That activity included liking posts that unambiguously celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks—as they were underway—and included still images from the attacks, in which more than 1,200 were killed and 251 taken hostage.

In his first public statement addressing JI’s reporting, Mamdani said his wife—who less than a month ago was the subject of a cover profile and photo shoot for The Cut—was a “private person.”

It was a response that was unsatisfactory to some. Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, responded to Mamdani’s statement by rhetorically asking, “But Jessica Tisch has to apologize when her brother says something?”—referring to the NYPD commissioner’s recent apology over her brother’s assertion that Mamdani was an “enemy of the Jewish people.”

The Times, which covered Mamdani’s response, changed its headline on the story at least twice after publication, from “Mamdani Says His Wife’s Views on Gaza Are No One’s Business,” to “Mamdani Defends Wife Amid Criticism of her Support for Palestinian Cause,” before eventually landing on “After Social Media Scrutiny, Mamdani Says His Wife Is a ‘Private Person.’”

In response to the second headline, Tel Aviv-based research analyst Daniel Paul Rubenstein wrote on X that he “did not expect to see the New York Times refer to the October 7 Massacre as an expression of the ‘Palestinian Cause’ – but here we are.” [Bolding ours]

Or, as the Babylon Bee put it:

Mamdani Clarifies That His Wife Only Celebrates Terrorism In Her Capacity As A Private Citizen (Babylon Bee)

Story #5:

Governor Newsome Declares: “Israel Has the Right to Exist”

Rabbi Wolpe Declares: “California Has the Right to Exist”

In a biting piece of satire—remarkably, published in the Atlantic—Rabbi David Wolpe responds to a statement from California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office reaffirming the governor’s belief that Israel has a right to exist (archived version here).

Last week, a New York Times report on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s pointed criticism of Israel included this curious clarification: “Izzy Gardon, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom, said that the governor ‘believes in Israel’s right to exist—and its right to defend itself.’”

Given this statement, I feel it is appropriate to affirm that I believe that Gavin Newsom also has the right to exist, and I further believe that California itself has the right to exist. And the right to defend itself, specifically from Nevada, but not necessarily from Oregon.…

I realize that this position may be controversial. As a spiritual leader, it is my responsibility to follow my conscience and not the shifting polls, which, coincidentally, currently align with my conscience.

Yes, this position may arouse some ire. Many insist that California is a colonial enterprise, and much of it was stolen from its original inhabitants, the members of the liberal-arts faculty of UC Berkeley… [The Atlantic]

Do read the rest of Rabbi Wolpe’s piece (archived version). It is priceless.

• March is Women’s History Month

• Jews do not matter according to Annenberg Media

• Students are uncomfortable working for Jewish faculty

• History corner

• Zionists are not welcome

• More chickens come home to roost

• ADL’s 2026 campus report card is in

• A few deep dives into the war

Happy International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month

We celebrate International Women’s Day (March 8) by saluting the female heroes of the IDF, who are fighting for a better future in the Middle East even as we write this post.

As the Jerusalem Post’s Instagram notes:

Women now make up 21.2% of the IDF’s combat force, up from 7.2% in 2015. The military marked International Women’s Day with footage of female soldiers serving at sea, in the air, and on land. Women account for about 50% of the Air Force’s Air Defense Array, and around 130 female combat sailors serve aboard Navy missile ships.⁠

USC Students with Ties to the Middle East Face Fear, Uncertainty After U.S.-Israel Strikes on Iran (Lizzy Liautaud, Avi Singh, and Yinzhen Wu, Annenberg Media, 03/02/2026)

Our friends at Annenberg Media continue their one-side reporting of the war against Iran. In their latest installment, they write about USC students from the Middle East who are on edge because of the war, quoting students from Lebanon, Dubai, and Iran. We empathize with these students too. But it is hard to overlook the glaring omission—not a word about Jewish or Israeli students—as if they don’t exist.

Uncomfortable to Work for a Jew

Jewish faculty at USC and other schools are increasingly told by students that they are uncomfortable working for them. In just the past week, we heard three such accounts.

How should one react to such incidents? We recognize that the student’s unease may not be the result of antisemitism, but of ignorance and a “Woke” activist mindset, as eloquently detailed y Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott in The Cancelling of the American Mind (you can listen to Greg’s interview about the book here). Such expressions of concern, then, are an opportunity for professors, therefore, to initiate a discussion aimed at cultivating intellectual humility, curiosity, and constructive dialogue.

This is the approach of Susie Hess, Associate Professor of Social Work Practicum Education at USC and a co-founder of the Trauma Informed Learning Alliance, who has written the thoughtful essay “Staying in the Room: The Courage to Say, I Do Not Know” for the Times of Israel (March 8, 2026).

In an era of rising polarization and increasing Jew hatred on college campuses, teaching critical thinking feels less like an academic task and more like a moral responsibility.

I teach students to become social workers. My course is rooted in empathy, relational cultural theory, and interpersonal neurobiology. We study how human beings grow through connection and how our nervous systems react when we feel threatened. Polarization, at its core, is not just ideological. It is physiological. When we perceive danger, we narrow. We split the world into right and wrong, good and evil, us and them.

The classroom is no exception.

One of the core practices I ask students to engage in is taking the devil’s advocate position. Not to be contrarian. Not to win debates. But to strengthen cognitive flexibility. To practice holding another lens. To build the capacity to say, “I can understand how someone might think this way,” even when they disagree.

It sounds simple. It is not.

When identity enters the conversation, the emotional temperature rises quickly. Assumptions form. Motives are assigned. Curiosity shrinks. Students training to become social workers can feel the same pull toward certainty that dominates social media feeds and campus protests.

Continue reading Professor Hess’s piece here.

We generally agree with Susie’s view and hope that USC’s Open Dialogue Project will play a role in fostering such a culture by including events dedicated to Israel, Zionism, and the Middle East.

History Corner

Now, of course, is not the first time in history that students have turned against Jewish faculty. In Nazi Germany, Jewish faculty were often the target of Nazi student activists. We wrote about this “treason of the intellectuals” here. As the Center of Jewish History explains:

The modern paradigm of Jewish academic persecution was established in Nazi Germany. Although German universities had a longstanding tradition of erecting barriers to Jewish students and faculty, the antisemitic discrimination that came with the rise of Nazism was unprecedented. Already in the late 1920s and early 1930s, radical members of the National Socialist German Students League had agitated against Jewish students and faculty at universities in cities such as Berlin, Munich, and Heidelberg, disrupting courses taught by Jewish professors, launching physical attacks against Jewish students - sometimes with cattle whips - and demanding the creation of courses on Nazi “racial science.” At times, the attacks swelled into outright riots that led to the suspension of classes and prompted the temporary closure of the universities.

Today’s Academic “Anti-Zionism” Takes a Step Closer to 1920s German Academic Antisemitism (Elder of Ziyon, Elder’s Substack, 01/13/2026)

The Elder of Ziyon explains how closely today’s anti-Jewish academic environment resembles that of historical Germany.

Today’s “anti-Zionist” academic environment increasingly resembles the anti-Jewish academic world in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. I am not saying this as rhetoric - I am saying that the parallels are essentially exact.

German academia’s descent into antisemitism began before the Nazis took power. In the early 1920s, during the Weimar Republic, Jewish professors were already being singled out as carriers of something alien and corrosive. Nationalist student groups disrupted lectures, boycotted Jewish faculty, and circulated petitions demanding limits on Jewish influence in universities. This was justified not in racial terms at first, but in intellectual ones. Jewish scholars were accused of promoting abstract, cosmopolitan, un-German modes of thought that allegedly undermined the nation.

In the 1920s, the concept of “Jewish science” emerged. It was not initially shouted by thugs. It was articulated by credentialed academics. Nobel laureates like Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark argued that modern physics, especially Einstein’s relativity, was not merely wrong but Jewish in character - overly abstract, detached from reality, ideologically corrosive. The claim was not that Jews should be excluded because they were Jews, but that their ideas were incompatible with German values. Identity was converted into an epistemic defect….

This is not ancient history. It is happening now.

This month, the Journal of Emerging Sport Studies published a paper arguing that the considerable contributions of Muska Mosston to the field should be stigmatized because he fought in the 1948 War of Independence, years before he moved to the US and created his theories. …

Mosston’s teaching framework reshaped how physical education is taught worldwide, moving away from rigid command-based instruction toward more adaptive, student-centered models. His work became foundational in the field and was developed entirely after he left Israel (not that this matters.) It had no political content. It had nothing to do with nationalism, war, or ideology.

Yet the reader is told that his military service, and his Zionism, is disqualifying for his theories built in the decades afterwards. It wants to retroactively erase his legacy in the name of morals.

Orwell himself would be astonished at the idea that marginalizing an entire field of study because of a strained conception of guilt by association is “ethical.”

How can we fight back? One thing we can do is refute the lies. A number of organizations—ADL, AEN, etc.—have excellent resource materials, such as the following:

Challenging the Anti-Israel “Scholasticide” Accusation (Academic Engagement Network)

In recent years, the obscure term “scholasticide” has emerged as a key and highly contested anti-Israel accusation. It refers to the unsubstantiated charge that Israel’s military actions are deliberately intended to destroy Palestinian educational institutions with the goal of erasing Palestinian history, culture, and intellectual life. Since October 7, 2023, the accusation has gained traction in campus protests and events, departmental statements, and campaigns at professional academic associations. This resource, jointly developed by AEN and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) provides background information regarding the “scholasticide” charge, including its origins and the effort by radical anti-Israel advocates to promote it after October 7, 2023 as a means of discrediting Israel. The resource also provides a brief overview of the central criticisms that have been leveled against the accusation by leading academics in our networks, as well as other scholars and practitioners.

Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Bias in Academia

Examples of antisemitism and anti-Jewish bias in academic keep piling up. Below, we review a few recent cases.

How a Cornell Professor Drove an Israeli Student out of His Class (Johanna Berkman, The Free Press, 01/06/2026)

We covered the misconduct of Eric Cheyfitz, an antisemitic professor at Cornell, on these pages (see also here). Cheyfitz, a poster child of academic hooliganism, not only uses his classes as antisemitic propaganda platforms—he also actively discriminates against Jewish and Israeli students (as we covered here). Now The Free Press has published a detailed account from the student whom Cheyfitz drove out of his class on Gaza. It is worth reading in full to appreciate what such radical faculty are getting away with.

The words “. . . any person . . . any study” form the founding principle of Cornell University. The idea is that people from “all walks of life,” regardless of race, religion, income, or gender, are welcome at Cornell—and free to follow their academic interests wherever they might lead.

But last spring, longtime Cornell professor Eric Cheyfitz invoked a very different interpretation of this principle to justify kicking an Israeli Jew out of his “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance” seminar.

During the third meeting of the class, computer science PhD student Oren Renard raised his hand for the first time. It would also turn out to be the last.

When he was called on by Cheyfitz, Renard spoke briefly about the Gaza war. The student said that when Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said, “We are fighting human animals” two days after the October 7, 2023, attacks, he was talking about Hamas. Cheyfitz had claimed that Gallant was talking about all Gazans.

The next week, the professor asked Renard to talk to him after class. Renard was suspicious. He secretly pressed the record button on his cell phone. It was a fateful, freighted decision. Had he not done so, there would be no record of what happened next.

Cheyfitz told Renard that he was “necessarily suspicious, unfairly no doubt, of your presence in this course,” according to the recording. The professor added that Renard’s “conduct in the course has been fine so far, so I’m not complaining about you.”

Then the conversation took a blunt turn. “Don’t come into the course and spoil this for these other students who want to be able to air their views in an atmosphere where their views are not welcome, by the way. And that’s Cornell University. If this is ‘any person, any study,’ then respect that. Have the decency to respect that,” Cheyfitz said.

Renard replied: “I think I sat there quite silently.”

“I don’t want your silence,” Cheyfitz retorted. “All your silence means is you’re thinking to yourself: ‘What a bunch of shit all this is.’ It’s not a respectful silence. It’s a surveillance silence. It’s a surveillance silence by someone who comes from a much different perspective, fine. But we don’t need it in here.”

Both the problem and the solution, as the professor saw it, were simple. “You’re here as an Israeli citizen supporting Israel’s stance in Gaza,” Cheyfitz said. “There’s no doubt about that, it seems to me. I mean, if I’m wrong, you should tell me . . .Just please, I’m asking you, take another course. This is not your course.”

Cheyfitz told Renard that he should take a “pro-Israel” course instead.

Harvard University’s Carr Center Redefines Human Rights Programming (Elder of Zion, Elder’s Substack, 03/01/2026)

Here is an example of a bias prevalent in academia: stating anti-Israel false claims as fact. Harvard’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy hosted an event this week titled From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine. The book it features proposes to “end apartheid and occupation rule” and establish a transitional framework leading to democratic decision-making about the territory’s future governance. The Elder of Ziyon writes,

Universities should host controversial ideas. Human rights centers, especially, should not be timid. But intellectual seriousness requires clarity about what is being proposed — and what assumptions are being adopted.

The book’s premise is that Israel is an apartheid state and that the area from the river to the sea is essentially a one state reality today. The problem isn’t the book making these false claims; it is that the Carr Center is treating them as uncontested fact.

The Carr Center’s event description does not say “what the authors describe as apartheid.” It states, flatly, that the goal is to end apartheid and occupation rule. That framing is not neutral. Whether Israel constitutes an apartheid regime is one of the most fiercely debated legal and political claims in international discourse. I have demonstrated many times that the groups making those arguments twist international law for their own political purposes. Treating it as settled fact is itself a substantive position.

Aside from the lack of transparency with which these campus programs present contested issues (and outright lies) as facts, what is also lacking, are programs presenting alternative views. The same goes with classroom teachings on the topic.

Yet, when a student group proposes bringing a pro-Israel speaker to campus, the proposal gets rejected because the event doesn’t present “both sides.” At least that*s the case at the Catholic University of America. Read: Citing Balance Issues, Catholic U Rejects Pro-Israel Group’s Speaker Requests (Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 03/04/2026).

The Chickens Keep Coming Home to Roost

Last week we wrote about the case of parents suing the State of California for antisemitism in the state’s K–12 schools. Today, we happy to share further examples of looming accountability.

First up, a case from California:

Justice Department Files Suit Against University of California for Antisemitic Hostile Work Environment (Press Release, Department of Justice, 02/24/2026)

[T]he Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division filed suit against the University of California for engaging in a hostile work environment against Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff at its University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.

After the Hamas-led massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, antisemitic acts pervaded UCLA. The suit alleges the University engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination in violation of Title VII against Jewish and Israeli employees at UCLA by failing to prevent and correct discriminatory and harassing conduct. The suit further alleges the University negligently permitted a hostile work environment against two charging parties and other aggrieved Jewish and Israeli employees.

In 2024, the University allowed antisemitic harassment to continue unabated for days in front of its iconic Royce Hall: among other acts, Jews were not permitted on portions of the main quad, Jewish professors were assaulted, and swastikas were graffitied on University buildings. The University has ignored, and continues to ignore, gross and repeated violations of viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions involving these and other actions directed against Jewish and Israeli employees. Jewish and Israeli faculty have been physically threatened, had their classrooms disrupted, and had their workplaces papered with disturbing images. Jewish professors have been, and continue to be, subjected to ostracism and harassment by their colleagues and students, while their colleagues and supervisors not only have failed to report those acts as required but have even participated in them. Numerous Jewish and Israeli employees have been forced to take leave, work from home, and even leave their jobs to avoid the hostile work environment.

See also, “US DOJ Sues California University Alleging ‘Antisemitic Hostile Work Environment’ at UCLA Campus” (The Jerusalem Post, 02/24/2026).

And, two from the east coast:

Jewish Professor Sues University for Religious Discrimination (Doree Leewak, New York Post, 03/08/2026)

Dr. Tal Ben-Zvi, a tenured, award-winning teacher at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, has been battling the Hoboken school for more than a decade, when he was serving as vice chair of the school’s faculty senate and was accused of gender bias for failing to recommend a female colleague for tenure.

The school’s lawyers bizarrely cited a Jewish prayer it deemed misogynistic as evidence of Ben-Zvi’s bias, though the professor and others on the committee insisted she simply didn’t meet the criteria for tenure, according to the Hudson County Superior Court lawsuit.

After the professor lodged discrimination complaints, the institute allegedly trumped up “baseless charges of gender discrimination” against Ben-Zvi, delaying his pay, denying him a promotion and at one point stopping his health account, the professor, who has a disability, claimed.

The academic claimed the school also retaliated against him for not attending work meetings on Yom Kippur and Passover and for filing a complaint that the school did not provide kosher food at a lunch meeting where other dietary accommodations were made.

A trial is set to begin Monday in Jersey City.

“My dad was able to survive the Holocaust,” Ben-Zvi, 48, told The Post. “Today, 80 years later, I’m sadly in a position where I not only need to stand up for my religious beliefs but also fight for my livelihood.”

Watchdogs are taking notice.

The era of “institutional immunity” for campus antisemitism is over, said Sagit Sade Attia, from the Israeli American Council.

Columbia University Reaches Settlement in Federal Jew-Hatred Lawsuit (Aaron Bandler, JNS, 03/06/2026)

The StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice announced on March 5 that it has reached a confidential settlement with Columbia University in a federal lawsuit alleging the school failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from antisemitism on campus.

The agreement, reached Feb. 27, resolves claims brought by Students Against Antisemitism, SCLJ and a majority of the student plaintiffs in Students Against Antisemitism, Inc. et al. v. Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York et al. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The lawsuit, first filed in February 2024, alleged that Columbia allowed a hostile environment for Jewish students and did not adequately enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.

Under the settlement terms disclosed by SCLJ, Columbia has agreed to appoint a Title VI coordinator responsible for overseeing compliance with federal civil rights law and to implement enhanced education and training programs on antisemitism. The university also said it will consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism in enforcing its anti-discrimination policies and will provide scholarships for students who have lived, studied or worked in Israel.

Is the Campus Climate and University Support for Jewish Students Improving? The ADL Thinks So

The ADL has released its 2026 Campus Antisemitism Report Card, which it describes as an “assessment of what universities are doing to combat antisemitism and improve the campus climate for Jewish students, staff and faculty.” Below, is the grade distribution they report for 2024–2026:

According to the ADL’s Campus Alert newsletter:

Overall results show a clear upward trend. More institutions earned higher grades than in prior years, with many drawing on ADL’s expertise as they refined policies and practices to support Jewish students, staff and faculty.

In all, 58 percent of schools scored an A or B this year, up from 41 percent last year and just 23.5 percent in 2024. It is encouraging that so many schools are taking steps in the right direction to improve the campus climate and do well in this ADL resource, but every single campus should earn an ‘A’ or ‘B.’ This isn’t a high bar—this should be the standard.

This sounds like good news—but we are skeptical. According to the report, USC’s grade jumped from a “C” in 2025 to an “A” in 2026 (see USC’s report card here). This does not align with what we see on the ground. While there are some positive dynamics on campus—such as founding a chapter of Kalaniyot and initiating the USC Open Dialogue Project—little has been done about the biased curriculum, radical faculty misconduct, Jewish student harassment in the classroom, the presence of antisemitic unions, and the reliably anti-Zionist coverage by USC news outlets. The Jewish Life Committee, which the report lauds, has shown no signs of life since its establishment. The recommendations of our own report have largely been ignored.

We question the validity of the ADL’s grading rubric. For example the report card mentions mandatory harassment training as a positive step! As we argued on these pages, we do not need more trainings. We need accountability and enforcement of our own policies.

While we are optimistic that the campus climate will further improve under the leadership of president Beong Kim, we believe that the current “A” grade is premature.

Some Analyses of the War We Found Insightful

Is the Iran War Winding Down—or Ramping Up? Plus. . . (Series of essays from The Free Press)

Trump and Iran: What Are We Doing Here? (Kyle Orton, It Can Always Get Worse, 03/09/2026)

Day 7 of the U.S.–Israel War: The Strategy Appears to Be Working, and Iran Is Losing (John Spencer—Urban Warfare, March 7, 2026)

And, Finally, One from the Babylon Bee

We simply couldn’t resist this one from the Babylon Bee: Iran Warns U.S. It Has Huge Stockpile Of Supreme Leaders

We wish our readers Hag Purim Sameah!

In this newsletter:

• Reflections on the big news: the death of Khamenei and the war against the Iranian regime

• Parents of California Jewish students file antisemitism suit against state of California

• Updates from other campuses

• The long arm of Qatar influences American campuses

• Some actual good news

• And a little humor

Purim Came Early This Year

The greatest villain of the Middle East—maybe even the world—is dead. But the effort to oust the Islamic regime of Iran has only begun. The regime is throwing everything it’s got into the fight. Iranian missile strikes have killed at least six American troops and 12 Israeli civilians. We stand with the Iranian people around the world celebrating the demise of Khamenei, with the American and Israeli soldiers fighting the war, and with the citizens of Israel being showered by Iranian missiles.

AEN Stands With Our Israeli Colleagues and Friends

The Academic Engagement Network expresses solidarity with Israel:

The Academic Engagement Network stands in solidarity with our friends, families, and colleagues in Israel. As of now, ten Israelis have been killed in Iranian missile strikes, and there has been extensive damage to civilian neighborhoods in Tel Aviv and Beit Shemesh. Israeli academic institutions, at which many AEN members have studied, taught, and visited, are under states of emergency. Millions of Israelis—and AEN members visiting Israel—are spending their days and nights in bomb shelters. We pray for their safety.

More Insightful Commentary on the War:

• The War Is Iranians’ Best Chance at Peace (Roya Hakakian, The Free Press, 02/28/2026)

• Hope and Fear in Tehran (Mitra Vand, Persuasion, 03/01/2026)

• Death to Khamenei (David Volodzko, The Radicalist, 03/01/2026)

• The Dictator’s Death and the Dawn of a New Mideast (Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Free Press, 02/28/2026)

• Khamenei Joins Saddam in Hell, but Iran 2026 Is Not Iraq 2003 (Niall Ferguson, The Free Press, 02/28/2024)

• Toppling a Tyrant (Benny Morris, Quillette, 03/02/2026)

• What is the Military Strategy in Iran? - with Gen. David Petraeus (The Call Me Back podcast with Dan Senor)

Predictably, in some circles on the left the demise of this murderous regime is not recognized as a laudable goal. Frederick Alexander reflects on this disturbing attitude in a recent post on his Substack, The Gadfly (The Guardian Class Discovers Iran, 02/28/2026).

When this is over, and Iran is free, I’d like to parachute him [Jeremy Corbyn and other useful idiots] into Tehran to explain “international law” to the schoolgirls who survived the latest massacre, while their sisters were executed by the theocratic regime for the crime of being raped. Maybe he could take a BBC film crew. I’d watch that.

You can find more examples of morally distorted views of the strikes against the dictator and his murderous regime in Sunday’s “Hili Dialogue” on Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True blog. Babylon Bee’s mock compilation of titles (Here’s How Major News Outlets Are Reporting The Death Of The Ayatollah) is not that far from the reality. For example:

The New York Times: Beloved Statesman, Grandfather, Gone Before His Time

NPR: Innocent Ayatollah Was The Greatest Civil Rights Icon Since George Floyd. Please Give Us Money

Iran Is Collapsing, but Islamism Is Spreading (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Free Press, March 2, 2026)

Hirsi Ali writes:

Three events, three continents, one week. A parliamentary by-election in Greater Manchester, England; a thunderous war and the death of a tyrant in Iran; and a terrorist attack in Austin, Texas. They seem unrelated. They are not. Together, they tell you where political Islam has got to—and more urgently, where its most committed adherents are heading next.

This is a reminder that even if a central pillar of the “axis of evil” collapses, the toxic ideology that vilifies the liberal West, romanticizes brutal regimes, lionizes death cults, and fuels hatred of the Middle East’s only liberal democracy—Israel—will remain very much alive. Its adherents will continue to operate openly on our campuses…which brings us to the local front: there is no shortage of news on antisemitism and anti-Zionism here at home.

Frustrated Families Sue the State to Stop Antisemitism in California Schools (John Fensterwald, EdSource, 02/26/2026)

Disappointed that lawsuits and complaints against school districts haven’t forced change, a national Jewish nonprofit law organization is suing the California Department of Education and state officials for their failure to stem antisemitism in California schools.

The Louis D. Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism filed the lawsuit, its first against a state, on Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of five families whose children attended public schools in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. The complaint cites numerous state anti-discrimination laws as the basis for the lawsuit, as well as the California Constitution’s guarantee that all students are entitled to equal opportunity in education.

Meanwhile at USC…

We present the latest installment of libel from Annenberg “Voice of BDS” Media: USC, Navy Program Appears Linked to Specific Israeli Brigade that Massacred Paramedics, Photo Shows. The article exemplifies a kind of journalism that is prevalent today—low on facts, high on distortion and innuendo. Just imagine what kind of graduates Annenberg produces.

And what is our radical faculty contingent up to? The Daily “Voice of Hamas” Trojan faithfully informs us:

Faculty hold alternative University Address outside

Faculty for Justice in Palestine — an advocacy group not affiliated with the University — hosted an alternative State of the University address outside of the Bovard Auditorium. Tara McPherson, a professor in the School of Cinematic Arts, said she intended the alternative address to push USC to “stand with so many organizations protecting human rights around the world against genocide in Gaza and everywhere.”

McPherson said she hopes USC will be transparent about where its investments intersect with militarism, end its practice of selling cadavers as reported by Annenberg Media to the U.S. military for Israel Defense Force surgeon training, and be more responsive to student and faculty protesters.

“We hope that, with a new president, USC will rethink its attacks on free speech and the right to dissent on campus,” McPherson said. “[We hope they will] address the shameful expulsion of students that have happened over the last three years.”

Inside Bovard, Kim said that he encourages faculty to protest and supports open dialogue for students and faculty at USC, but did not speak about USC’s relationship with the IDF or United States military.

“There are some faculty members who were outside protesting [and] expressing their points of view on issues,” Kim said. “That’s great. We’re a university. We should treasure dialog like that.”

And what does the Daily Trojan Horse for Jihad have to say about the toppling of a murderous tyrant in Iran? Not a word about L.A.’s Iranian community celebrating in Westwood. Instead, they write about L.A.’s Jihadists protesting at City Hall.

Failed University Leaders Get New Appointments

University leaders who failed to curb anti-Semitic campus protests are being rewarded with new positions. First, Jennifer Mnookin, who, as chairman of University of Wisconsin–Madison, granted concessions to protestors gets the presidency at Columbia:

Jennifer Mnookin Takes over Columbia Presidency with Mixed Record on Dealing with Antisemitism at Wisconsin (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, 01/27/2026)

Mnookin initially sent law enforcement to shut down the student encampment — resulting in the arrest of roughly three dozen demonstrators — then negotiated with protesters after they established a new encampment. The non-binding deal reached to dismantle that encampment required SJP to comply with university protest rules in exchange for the right to present their divestment demands to university leaders, who did not consent to their requests.

Not only did Mnookin grant concessions to SJP—she promoted other woke rituals, such as land acknowledgements. Her appointment does not bode well for Columbia…

Meanwhile, Liz “It Depends on the Context” Magill, who resigned in disgrace from the presidency of Penn, has been hired as Dean of Georgetown Law:

Former Penn President Liz Magill, Who Resigned in Disgrace After Disastrous Anti-Semitism Testimony, Named Dean of Georgetown Law (Collin Anderson, Washington Free Beacon, 02/13/2026)

More from Columbia

Columbia’s Modern Arab Studies Chair Contenders Have One Thing in Common: Hating Israel (Maya Sulkin, The Free Press, 02/11/2026)

In February 2026, Columbia University released its recommendations for reshaping the university’s approach to Middle Eastern studies.

After Columbia lost $400 million in federal funding over antisemitism allegations in 2025, it reached a settlement with the Trump administration. As part of the settlement, Columbia appointed a senior vice provost and a Regional Review Committee to ensure “balanced” curricula for the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies departments. Two of this committee’s members, Timothy Mitchell and Bruno Bosteels, signed an October 2023 letter describing Hamas’s October 7 attack as a response to Israel’s long-standing “crushing and unrelenting state violence.”

Part of Columbia’s announcement is the replacement for the Edward Said Professorship in Modern Arab Studies and Literature, previously held by Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi held the position from 2003 to 2024, and left citing disdain over the university’s shifting priorities. The author and historian described Hamas’s October 7 attacks as “inevitable,” and criticized the university’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance antisemitism definition, which he said “deliberately, mendaciously, and disingenuously conflates Jewishness with Israel,” making it “impossible” to teach without being accused of antisemitism.

Read the profiles of the candidates to see for yourself.

Columbia Denies Connection to Student Group Posting ‘Death to America’ over Iran Strikes (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, 03/01/2026)

Columbia University distanced itself from Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 university student groups, after it posted “death to America” in Farsi in response to U.S. strikes on Iran, denying that current students are behind the account….

CUAD was formed in 2016 and gained renewed support since Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. It consists of groups run by current Columbia students, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Student Workers of Columbia and Columbia Social Workers for Palestine. In an updated statement on Sunday evening, Columbia said that currently recognized student groups cannot affiliate with CUAD.

Columbia announced last July — about a week before it reached a settlement with the Trump administration to restore federal funding — that it would no longer recognize CUAD, which organized the 2024 campus anti-Israel encampment and several other demonstrations against the war in Gaza, some of which turned violent. At the time, Khamenei praised such protests, telling students they were “on the right side of history.”

Qatar’s Influence on American Universities

Qatar Ranks as Top Foreign Donor to American Universities (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, 01/07/2026)

Qatar is the top country donating foreign funds to American universities, and Cornell University is its leading recipient, according to a new dashboard from the Department of Education that displays foreign gifts and contracts provided to U.S. educational institutions.

According to the database, $2.3 billion out of the $3 billion Cornell has received in foreign funding came from Qatar, which is a key financial supporter of Hamas. Qatar has provided $6.6 billion to universities overall, significantly more than the next leading countries, bolstering criticisms of the Gulf state’s potential influence over American higher education.

According to a Department of Education database, USC appears to be less compromised—of $1 billion in funds from foreign countries, the amounts from countries of concern are $200 million from China and $500,000 from Russia. UCLA’s stats are similar—of $751.5 million, $121 million is from China and $673,000 from Russia.

Qatar Is Investing Billions of Dollars in American Education (i24 News, 01/07/2026)

The troubling data comes after a global research center published a comprehensive report last month on what it calls “the Muslim Brotherhood’s multi-generational campaign,” whose goal is “to change Western society from within” as well as “to secretly infiltrate the United States.”

The 200-page report, published by the Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and Global Policy, is based on internal Muslim Brotherhood documents and claims that Western freedoms have been systematically exploited to promote Islamist ideological goals, while the organization continues its five-decade-long plan to embed itself within the United States.

Does Qatar Fund Antisemitism at American Campuses? (Kenneth L. Marcus, Wall Street Journal, 01/28/2026)

The Education Department’s recent launch of a portal for universities’ foreign-funding disclosures was even timelier than officials likely realized. Newly disclosed evidence, unsealed earlier this month in federal court, demonstrates that foreign funders may be exerting the kind of outsize, hidden and nefarious influence on university programs that critics have long feared. The details demand congressional action to protect Americans’ rights.

On Jan. 6, a federal district court in Pennsylvania unsealed a court order in Yael Canaan’s suit against Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. Ms. Canaan alleges that the university harbors a culture of antisemitism and discrimination—in part due to the influence of more than $1 billion from Qatar and its affiliates. Carnegie Mellon denies Ms. Canaan’s allegations, including that it is influenced by Qatar, which hosts its Doha campus. But based on eye-opening university documents, the court on Dec. 5 rejected the school’s argument and ordered CMU to produce many of the documents Ms. Canaan requested.

The revelations contained in the court’s order match what the Education Department has warned for years. As a 2020 department report put it: “There is very real reason for concern that foreign money buys influence or control over teaching and research.” Ms. Canaan’s case reveals how foreign contributions may be undermining compliance with federal antidiscrimination laws, sacrificing the rights of U.S. citizens in favor of the sensitivities of foreign autocrats. The further documentation the court ordered Carnegie Mellon to present includes some specifically relating to administrators charged with enforcing the school’s antidiscrimination policy.

And of course the interests of Qatar are aligned with DEI:

At least three other DEI-related officials at Carnegie Mellon involved in Ms. Canaan’s complaints of antisemitism had work-related visits to Qatar, according to the December court order. These included Wanda Heading-Grant, the chief diversity officer, who invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when she was asked about Ms. Canaan’s complaint. Ms. Arscott also worked in Qatar for a time and received funding from Qatar.

Former Education Dept. OCR Officials Warn of Weakened Enforcement as Trump Allies Defend Sweeping Approach (Gabby Deutsch, Jewish Insider, 02/20/2026)

The reorganization efforts of the administrations include downsizing various government organizations, including Education Department. Possible effects of this downsizing on the enforcement of civil rights were discussed at the meeting of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which met in Washington on February 19 to hold its first hearing on campus antisemitism in more than 20 years.

The commission — a bipartisan federal fact-finding agency established in 1957 — is chaired by a Democrat and also includes two Republicans appointed by President Donald Trump, yielding a diverse group of witnesses who sparred over Trump’s approach to campus antisemitism and his administration’s firing of more than half of the attorneys in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

The discussion was more about downsizing of Education Department than it was about antisemitism. Although the prevailing sentiment was that shortage of resources will hider attempts to deal with campus antisemitism, we are skeptical about this claim—we don’t hold out much hope that this bureaucratic establishment will do any good. Their past inaction speaks volumes:

The last time the commission produced a report on campus antisemitism was in 2006. One of its findings proved particularly prescient, as witnesses on Thursday discussed the antisemitism that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel: “Anti-Semitic bigotry is no less morally deplorable when camouflaged as anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism,” the commission wrote 20 years ago.

And Some Good News (Seriously!)

Jewish Leaders Hail Kent Syverud’s Appointment as University of Michigan President (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, 01/14/2026)

While several prominent university presidents famously refused to say that advocating for the genocide of Jews violates school policy when pressed by Congress two months after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, Kent Syverud, the president and chancellor of Syracuse University, wrote a campus-wide email explaining that such rhetoric would not be tolerated on campus.

On Monday, Syverud was tapped as the University of Michigan’s 16th president following a six-month search to replace President Santa Ono. Syverud’s appointment was met with optimism from several Jewish leaders who said his strong ties to the Jewish community could benefit the Ann Arbor school, which experienced some of the most disruptive anti-Israel and antisemitic activity in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Court Rules Protest Leader Mahmoud Khalil Can Be Rearrested (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, 01/15/2026)

A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the school’s anti-Israel protest movement, could be rearrested. Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Panel ruling: A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reopened the case on Thursday, instructing the lower court to dismiss Khalil’s habeas petition, a court filing that challenged his incarceration and eventually secured his release. In a 2-1 ruling, the panel decided that the federal district court in New Jersey that issued Khalil’s release did not have jurisdiction over the matter and that it should have been handled in immigration court, which is part of the executive branch overseen by the Justice Department, meaning Khalil is now liable to be rearrested.

New York’s Cooper Union Settles Campus Antisemitism Case, Pledges Reforms (Jonathan Stempel, Reuters, 01/08/2026)

The lawsuit against Cooper Union [a private Manhattan college] followed an October 25, 2023, rally outside the library where pro-Palestinian demonstrators stormed past security guards, banged loudly on doors and windows, carried signs and chanted “Free Palestine.”

The lawsuit was brought forth by ten Jewish students at the college, who had been trapped in the New York university’s library for 20 minutes while anti-Israel students protested outside.

Students inside said they felt unsafe. They also said school administrators did nothing to stop the rally and told police who offered help to back off.

“Jewish students deserve to learn without being targeted, harassed, or excluded because of who they are or what they believe,” Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at the pro bono Lawfare Project, which represents the students, said in a statement. “Universities have a legal duty to protect them.”

Students Charged in ‘Wanted’ Posters Case Accept Plea Deal (Marm Nathan, Rochester Beacon, 01/07/2026)

Four students charged in connection with the distribution of “Wanted” posters targeting University of Rochester leadership, faculty, and employees in late 2024 pleaded guilty today to intentionally damaging university property.

The charges are criminal mischief in the fourth degree, a misdemeanor, announced in a Rochester City Court appearance.

The students—Jonathan Bermudez, Naomi Gutierrez, Samantha Escobar and Jefferson Turcios—who were arrested on campus, each faced a felony criminal mischief charge….

All four students agreed to a plea deal calling for $2,500 in restitution and 200 hours of mandated community service.

And Some Humor to Finish Up, Courtesy of the Babylon Bee

Mamdani Getting Nervous As Trump Keeps Assassinating Muslim Dictators

NEW YORK, NY — After U.S. military action against the Ayatollah, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was reportedly getting nervous that President Donald Trump keeps assassinating Muslim dictators.

The radical extremist now ruling as the leader of an oppressive Islamic regime in the Big Apple was overheard asking his closest advisors for plans to take cover to avoid Trump’s ongoing campaign to wipe out all Muslim dictators who threaten the security of the United States.

“There aren’t many of us left,” Mamdani reportedly told one aide. “Trump keeps taking out all of our best guys. Every radical Muslim dictator is now in danger, including me. If I don’t want to be next, I need to hide somewhere. What are our options?

After being briefed on all available security and evacuation measures, Mamdani reportedly notified his Islamic regime to prepare for conflict with the United States. “It’s inevitable,” he said. “The Trump administration has made it clear that the days of Islamic dictatorships that take aggressive stances against the U.S. are numbered. That means us. If Trump keeps eliminating America-hating Muslim leaders, I know it’ll eventually be my turn.”

According to insiders, Mamdani then ordered all members of his staff to their battle stations to await further orders while he took refuge in a subterranean bunker in his mayoral headquarters underneath a major children’s hospital.

At publishing time, Mamdani had ordered retaliatory snowball strikes against strategic U.S. targets within New York City.

The new year and spring semester are here. As we reflect on the past year, we see several alarming trends. Needless to say, for Jews worldwide the situation has worsened. 2025 ended with a terrifying massacre in Australia, while 2026 began with an antisemitic Marxist lunatic taking the helm of a major American city. Hiding behind deceptive words— “social justice,” “antiracism,” “anti-colonialism,” “liberation”—radical Islam is spreading in Western societies and libelous antisemitic rhetoric continues in academia and beyond.

These recent manifestations of antisemitism are not just a Jewish problem, but one of much broader concern. As we know from history, antisemitism is a symptom of societal ill. Jews may be the first victims, but they won’t be the only victims. When jihad comes to town, no one is spared. When collectivism visits itself upon your country, everyone pays the consequences. Remember—“First, they came for….” That is the motivation behind our Susbtack—we speak against antisemitism and anti-Zionism because they represent existential threats to democratic society and humanistic ideals.

The need to be vigilant and proactive is greater than ever. We must speak out against falsehoods. We must speak the truth about Israel not only among ourselves—but also to our professional communities. We must stand up for Jewish and Israeli students, faculty, and staff. We must fight to keep ideology out of the classroom and to keep our colleagues accountable when they abuse their positions. Keeping one’s head low and sitting it out is no longer an option—the only way to stop antisemitism is to fight it in the open. Let these to be our collective new year resolutions.

With that, we offer our first newsletter of 2026. Included are:

• Thoughts on the Bondi Beach massacre

• An update on Zohran Mamdani

• A collection of news from our campuses, including some…good news?

• And a couple of good reads that caught our eye—including a reminder of how antisemitism is a barometer of civilization.

The Bondi Beach Massacre: Thoughts and Lessons

The end of 2025 was marked with a tragedy—a wanton massacre at the famous Bondi Beach in Sydney. The attack—on Jews for being Jews and celebrating a Jewish holiday—was shocking, but not surprising. As Claire Lehman wrote, “murderous ideology does not stop at borders.” The massacre was a predictable result of rampant antisemitism, of toxic ideology, which inverts the victim and the perpetrator, of the West’s accommodationist attitude towards death cults. We allowed this ideology to thrive and spread. Mealy-mouthed politicians protected the ideology from criticism and condemnation by invoking “Islamophobia.”

The Bondi Beach Massacre (Claire Lehman, Persuasion, December 14, 2025)

Tonight’s massacre on Bondi Beach is the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out on Australian soil, and the worst attack on Jewish civilians since October 7. Images … show at least two men, armed with shotguns, positioned on a footpath and a pedestrian bridge, firing toward the beach where a Hanukkah celebration was taking place. At least fifteen people are confirmed dead, with dozens more hospitalized. Undetonated improvised explosive devices were found at the scene. …

For many Jewish Australians, tonight’s massacre represents the escalation of a pattern they have long warned about. While the shock is real, so too is the dismay that this day was long predicted. In the months following October 7, the trajectory of antisemitic violence in Australia was already becoming clear.

Bondi Was Not a Surprise (Jack Pinczewski, Quillette, December 15, 2025)

The massacre at Bondi Beach was shocking—but after years of denial and equivocation about antisemitism, it was inevitable. Writing for Quillette, Pinczewski enumerates the many failures of Australian society and its leadership. Many of these same failures are manifest in the US and in Europe.

Australian civil society has failed. This attack is the result of a series of failures of leadership across our country. From politicians to business leaders, academics and commentators, there has been too much equivocation and misdirection on antisemitism.

Feckless politicians have caved to constituencies that laud violence, refusing to repudiate the hatred that comes from their supporters—some even went so far as to indulge in it themselves.

Courts have allowed marches in the streets calling for “resistance” and a globalised intifada.

State-funded media have provided inflammatory coverage of the Israel–Gaza conflict.

Public commentators have tied Jews in Australia to the policies of Israel, deliberately conflating the two into what they call the “Israel Jewish Lobby.”

Business leaders declined to investigate credible accusations of antisemitism in the workplace, afraid of the potential consequences.

University administrators allowed exclusionary and deeply antisemitic encampments on their campuses for months at a time while their Jewish staff and students were attacked.

Mendacious academics worked hard to redefine Zionism away from its definition as a form of Jewish civil rights—specifically the right to self-determination—towards a completely unhinged definition suggesting Jewish supremacy.

Arts bodies drove their Jewish stakeholders out unless they complied with political tests.

Artists painted murals on walls in Sydney depicting Jews as parasites, while Jewish creatives were doxxed by their peers.

Government bureaucrats provided support and funds to websites that published apologia for terror groups.

Police failed to enforce laws against the public display of terrorist or Nazi symbols.

Schools allowed the politicisation of their classrooms by staff asserting a genocide by Israel to their students during school hours.

Through all this, social media platforms let angry people marinate in their own echo chambers, with algorithms encouraging Jewish hatred.

Australian society failed Jews at every level.

Jews Pay the Price for Australia’s Failures to Adequately Confront Islamism and Antisemitism (Kyle Orton, It Can Always Get Worse/Uheard, December 15, 2025)

There is little mystery about the motive here. Sajid and Naveed Akram, the father and son who killed 15 people—including a Holocaust survivor, two rabbis, and a ten-year-old girl—had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (Isis), according to Australian security sources. Naveed, in particular, had been investigated six years ago due to his ties to an Isis cell.

The Muslim population in both Sydney and Melbourne is around 5%, and Islamism has gained a foothold in each city. In Sydney in particular, where many Muslims are of Lebanese origins, religious extremism has long been intertwined with organised crime. A significant component of this link is Shi’a networks connected to Hezbollah—the Lebanon-based arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)—which maintains an infrastructure of mosques and charities to recruit Australian Muslims. Isis, meanwhile, also found fertile ground in this environment.

The West Can Protect Itself from Terrorism and Urban Violence (Heather Mac Donald, City Journal, January 5, 2026)

The “good” news about the Islamic terrorism and domestic urban violence that have rocked Western nations in recent months is that the attacks were foreseeable—and thus preventable. The bad news is that the fear of being called “racist” will stymie many governments’ ability to act on that foresight. . . .

These are not random events. No one is surprised to learn of the religion and ethnic background of the [terrorist] perpetrators, once the authorities deign to disclose those facts to the public. . . .

The same wearying predictability applies to the grotesque street crimes in American cities committed weekly by mentally ill vagrants. . . . We are not surprised to learn of the perpetrators’ long criminal records and their avoidance of significant confinement, either in a prison or a mental institution. The exact time and location of the next atrocity may be unknown, but that more such attacks by the same class of perpetrators are coming is certain.

This predictability should be a boon to any official who puts public safety ahead of more recent priorities such as promoting diversity and tolerance. . . .

But putting the interests of citizens first has become alien to Western elites. According to that transcontinental class, the real specter raised by the Bondi Beach attacks was “racism.”

Continue reading here.

Australia Massacre Renews Focus on Muslim Migrants and Antisemitism. American Right Continues to Fracture over Israel as Israel’s Economy Improves (Alex Ioffe, SPME Newsletter, January 5, 2026)

A comprehensive analysis of the dismal situation for Jews worldwide, the article opens:

The end of the calendar year has seen antisemitism unleashed by the 2023 Hamas attack and subsequent Gaza War permeate throughout Western societies. The American extreme right has followed the extreme left in vilifying Israel and Jews as dangerous conspiratorial elements which must be expunged from society. The combination of foreign influence campaigns and increasingly pervasive Muslim populations have spread these viewpoints thoroughly and have legitimized rising antisemitic violence, exemplified by the Bondi Beach massacre. While Israel’s economic condition steadily improves, the situation for Jews outside of Israel continues to deteriorate.

The article includes a long list of recent attacks on Jews around the world, noting, depressingly, “Attacks against individual Jews and Jewish institutions have become so numerous that only a sample may be listed here.” One case hit close to home:

A shooting attack in Redlands (CA) targeted a Jewish family, apparently identified by their elaborate Chanukah decorations. Door cam footage showed the gunman shouted “fuck the Jews” as he fired.

The attackers reportedly fired more than 20 rounds at the house. (There is some speculation that the shots were fired from an Airsoft gun.)

Zohran Mamdani Takes Office

TGIF: The Warmth of Collectivism (Nellie Bowlers, The Free Press, January 2, 2026)

→ The Zohran era begins: Meanwhile, His Honor Zohran Mamdani was sworn in just after midnight on New Year’s Day. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

So far our new Mayor Mamdani has announced: “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” We’re doing communism, baby! It’s never been done before! Mamdani is everything we imagined. He’s the villain in an Ayn Rand novel, perfectly concocted.

Indeed he is. And of course his antisemitic agenda is well known. Mamdani’s track record of antisemitic speech is outrageous, but that’s not the only thing we have to be worried about. Mamdani has much more in store for New Yorkers than just harassing Jews and advancing death cults, as he outlined in his inaugural speech. Below we offer a translation of Mamdani’s Orwellian newspeak to plain English with accompanying commentary, courtesy of Yuri Bezmenov.

The Warmth of Collectivism (Yuri Bezmenov, How To Subvert Subversion with Yuri Bezmenov, January 4, 2026)

Comrades: New York City has been conquered by the Zohrantifada woke jihad. After being sworn in on a Quran on New Years Day, Mayor Mamdani delivered a inauguration address full of radical Orwellian terms. New York, London, and Hong Kong—the three global hubs of capitalism—are now ruled by communists. Year zero has arrived at Ground Zero. Allow me to translate.

“The interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests of the collective.” - Mao

“The individual is nothing; the collective is everything.” - Stalin

“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” - Mamdani

Bezmenov takes apart Mamdani’s speech paragraph by paragraph. Below are a few excerpts, but take a look at the whole article:

Mamdani:

The cost of childcare will no longer discourage young adults from starting a family—because we will deliver universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few.

Those in rent-stabilized homes will no longer dread the latest rent hike—because we will freeze the rent.

Getting on a bus without worrying about a fare hike or whether you’ll be late to your destination on time will no longer be deemed a small miracle -- because we will make buses fast and free.

These policies are not simply about the costs we make free, but the lives we fill with freedom. For too long in our city, freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it. Our City Hall will change that.

Bezmenov: Free childcare for migrants, expensive childcare for everyone else. Rent freezes never work. Free busses means everyone will worry about getting stabbed by released felons. More women will suffer the fate of Iryna Zarutska. These policies will destroy lives and freedom.

Mamdani: The work continues. The work endures. The work, my friends, has only just begun.

Bezmenov: The looting continues. The looting endures. The looting has only just begun.

Mamdani Slammed for Repealing Antisemitism Executive Orders (Marc Rod, Jewish Insider, January 2, 2026)

Newly inaugurated New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism for repealing executive orders issued by former Mayor Eric Adams aimed at tackling antisemitism, including implementing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and an anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions order.

The revocation of those orders came as part of a blanket repeal of all of Adams’ executive orders following his September 2024 indictment on federal corruption charges, which Mamdani said “was a date that marked a moment when many New Yorkers decided politics held nothing for them.”

Jewish organizations protested, but Mamdani received fully one-third of the Jewish vote. As DOJ counsel Leo Terrel, responding to Mamdani’s repeal of the executive orders, posted on X:

To Jewish Americans who voted for Mamdani! SHAME ON YOU!”

And, as former mayor Adams wrote:

“[Mamdani] promised a New Era and unity today. This isn’t new. And it isn’t unity,” Adams said on X, adding later, “To my knowledge, neither [former New York mayors Michael] Bloomberg, [Bill] de Blasio, nor Adams scrubbed antisemitism tweets on day one. I’ve been clear: I will be vocal in defending our Jewish brothers and sisters, just as they stood up for African Americans during the civil rights era.”

Campus Updates

Here are a few updates on campus antisemitism.

As Fall Semester Ends, the March of Antisemitism Continues on Campus (Alexander Ioffe, Algemeiner, December 8, 2025)

Depressing end of the year summary, with examples from many campuses.

Professor who Backed Encampment Selected for Role on Northwestern Presidential Search Committee (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, December 23, 2025)

Reporting on Northwestern’s settlement with the governmnet, we were cautiously optimistic that Northwestern would reform. But the university continues in its antisemitic ways:

A Northwestern University professor who supported the anti-Israel encampment on the Evanston, Ill., campus and is married to the founder of the university’s chapter of Educators for Justice in Palestine was tapped to join a new presidential search committee, the school announced last week.

Ian Hurd, a professor of political science and president of the faculty senate at Northwestern University, is listed on Northwestern’s website as an “expert on the Middle East.” As Faculty Senate president, Hurd has played an influential role in shaping faculty responses to campus protests, academic freedom disputes and university governance questions.

Will U.S. Universities Fall to Faculty-Driven Antisemitism? (John Ellis and Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, WSJ, December 5, 2025)

If anything could have been expected to tamp down campus antisemitism—even briefly—it was Hamas’s gruesome mass executions in the wake of Israel’s withdrawal. Instead the National Students for Justice in Palestine, which has more than 400 campus chapters, doubled down on the bloodshed, denouncing one Palestinian clan massacred by Hamas as “Zionist proxies,” saying the “fight against Zionism . . . must continue,” and signing off with “Death to Zionism. Death to all collaborators.” Within hours campus SJP chapters echoed the post.

So again the spotlight falls on students’ antisemitic behavior. They’re the ones on campus who set up encampments, barricade buildings, chant “from the river to the sea,” harass and threaten Jewish students, celebrate Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and disrupt pro-Israel events. But they’re merely the symptom, not the cause, of campus antisemitism.

Administrators need to discipline anti-Zionists who break school rules, but that alone won’t remove antisemitism from higher education. The real driver is institutional: Politicized academic departments and programs are using official school platforms—courses, events and announcements—to confer academic legitimacy on hatred of Israel and harassment of its supporters. Students are the foot soldiers who take the fall when administrators need a show of resolve, but the academic departments train and deploy them.

We agree. Students are not the source of the problem, radical faculty are. Read the full article here.

Columbia Antisemitism Task Force Report: All Our Middle East Faculty Are Anti-Zionist (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider, December 9, 2925)

The headline, above, says it all.

Students at Columbia University have shared that classes at the institution more often than not treat Zionism as entirely illegitimate, according to the fourth and final report, released on Tuesday, from the university’s internal task force to combat antisemitism, Haley Cohen reports for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. “Columbia lacks full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist,” says the report, with the absence of ideological diversity impacting course offerings.

He Went on a Hunger Strike for Palestine. Did He ‘Misuse’ the Classroom? (Emma Pettit, The Chronicle of Higher Ed, December 12, 2025)

An interesting case from Berkeley. Seems like this antisemitic professor is creatively looking for the ways to abuse academic freedom and use his classroom to spread propaganda. He claims his starvation diet, undertaken to support Palestine, is none of the university’s business, but does academic freedom protect his having mentioned it at least twice in class? This is a tricky case for academic freedom committees and university administrators.

A Professor Said a Threatening Post About Zionists Was Satire. Her University Concluded It Was ‘Disruption.’ (Katharine Mangan, The Chronicle of Higher Ed, January 2, 2026)

This is another tough case. Should such faculty behavior be protected?

When Jemma DeCristo suggested on X, three days after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, that “zionist journalists” and their kids should fear for their lives, the University of California at Davis was besieged with hundreds of letters, including demands that she be fired, complaints from students and staff who said they felt scared and angry, and threats from donors to withhold future gifts.

That’s according to an investigative report the university released this week, in response to a Chronicle public-records request.

A faculty panel recommended in June last year that she be censured, but the chancellor, Gary S. May, went further. In August, in addition to the letter of censure, he suspended her for the academic quarter that ended this week. About two months of that was without pay. DeCristo, who hasn’t been teaching since the firestorm over her post, won’t be teaching next quarter. (The university would only say that schedules are determined by department chairs, working with professors)….

Depending on who you ask, the suspension is either a harsh punishment or — to those who demanded her dismissal — a slap on the wrist. Her case raises complicated free-speech issues that colleges are grappling with as conservative media and activists call for the firing of professors they accuse of indoctrinating students and discriminating against white and Jewish students. And it comes at a time when the Trump administration has declared war on universities, including the University of California, which the administration says have tolerated antisemitism.

Some free-speech experts argue that punishing someone largely because of how others have reacted to protected speech constitutes a “heckler’s veto.”

“It gives an incentive to people who disagree with her idea to call and complain,” said Nadine Strossen, a professor emerita at New York Law School and past president of the American Civil Liberties Union.

And Now Some Good News!

We mean it! The stories below show that we have agency and that we can prevail against antisemitism. Forceful action brings results.

First, an update from Berkeley:

UC Berkeley has settled with the Israeli dance instructor, Yael Nativ, whose contract the university did not renew in response to pressure by anti-Zionist campus groups (we wrote about this case here). The details of the lawsuit and the settlement can be found on Brandeis Center website. Some highlights:

“UC Berkeley affirms that an employee violated UC Berkeley’s policy against discrimination with respect to [Nativ]. UC Berkeley further affirms that UC Berkeley’s policies do not permit discrimination based upon Israeli national origin or Israeli citizenship, and that it will enforce its policies based on that understanding.”

UC is to pay $116k (60k to Nativ, 56 to her lawyers)

Chancellor of UC Berkeley, Rich Lyons, will personally apologize to [Nativ] for the discrimination against her…

UC Berkeley will invite [Nativ] to teach the course at UC Berkeley that she would have taught in Fall 2024 during the next semester of her choosing ... and will compensate her at the standard rate for the course that she teaches.

Second, a dispatch from the UK: Yes, We Can!

The U.K. Committee for Academic Freedom has successfully used U.K. academic freedom law to force a Middle Eastern studies department to drop its anti-Israel mandatory land acknowledgment. Details here.

And from the SPME newsletter:

The SPME newsletter we referred to above wasn’t all bad news. Universities continue to enter settlement agreements with the administration on antisemitism charges, and a few universities took action against antisemitism on campus. A few examples:

• A tenured faculty member at San Jose State University was fired on the basis of her participation in a 2024 pro-Hamas encampment and involvement in a physical altercation between faculty and students;

• A lecturer at the University of Sydney, Rose Nakad, was arrested an indicted after an October incident where she called Jewish students and staff “parasites” and “depraved,” spat at them, and stated a “Zionist is the lowest form of rubbish.” The university terminated Nakad stating “Hate speech, antisemitism, and harassment have no place at our university and when our codes of conduct are breached we do not hesitate to take disciplinary action.” Nakad’s firing came only after the Bondi Beach massacre;

• At the University of Arkansas, Shirin Saeidi was removed as head of the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies after it was discovered she had used official letterhead to appeal for the release of an Iranian regime figure jailed in Sweden for mass murder in Iran. Saeidi had also repeatedly praised the Iranian regime and condemned Israel. A subsequent report indicated that she was also under investigation for plagiarism. The Middle East Studies Association defended Saeidi and complained about her dismissal.

And there’s even some good news from Harvard:

Harvard President Alan Garber said in a recent interview with Shalom Hartman Institute President Yehuda Kurtzer that the Ivy League school had erred in allowing faculty members to share their personal views on politically charged issues, explaining that faculty activism had a chilling effect on campus climate.

Good Reads for Your Leisure Time

And we finish up with a couple of good reads:

• 10 Traits of a Useful Idiot (Frederic Alexander, The Gadfly, December 7, 2025)

• Why Antisemitism Is Still the Barometer of Civilisation (Frederic Alexander, The Gadfly, November 3, 2025)

In this newsletter:

• Northwestern strikes a deal with the federal government

• Details of the proposed deal with UCLA

• A university deal tracker

• Campus antisemitism goes unabated despite government pressure and investigations

• USC’s new Kalaniyot chapter

• And some humor

Northwestern University Pays the Price for its Complicity with Antisemitism and Makes a Deal

According to a statement on the university’s website:

In April, Northwestern University learned that approximately $790 million in federal research funding had been frozen. In the months since, the University has worked to restore the funding, while continuing to support vital research, enabling it to continue through internal funding.…

On Nov. 28, 2025, Northwestern reached an agreement with the federal government to restore the frozen federal funding and resolve investigations by the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services.

Under the deal, Northwestern will pay the federal government a fine of $75 million over three years. Additionally, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the University has agreed to:

• Prohibit protests that occur overnight or in academic buildings.

• Ban flyers, chalking, and other on-campus displays outside designated areas.

• Include data about complaints alleging antisemitism and how they were resolved in its annual civil-rights report.

• Provide the government with data on admitted and rejected students, broken down by race, ethnicity, grades, and standardized-test performance.

• Agree not to use race or sex in “implicit or explicit” ways in hiring, promotion, or tenure decisions.

• Require antisemitism training for all students, faculty, and staff.

• Maintain an adequately resourced police force.

• Agree not to offer gender-affirming care [to minors] within its Feinberg School of Medicine.

• Review whether its business model is too reliant on international students, who typically pay full tuition.

• Survey students on whether they feel welcome on campus within six months, and provide the results to the Trump administration.

• Establish a “special committee” of the university’s Board of Trustees to oversee compliance.

In addition, according to the full agreement, the university will ensure that faculty, staff and administration uphold the following commitments:

• That the protections of Title VI apply to all individuals equally, and that no groups or classes of people receive more or less protection under Title VI for their particular identity, classification, or status.

• That Title VI prohibits harassment on the basis of shared ancestry, including Jewish ancestry.

• That harassment that creates a hostile environment for students on the basis of a protected characteristic, such as shared ancestry, is a violation of Title VI.

• That an institution that knows or acts with deliberate indifference as to the existence of a hostile environment has an affirmative responsibility to eliminate that hostile environment, remedy its effects, and prevent its recurrence, and that these measures include disciplinary actions.

Northwestern handled the protests very poorly. They allowed them to continue unabated and negotiated with the Hamasniks. The negotiations culminated in a deal that gave the protestors numerous concessions, summarized here by Jerry Coyne (full details here). The shameful deal included, among other things:

• The University will support visiting Palestinian faculty and students at risk (funding two faculty per year for two years; and providing full cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates to attend Northwestern for the duration of their undergraduate careers). The University commits to fundraise to sustain this program beyond this current commitment.

• The University will provide immediate temporary space for MENA/Muslim students.

• The University will provide and renovate a house for MENA/Muslim students that is conductive to community building as soon as practicably possible upon completion of the Jacobs renovation (Expected 2026).

• The University will engage students in a process dedicated to ensuring additional support for Jewish and Muslim students within Student Affairs/Religious & Spiritual Life.

• The University will include students in a process dedicated to implementing broad input on University dining services, including residential and retail vendors on campus.

As part of the agreement with the federal government, Northwestern will terminate the deal it made with the protestors and fully reverse the concessions. As the Washington Free Beacon reports:

The university vowed to reverse the policies implemented under its “Deering Meadow Agreement” that disgraced former Northwestern president Michael Schill struck with pro-Hamas encampment organizers. The terms of that deal included recruiting two Palestinian professors and providing five full-ride scholarships to students from Gaza, as well as building special housing for Middle Eastern, North African, and Muslim students. …

The first Palestinian professor hired as part of Schill’s deal with the activists, which Northwestern has since scrubbed from its website, was Mkhaimar Abusada, an academic who serves on the boards of two purported human rights organizations—the Independent Commission for Human Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights—that maintain close ties to terrorists. The former has praised Hamas and met with the terror group’s leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, while the latter is led by a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine member and has other terrorists on its payroll.

Northwestern’s agreement with the government sounds fair to us. We see nothing in the deal that impinges on Northwestern’s academic freedom. Indeed, contrary to allegations we constantly hear, we see no evidence in the deal that Trump is waging a war on higher education. Not everyone views it this way, though. See, for example, this article by Jonathan Zimmerman in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

And What About UCLA?

UCLA has yet to finalize a deal with the federal government, and, as we have described, continues to misbehave. The details of a proposed settlement, however, are now known. As reported by the LA Times, UC disclosed the Trump administration’s $1.2-billion settlement proposal under a court order. Non-paywalled details are available in the CalMatters’ article What’s Inside Trump’s $1.2-Billion Settlement Demand Letter to UCLA? It’s Finally Public. According to the article:

Some of the administration’s demands requires UCLA to:

• Hire a senior administrator to review UCLA’s policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and eliminate “identity-based preferences” in faculty hiring and scholarship programs.

• Prohibit the use of “personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity as a means to introduce or justify discrimination” in its admissions process. (A 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling already prohibits race-based admissions, though students are free to submit essays that detail how race affected their lives.)

• Prohibit the UCLA School of Medicine and its affiliated hospitals from performing gender affirming surgeries or hormone therapy for patients under 18.

• Issue a public statement saying that it will comply with Trump’s executive order that recognizes male and female as the only two sexes.

• Ban female transgender student athletes from participating in women’s sports.

• Establish a process so that “foreign students likely to engage in anti-Western, anti-American, or antisemitic disruptions or harassment” are not admitted to UCLA. (That seems to be at odds with the letter’s goal of protecting UCLA “faculty and students from retaliation for expressing minority opinions or engaging in free expression.”)

• Develop training materials to “socialize international students to the norms of a campus dedicated to free inquiry and open debate.”

These are all no-brainers. As CalMatters notes:

Some of the administration’s demands are already UC policy, including the elimination of diversity statements in faculty hiring, which the UC banned earlier this year, and banning overnight demonstrations at university locations.

Unfortunately, as we have repeatedly observed (here, here, and here), UCLA has consistently failed to enforce its own policies, so any final agreement will need to include mechanisms to monitor and enforce compliance.

Tracking Trump’s Deals with Universities

The Chronicle of Higher Education has created a tracker listing the universities that the Trump administration has targeted for civil rights violations and the details of any proposed or settled deals with those universities.

Details of proposed or settled agreements include fines; admission, hiring, and promotion provisions; gender policies; campus climate provisions; outside monitors; and, as illustrated below, provisions to address antisemitism.

Of the nine universities targeted, five have now settled, paying fines totaling $406 million. The non-monetary provisions of these agreements sound like common sense to us. Some observers have opposed the idea of outside monitors (so far, required of only two universities) as intrusion into university autonomy, but, as we have seen, without some mechanism to ensure compliance, universities will continue to selectively enforce civil rights law on campus and ignore their own internal rules—to the detriment, predictably, of their Jewish students.

Columbia and Beyond: Case Agreements in Higher Ed (National Association of Scholars)

A report by the National Academy of Scholars provides an in-depth analysis of the deals—technically case resolution agreements—struck so far.

The four main tools the administration has used are executive orders, (non-)disbursement of federal funds, the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, and—the subject of this report—case resolution agreements with individual universities. These four tactics aim for the same objectives and are intended to work together. Case resolutions, however, appear to be the means that the Trump administration hopes will provide actual reform of academia. Education reformers should pay close attention to what the Trump administration has been doing—and see how they can work to help maximize the effectiveness of the case resolution strategy.

The article is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to understand the Trump strategy to university reform.

Campus Antisemitism Continues Despite the Sanctions

Below we offer a few examples of recent depravities that illustrate the continuing need for strong measures against campus antisemitism.

Harvard Hires Divinity School Graduate Who Assaulted Israeli Classmate (Collin Anderson, The Washington Free Beacon, December 1, 2025)

The Harvard University student who faced criminal charges for assaulting an Israeli classmate during an anti-Israel “die-in” protest, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, has a new job: He is a teaching fellow at… Harvard.

Tettey-Tamaklo, who was removed from his position as a proctor overseeing freshmen in the wake of the incident, began work as a “Graduate Teaching Fellow” at Harvard in August, according to his LinkedIn profile. He says he works to “advise faculty on curriculum design.”

Tettey-Tamaklo was the subject of intense scrutiny after he was caught on camera accosting a first-year Israeli business school student at an October 2023 “die-in” protest held outside of Harvard Business School. He was slapped with a misdemeanor assault and battery charge last May and ordered by a Suffolk County judge to take an anger management class and perform 80 hours of community service roughly a year later.

Harvard briefly appeared to take the criticism seriously. It removed Tettey-Tamaklo as a proctor—a role that tasked him with living among freshmen to support their “adjustment to Harvard”—in November 2023, reportedly citing “student discomfort.” It was the only action Harvard took against Tettey-Tamaklo, who remained in good standing with the school throughout his criminal trial. …

Harvard has also embraced the second student charged with assault in connection with the protest, law school graduate Ibrahim Bharmal. The school published a blog in which Bharmal fondly reminisced on his time at the school before the conclusion of his criminal case. Shortly after Bharmal entered into the same diversion program as Tettey-Tamaklo, he was awarded a $65,000 Harvard Law Review fellowship meant to serve the “public interest.” The money funds the fellow’s work at a government agency or nonprofit; in Bharmal’s case, that means a stint at the Council on American-Islamic Relations’s Los Angeles office.

Harvard’s handling of Tettey-Tamaklo’s and Bharmal’s cases prompted the Israeli student assaulted at the protest, Yoav Segev, to sue the school in July, accusing it of “misleading tactics, obfuscation, and misrepresentations” that “prevented him from ever obtaining administrative remedies.” He’s not the only one to make such accusations—the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said Harvard refused to cooperate with its investigation into the assault, delaying the criminal cases against Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal and preventing the office from identifying additional perpetrators.

As Nellie Bowles has put it in this week’s TGIF:

At Harvard, in order to get hired, your résumé needs a list of credentials. And those credentials are all the different attack moves you’ve deployed against an Israeli student—a headlock, an uppercut, a reverse roundhouse kick. An internship in antisemitic tirades isn’t enough—you need to pass the “demonstrated physical aggression” test too.

Meanwhile at Pomona College (Nellie Bowles, TGIF: My Little Totenkopf, The Free Press, October 24, 2025)

Over at Pomona College in Southern California, a campus Jewish group was hosting an October 7 survivor to speak about his experience in captivity and resilience and whatever else you can imagine someone might say to make sense of life after that happens. The talk was interrupted by masked protesters dressed in pseudo-Hamas garb (keffiyehs over their faces except for little eye slits), who attempted to storm the room. You see, the idea of a Jewish man escaping Hamas is infuriating (how dare he!). So kids in America put on the clothing of his attackers to scream at him.

And in Oxford, UK (Nellie Bowles, TGIF: My Little Totenkopf, The Free Press, October 24, 2025)

Across the world, pretty little blond boy Oxford students are now this week chanting: “Gaza, Gaza, make us proud, put the Zios in the ground.”

As noted by a Circle member:

This case frankly didn’t seem all that unusual to me, aside from the fact that he was actually suspended for chanting for death to “Zios,” as you know a popular slur referring to Jews, Zionists and their supporters. It reminded me, however, of our own case several years prior to October 7, in which a USC student—and DEI ambassador—posted statements on social media calling for the death of all Zionists. She got off more lightly than this chap, but it just serves as a reminder how normalized hate speech like this has become over the past two years. Most people would barely notice statements like this, nice to see that Oxford—no friend to Israel or the Jews—has finally done what USC couldn’t bring itself to do.

The case he refers to is that of our lovely Yasmeen, descried here.

Anti-Semitism Is Often ‘Fabricated,’ According to Curriculum Bankrolled by George Soros (Chuck Ross, The Washington Free Beacon, November 26, 2025)

Amid a historic spike in anti-Semitism, liberal billionaire George Soros is bankrolling an education company that provides a “curriculum on anti-Semitism” to students from kindergarten to college. The organization, PARCEO, is led by anti-Israel activists who claim many allegations of anti-Semitism are “fabricated” and used to silence pro-Palestinian activists.

Open Society Foundations (OSF) gave $50,000 last year to the New York-based PARCEO to develop its “Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation,” according to OSF’s grants database.

The revelation about OSF’s role sheds new light on a curriculum that has stirred controversy at some public schools in New York and California. Jewish faculty at New York City’s High School for Community Leadership, for example, complained the curriculum presented a “one-sided indoctrination” about the Israel-Hamas war, according to the New York Post.

PARCEO, in tandem with the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), also held a curriculum workshop at Northwestern University in April to counter the school’s mandate for students to watch a video about anti-Semitism.

And in San Francisco, the teachers’ union provided the PARCEO curriculum as an alternative to one from American Jewish Committee (AJC) that had been approved by the San Francisco school board.

AJC blasted the PARCEO curriculum, saying the group “makes bizarre and radical claims about antisemitism even over ostensibly uncontroversial matters.” It cited a PARCEO video presentation that claimed when Jews contact police about hate crimes, they contribute to the “continued oppression, incarceration and murder of [Black] people.”

UC Berkeley Faculty’s Academic Boycott of Israel Normalizes Jewish Exclusion (Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, The Jewish News for Northern California, November 25, 2025)

Antisemitism is deeply entrenched on all UC campuses. In a recent op-ed, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin reminds us about ongoing efforts by radical faculty groups to intimidate and harass Jewish and Israeli faculty and students.

UC Berkeley’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) used its Instagram account in October to “like” a National Students for Justice in Palestine statement that ended with: “Death to the occupation. Death to Zionism. Death to all collaborators.” That same month, FSJP’s account also amplified graphics praising a “martyr” and urging followers to “hold fast to resistance.”

FSJP is the faculty network driving the academic boycott of Israel at Cal. When its social media account endorses explicitly threatening exhortations, the message is unmistakable: Those who identify as Zionists are being cast as enemies and targeted for harm.

In an effort to combat the surge of antisemitism on its campuses, the University of California has moved to prohibit the divestment-from-Israel boycotts demanded by student protesters, issuing a system-wide directive this summer that bars “university entities” from engaging in “boycotts of companies based on their association with a particular country.”

But that policy doesn’t touch the faculty-run academic boycott advanced by FSJP, which has done far more to fuel campus antisemitism than any divestment push.

Academic boycotts are the primary on-campus tool of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, coordinated globally by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and in the United States by affiliate USACBI. These campaigns extend far beyond opposition to Israeli policy. Their central doctrine is anti-normalization — denying Zionism any legitimate place in academic life and, by extension, excluding Zionist Jews from the university community.

From our Travels Across the Pond: Panel on Antisemitism at the Battle of Ideas Festival in London

This panel discussed antisemitic extremism in the UK and dug into its drivers: uncontrolled immigration, multiculturalism, and “progressive” ideology.

USC Now Has Its Own Kalaniyot Chapter

• The Daily Trojan published a favorable article on USC’s newly established Kalaniyot Chapter. An unexpected move from DT—but we are grateful all the same.

• Kalaniyot at USC has a website now!

• And our chapter is now officially listed on Kalaniyot’s National website!

And Now a Dose of Humor: Ceasefire? How dare you!

Great video, courtesy of the Israeli comedy troupe Eretz Nehederet.

Antisemitism is as horrific as racism: both have fueled monstrous atrocities and inflicted immeasurable suffering upon humanity. I also find Stalinism, Nazism, and all forms of totalitarian fascism utterly unacceptable. Any attempt to rationalize these ideologies—or the historical facts surrounding them—by invoking national interests, poverty, uprisings, or oppression is not only misguided but deeply repugnant.

I asked AI Copilot about the historical reasons for antisemitism and violence against Jews across centuries and nations. The answers revealed recurring themes: cultural isolation, economic resentment, religious intolerance, nationalistic fervor, and political manipulation. The universality and continuity of antisemitism make it distinct from other forms of international animosity, which tend to be more episodic and binary.

Below is the summary of the Copilot responses I compiled.

In Roman Empire

Antisemitism in the Roman Empire was driven by several key factors:

• Religious Differences: The monotheistic beliefs of Jews clashed with the polytheistic traditions of the Romans. Jews refused to worship Roman gods or the emperor, which was seen as a threat to the unity and stability of the state.

• Political Conflicts: The Jewish revolts against Roman rule, such as the Great Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE) and the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-136 CE), led to increased hostility and punitive measures against Jewish communities.

• Cultural Isolation: Jews maintained distinct cultural and religious practices, which set them apart from the broader Roman society. This cultural isolation often led to suspicion and mistrust.

• Economic Factors: Jews were sometimes involved in roles that made them targets of economic envy and resentment, similar to other periods in history.

These factors combined to create an environment where antisemitism could flourish in the Roman Empire.

In Spain

The antisemitism and persecution of Jews in Spain, particularly during the medieval and early modern periods, were driven by several interrelated factors:

• Religious Intolerance: With the rise of Christianity in Spain, Jews faced increasing hostility. This was exacerbated by the Visigothic rulers’ conversion to Christianity, leading to forced conversions and persecution.

• Economic Resentment: Jews often occupied roles as tax collectors, moneylenders, and merchants, which made them targets of economic envy and resentment. They were seen as agents of economic exploitation.

• Social and Political Factors: During times of social and political upheaval, such as the Reconquista and the rise of the Catholic Monarchs, Jews were scapegoated for various societal problems. This culminated in the 1391 pogroms and the eventual expulsion of Jews in 1492 under the Alhambra Decree.

• Blood Libel and Other Myths: False accusations, such as the blood libel (the myth that Jews used Christian blood in religious rituals), fueled antisemitic sentiments and justified violence against Jewish communities.

• Inquisition and Conversos: The Spanish Inquisition targeted conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity) suspected of secretly practicing Judaism. This led to widespread persecution and executions.

These factors combined to create a hostile environment for Jews in Spain, leading to centuries of persecution and eventual expulsion.

In Nazi Germany

The antisemitism and murder of Jews in Nazi Germany were driven by a combination of historical, ideological, and socio-political factors:

• Historical Antisemitism: Antisemitic attitudes had deep roots in European history, dating back to ancient times and the Middle Ages. Jews were often scapegoated for various societal problems and faced discrimination and violence.

• Nazi Ideology: The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, propagated a racist ideology that viewed Jews as an inferior and dangerous race. They believed in the superiority of the “Aryan” race and saw Jews as a threat to racial purity and national unity.

• Economic Factors: The economic turmoil following World War I and the Great Depression led to widespread unemployment and poverty in Germany. Jews, who were often prominent in business and finance, were falsely blamed for these economic hardships.

• Political Instability: The political instability of the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles, which imposed harsh penalties on Germany, created a fertile ground for extremist ideologies. The Nazis exploited this instability to gain support by promising to restore Germany’s former glory and blaming Jews for the nation’s problems.

• Propaganda: The Nazi regime used extensive propaganda to dehumanize Jews and spread antisemitic myths and stereotypes. This propaganda portrayed Jews as subhuman and a threat to society, justifying their persecution and eventual extermination.

These factors combined to create an environment where antisemitism was not only tolerated but actively promoted, leading to the systematic murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.

In Ukraine

The violence against Jews during the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648-1657) and the Haidamak uprisings (18th century) was driven by a combination of social, economic, and religious factors:

• Economic Exploitation: Jews often served as leaseholders (arendators) and tax collectors for the Polish nobility, which made them targets of resentment among the Ukrainian peasantry. They were seen as direct agents of economic oppression.

• Religious Tensions: The predominantly Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian population harbored animosity towards the Catholic Polish authorities and their Jewish intermediaries. This religious divide exacerbated the violence.

• Social Unrest: The Cossack revolts, including the Khmelnytsky Uprising, were partly fueled by a broader resistance to the imposition of serfdom and manorial duties by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Jews, as part of the administrative system, became scapegoats.

• Nationalistic Sentiments: The uprisings were also seen as wars of liberation from foreign (Polish) domination. The Jewish community, being associated with the Polish ruling class, was caught in the crossfire.

These factors combined to create a volatile environment where Jews were tragically targeted during these uprisings.

In Russian Empire

Antisemitism and pogroms in the Russian Empire were driven by a mix of historical, social, economic, and political factors:

• Historical Antisemitism: Antisemitic attitudes were deeply rooted in Russian society, influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church, which viewed Jews with suspicion and hostility.

• Economic Resentment: Jews often occupied roles as merchants, moneylenders, and tax collectors, which made them targets of economic envy and resentment. They were seen as economic competitors and scapegoats for financial hardships.

• Political Instability: During times of political upheaval, such as the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, Jews were often blamed for societal problems. This led to waves of violence, including the pogroms of 1881-1882.

• The Pale of Settlement: Jews were confined to the Pale of Settlement, a region in western Russia, and were forbidden from moving to other parts of the empire. This segregation fostered resentment and made Jewish communities more vulnerable to attacks.

• Government Policies: The Russian government often used Jews as scapegoats to divert attention from internal problems. This included encouraging or turning a blind eye to pogroms, which were violent riots aimed at Jewish communities.

• Social and Religious Tensions: Jews were often seen as outsiders and were blamed for various social and religious issues. This was exacerbated by myths and stereotypes, such as the blood libel, which falsely accused Jews of using Christian blood in religious rituals.

These factors combined to create a hostile environment for Jews in the Russian Empire, leading to repeated outbreaks of violence and persecution.

In Soviet Union

Antisemitism in the Soviet Union was driven by a combination of historical, ideological, and political factors:

• Historical Antisemitism: Antisemitic attitudes were already present in Russian society before the Soviet era, influenced by centuries of discrimination and pogroms under the Tsarist regime.

• Ideological Factors: The Soviet regime, particularly under Joseph Stalin, viewed Jews with suspicion. Stalin’s regime promoted the idea that Jews were “rootless cosmopolitans” and potential traitors, especially during the anti-cosmopolitan campaign of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

• Political Manipulation: Antisemitism was used as a tool to consolidate power and divert attention from internal problems. The infamous “Doctors’ Plot” in 1952-1953, where Jewish doctors were falsely accused of plotting to assassinate Soviet leaders, is a prime example.

• Anti-Zionism: The Soviet Union’s opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel often translated into antisemitic policies and rhetoric. Jews were accused of dual loyalty and were often targeted for their perceived connections to Israel and the West.

• Suppression of Jewish Culture: The Soviet government sought to suppress Jewish religious and cultural practices, promoting assimilation into Soviet society. This included closing Jewish schools, synagogues, and cultural institutions.

These factors combined to create a hostile environment for Jews in the Soviet Union, leading to widespread discrimination and persecution.

In Poland after WW2

Antisemitism and pogroms in Poland after World War II were driven by several complex factors:

• Historical Antisemitism: Antisemitic attitudes were deeply rooted in Polish society, influenced by centuries of discrimination and violence against Jews.

• Post-War Chaos: The immediate post-war period was marked by social and political instability. The power vacuum and lawlessness created an environment where violence could easily erupt.

• Communist Takeover: The establishment of a Soviet-backed communist government in Poland led to tensions. Some Poles associated Jews with the new regime, viewing them as collaborators, which fueled antisemitic sentiments.

• Economic Resentment: Returning Jewish survivors often reclaimed property and businesses that had been taken over by non-Jews during the war. This led to economic resentment and hostility.

• Blood Libel and Myths: Persistent myths, such as the blood libel (the false accusation that Jews used Christian blood in rituals), continued to incite violence. The Kielce pogrom in 1946, for example, was sparked by such a rumor.

These factors combined to create a volatile environment where Jews were targeted in violent pogroms, even after the horrors of the Holocaust.

In France

Antisemitism in France has deep historical roots and has manifested in various forms over the centuries due to several factors:

• Religious Tensions: During the Middle Ages, Jews were often viewed with suspicion and hostility by the predominantly Christian population. This was exacerbated by the Catholic Church, which sometimes propagated antisemitic myths and stereotypes.

• Economic Resentment: Jews often occupied roles as moneylenders, merchants, and tax collectors, which made them targets of economic envy and resentment. They were seen as economic competitors and scapegoats for financial hardships.

• Political Manipulation: Throughout history, Jews were often used as scapegoats during times of political instability. For example, during the Dreyfus Affair in the late 19th century, a Jewish French army officer was falsely accused of treason, which sparked widespread antisemitic sentiment.

• World War II and Vichy Regime: During World War II, the Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany to deport Jews to concentration camps. This period saw a significant increase in antisemitic actions and policies.

• Modern Antisemitism: In recent decades, antisemitism in France has been influenced by various factors, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the rise of far-right political movements, and tensions within the Muslim immigrant population. This has led to an increase in assaults on Jewish people and property.

References:

Antisemitism, an article in Britannica

Wikipedia articles on antisemitism:

History of antisemitism

Antisemitism in France

Antisemitism in 21st-century France

Khmelnytsky Uprising

Antisemitism in the Russian Empire

Antisemitism in the Soviet Union

Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946

History of the Jews of Ukraine, My Jewish Learning

Anti-Judaism before the Enlightenment, Facing History and Ourselves

The Ancient Roots of Anti-Judaism, Facing History and Ourselves

Anti-Semitism, History.com

Nazi Antisemitism, The Wiener Holocaust Library

The Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Image of Jews, and the Shaping of Ukrainian Historical Memory, Zenon Kohut, Jewish History

A historian explains how a small, victorious war led to the pogroms of 1905, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter

The Persistence of Antisemitism, Facing History and Ourselves

This week’s Free Press Newsletter (They Brought Them Home. Plus. . .) introduces a compilation of articles about the October 7 attack, the hostages, and their families. By coincidence, the same day that the remaining hostages returned home I (Anna) just finished reading the book Hostage by Eli Sharabi, which documented the author’s 491 days in captivity. I have no words to describe this book. It should be required reading in every school. And by every Jewish family. So we do not forget — and do not forgive.

How did this historic week look on university campuses?

It has been relatively quiet at USC — possibly because our AAUP chapter was busy organizing opposition to the Compact for Excellence in Higher Education, the pledge the federal government is asking universities to make to merit-based admission and hiring, academic excellence (including curbing grade inflation), open dialogue, and control of tuition costs. Yes, the AAUP is opposed to these “right-wing” policies. For a closer look at the Compact, see Anna’s op-ed published on the Hx@USC Substack (“Opinion: How Should Universities Respond to the Invitation to Sign a Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education?”).

And now: the week in antisemitism.

USC

An anti-Israeli protest was held on October 7 next to Tommy Trojan by a small group of keffiyeh-clad Hamasniks. There was no mention of the imminent ceasefire, the hostages, or the grossly asymmetric release of Palestinian terrorists in exchange — only the “genocide.” There was also a walkout. The events were organized by our local chapter of SJP (and, possibly, FJP) as well as Divest from Death, USC S.C.A.L.E., and other radical organizations. Below is the poster for the walkout.

A member of our Circle annotated the poster with red arrows pointing to where, as he explained in an email, “the British Mandate Palestine stamps … have erased “Eretz Yisroel” and are postmarked from the Jewish-founded city of Tel Aviv.” How telling is it that a poster claiming that there have been “two years of lies” uses photoshopped postage stamps.

Here is an image of an original stamp of the same series:

Our Circle member explains:

These can be found [by] everyone on the internet. The Mandate period stamps and currency, issued by the Brits, all had the name Palestine in English, Arabic and Hebrew. After the Hebrew, in parenthesis, were the letters aleph and yud—an abbreviation for Eretz Yisroel. If I were going to give the SJP some advice on public relations, I’d suggest they stopped using altered images of these items since they just call attention to the fact that they were never the products of a Palestinian state. In fact, prior to 1948 or even 1964 when the PLO was founded, the name “Palestinians” usually meant Jews, while the Arabs were either specified as “Palestinian Arabs,” or more frequently, just as “Arabs.” The coins, currency and stamps were never theirs, and all the institutions that used the name Palestine before 1948—the Palestine Symphony, Airlines, Football Team and, especially, the Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post) were founded by Jews.

And one more from the era:

In the above 1948 cartoon, “Palestine” refers to the Jews, of course. The Mufti, who had been the leader of the Palestinian Arabs, wanted Palestine to become part of Syria—not an independent state—and, most important, he wanted to eliminate the Jews. For more on this staunch ally of the Nazis:

And what do our Hamasniks want? Do they call on Hamas to accept the ceasefire conditions and end “the genocode”? Here are their demands:

Stu Smith on X called them out on their lies:

The anti-Israeli actions on campus were dutifully covered by the Daily “Voice-of-Hamas” Trojan (“Students Hold Walkout for Palestine,” October 8, 2025):

Around 40 people gathered at Hahn Plaza on Tuesday for a “Walkout for Palestine” protest that later moved to Bovard Administration Building. Two organizers were allowed into the building by Department of Public Safety officers to deliver their list of demands to University administration.

The protest was organized by USC South Central Against Labor Exploitation and USC South Central for Justice in Palestine—both advocacy groups not affiliated with the University. The protest was on the second anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people.

“We are [USC S.C.A.L.E and USC SJP], and we denounce genocide, and we denounce apartheid, and we denounce segregation, whether it’s in South Central or Palestine,” said a speaker who did not identify themself. “We stand for life, and those Zionists stand for death. Always remember that. What we’re going to do now is we’re going to go on a march around campus to make our voices heard.”

The demonstrators are wearing masks. Here in California, where the governor has signed a law forbidding ICE officers to be masked (effective Jan. 1, 2026), describing masked agents as “terrifying” and something out of a “dystopian sci-fi movie” (see ‘We’re not North Korea.’ Newsom signs bills to limit immigration raids at schools and unmask federal agents, LA Times, updated September 21, 2025). But masks are fine for keffiyeh-clad antisemitic protesters. What could be intimidating about that?

For more on anti-masking laws, see our earlier post.

Meanwhile at UCLA

USC in not unique. At UCLA, a masked protest — a prohibited activity — organized by SJP — a banned student organization — took place, unimpeded by university administration or campus police.

We were beginning to think that UCLA’s Chancellor Frenk was serious about enforcing its time, place, and manner restrictions for campus demonstrations and its promise to improve the campus climate for Jewish students, as demanded by the US Department of Justice, given that the university faces an existential threat by the Department should it fail to do so. Apparently, we were wrong.

According to an email we received from UCLA’s Jewish Faculty Resistance Group (JFRG):

On Oct 7, 2025 — the anniversary of the Hamas massacre — the “suspended” group Students for Justice in Palestine led a masked protest at UCLA, chanting, “There is only one solution—Intifada revolution.” Officials again stood by.

Now, JFRG faculty at UCLA is calling on Chancellor Frenk to enforce university policy and uphold the safety and dignity of every member of our community.

The email included this video of the protest:

As JFRG’s letter to Chancellor Frenk explained:

Recently, Students for Justice in Palestine (SP) conducted large-scale demonstrations on the UCLA campus. In doing so, the group violated university policy. We at the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFRG) at UCLA write to ask the university to take appropriate action in response.

To set the context, SJP has previously engaged in conduct that resulted in its being suspended as an approved group at UCLA. Far from limiting themselves to protected speech, SJP committed vandalism at the home of a Regent of the University of California as a way of “punishing” him for a political stance that SJP disapproved.

The same suspended group publicly called for and organized a “Vigil for the Martyrs” on October 6 and 7, 2025. To clarify, the “Martyrs” whom SJP supports are none other than the Hamas terrorists who, on October 7, 2023, murdered, raped, and kidnapped 1,400 Jews and other residents of Israel.

The demonstrators initially congregated on Dixon Court and Royce Quad. From there, they marched through the campus. Their demonstration included at least seventy individuals, most of whom were masked. Throughout, they broadcasted via megaphone chants such as “There is only one solution—Intifada revolution.” That reference glorifies the period of 2000-2005 when Hamas and allied terrorists blew up buses in Israel, killing over one hundred people. The demonstrators heckled faculty for videotaping them. …

JFRG points out that these protests violated the UCLA policies, in particular anti-masking:

The position that SJP’s gathering was not a “demonstration” is unsupportable—it was the congregation, on October 6 and 7, of at least seventy masked individuals, organized to support Hamas terrorists, who had been called to that location by a banned student organization that has previously engaged in harassment and intimidation of Jews.

Likewise infirm is the limitation of masking rules to the context of encampments. The many anti-masking statutes that are extant in states across the country were adopted against the backdrop of demonstrations that intimidated, terrorized, and harassed Black Americans. The purpose of anti-masking rules, including those at UC, embodies the aim to avoid any group from intimidating, terrorizing, or harassing a vulnerable minority. SJP’s conduct amounted to exactly the type of invidious intimidation that falls within the core of the mask prohibition.

UCLA’s credibility as a world-class institution depends on its ability to apply its rules equally and to protect every member of its community. We respectfully request a written response to these concerns within 14 days, outlining specific actions the university will take to address these failures and prevent their recurrence.

The full text of JFRG’s letter to Chancellor Frenk can be read here: page 1 and page 2. The list of recipients at the end of the letter reveals that JFRG did not send a copy to any federal government agency. This, in our opinion, was a serious mistake. With this latest example of the university’s unwillingness to uphold its own rules, UCLA has proved beyond any doubt that it will not undertake serious reform without external coercion. The federal government should have been informed of this latest breach of promise.

A Couple of Tidbits from around the World (Nellie Bowles, TGIF: Shutdown Blues, The Free Press, October 10, 2025)

→ Allahu Akbar: With the second anniversary of October 7 came the various celebrations of Hamas’s attack. Some protesters in New York stopped at the Trump Hotel to pray, while others carried a very big Palestinian flag over their heads. In Canada, college students gathered to throw their own celebrations in Montreal and at the University of Toronto. Back home in the U.S., Stanford’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine hosted a “VIGIL IN HONOR OF OUR MARTYRS.”

In England, the BBC said we have no idea why a man named Jihad allegedly started stabbing Jews at a synagogue (thank you, Metropolitan Police, for clarifying that “the word jihad has a number of meanings”). Eventually the BBC admitted that he “may have been influenced by extreme Islamist ideology,” since the attacker is reported to have called 999 during the attack and said, “I have killed two Jews in the name of the Islamic State.” I wonder what his motivation could have been? Inscrutable. Unknown, like the wind and trees. Lastly, in the warm, inclusive land of academia, a Rutgers professor defended violence against random synagogues. She writes: “Firstly, synagogues have been found to not be some benign neutral places of worship. . . . I mean, if they want us to really believe in their ‘Jewish supremacy’ and that 2 million indigenous people must be killed and starved for European Jews to feel more comfortable while they bathe on beaches that don’t belong to them, then I’m sorry, but any hate towards said Jews would be valid.” It’s worth reading the whole thing.

A New Office to Monitor Antisemitism in California Schools

From the Essential California newsletter (bolding ours):

One of the most hotly contested education-related bills this year has been signed into law. It will set up a state Office for Civil Rights to combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination in California schools.

It was the result of dissatisfaction, largely among a coalition of Jewish groups, with the way ethnic studies has been taught in some California classrooms. The critics say that, in some schools, ethnic studies have improperly focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that lessons reflect a bias against Jews.

The bill drew strong opposition from teachers unions, faculty groups, Muslim organizations and liberal groups worried about the suppression of discussion about current events in the Middle East, my colleague Howard Blume writes.

Humor of the Week

This week, as we mark the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre, may well be remembered as the moment the Middle East turned a historic corner — with real prospects for peace finally on the horizon. Time will tell. How will the world remember the heroes who helped end the war? We do not know. For clues, we turn to the Babylon Bee.

Greta Thunberg Awarded Nobel Prize For Ending The War In Gaza

Hitler Brings Peace To Israel

The terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, shocked me deeply. I was also disappointed by the statement issued by the UNC Chapel Hill Faculty, Graduate Students, and Staff Regarding Justice in Palestine, which, among other things, “…We believe that an understanding of such loss must be situated within the historical and political context of ongoing colonial oppression.”[1] On November 3, 2023, I sent a brief note to about 40 UNC faculty members who had signed this statement by then, asking them if they endorsed the atrocious crimes committed by Hamas during this attack. I received only one reply from a UNC faculty member whom I had addressed. After careful consideration, I decided to give my point-by-point response in a form of an open letter. Herein I removed the name of my addressee and changed their direct text to statements of problems they raised.

First published in T-Invariant, November 26, 2023

Dear Respected Colleague:

Thank you for your response on November 3, 2023, to my letter to the UNC faculty signatories of the “UNC Chapel Hill Faculty, Graduate Students, and Staff Statement Regarding Justice in Palestine”. While my brief note only questioned the moral equivalence stated in “…We believe that an understanding of such loss must be situated within the historical and political context of ongoing colonial oppression” given the inhumane atrocities committed by Hamas and its supporters on October 7, 2023, your reply broadens the spectrum to encompass social, academic, and even personal matters. This has prompted me to engage in deeper reflection.

What I Stand For and What I Oppose

You addressed me as “presumably a supporter of Israel” prompting me to ponder over my true affiliations and convictions.

I fully support the right of the Jewish state to exist that is affirmed in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 in 1947[2] .

As you probably know, the resolution was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine but rejected by the Arab Higher Committee. Most nations on our planet are made up of people sharing the same religious beliefs, culture, and language, established on land that the people have historic ties to.

As an American, I first and foremost support the United States of America. Israel stands as a key and crucial ally of the United States in the Middle East and is the sole democracy in the region. Therefore, I support Israel, along with the thousands of American men and women in uniform whom President Biden has deployed after October 7, 2023, to the eastern Mediterranean to deter Hezbollah and Iran from attacking Israel.

I stand by the right of Israel to defend itself, much as I support Ukraine’s right to resist Putin’s fascist state aggression. As a Russian citizen by birth, I know first-hand that it is impossible to appease and reason with criminal minds, dictators, and terrorists. For many years, I held the belief that maintaining a sensible dialogue with political and academic leadership was crucial for the well-being of future generations in my country of birth. However, this conviction ended abruptly with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the perpetration of unspeakable crimes against the Ukrainian people by Russians.

I stand by the words of my great compatriot, Academician Andrei Sakharov, who stated, “Peace, progress, human rights — these three goals are insolubly linked to one another: It is impossible to achieve one of these goals if the other two are ignored.”[3] The appalling attack by Hamas and its supporters against Israel, resulting in 1,200 victims tortured and murdered in just a few hours, with nearly 240 hostages taken to Gaza by terrorists, goes against each of these principles.

These are undeniably most challenging times for our generation. I vehemently oppose aggression, falsehoods, misrepresentation, and dishonesty, firmly believing that today silence is not an option. With that in mind, let me scrutinize the rest of your letter.

Responses to Your Questions and Rationale

“Do you know how many Palestinians have been tortured, murdered, brutalized, made homeless?”

I would greatly appreciate it you could point out a single confirmed case of torture of a Palestinian by Israel. A videotape, a picture, or some hard evidence would be quite helpful because such evidence can be presented in Israeli courts and used to prosecute those who perpetrate such alleged crimes against Palestinians. After all, we have prosecuted and convicted over a dozen American soldiers for the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.[4] Israel is a democracy, and I am sure they would do the same provided they are faced with solid evidence. I am deeply concerned about the claims of Amnesty International[5], and if true, they should be pursued legally.

However, nothing I saw in the Amnesty International report comes close to what we witnessed on October 7th, 2023. I doubt any Israeli soldier or civilian would “cut a man’s penis and put it in his mouth,” but that is exactly what was done to a younger brother of a faculty member at an Israeli university, according to a colleague who is a friend of mine. This friend also told me that another colleague was breaking down while telling how his niece was raped while her organs were being cut in the process. Unfortunately, I have seen a video of a murdered woman, with her legs still positioned open as left by her abusers, and her eyes, lips, and pieces of her skin and leg cut off. The terrorists and perhaps accompanying “concerned citizens” who did that conveniently filmed these inhumane acts. They even took Gaza photojournalists with them to transmit the images of their horrendous deeds to major news outlets.[6]

Unfortunately, with nearly 1200 victims of the terrorist attack, the witness, forensic, and video evidence of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is overwhelming. Journalists worldwide have been shown a gruesome video and photographs compiled from body cameras of the attackers, along with other evidence, during Hamas’s October 7th attack. The video is impossible for a normal human being to watch, and its viewing is very restricted in Israel due to the trauma it causes to the relatives of the victims.[7] A few days ago, a video was shown to the members of the US House of Representatives that left them stunned and shaken.[8] Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) expressed her outrage, stating: “Seeing the video footage of people celebrating the killing of Jews shows what we’re up against. And the fact that anybody would encourage or condone what Hamas did that day. It’s outrageous.”

No “historical and political context of ongoing colonial oppression” even if true can justify such horrendous and demonstrative massacre.

“Do you mourn deaths of children in Israeli attacks in Gaza in the past 15 years?”

I mourn suffering and death of a every child, every innocent person in Gaza and elsewhere.

I found myself in Dresden in the early 2000s, where remnants of the Allied bombardment in February 1945 still lingered. As I strolled through the streets, I couldn’t help but envision the catastrophic tornado of fire formed by the burning buildings, swallowing people into a fireball that tore through the city center. I grieved for every life lost, every German child, every woman, and every man — thousands upon thousands fell victim to these bombings. I questioned the necessity of such destruction. Yet, I couldn’t forget who initiated that war.

Recalling the story my mother shared with me, she visited Krakow shortly after World War II, around 1948, as a ballerina with the Bolshoi Theatre in the USSR. They toured Auschwitz, and she witnessed mountains of children’s shoes near the “undressing rooms” and “saunas” of the gas chambers, as well as piles of human ashes by the ovens. Hitler and German fascism initiated the war and perpetrated heinous crimes against humanity. Despite the immense human suffering, death, and destruction in Germany, it was the fascists who bore the responsibility for every life lost, not the Allies.

Speaking about the current war – would Israel have started a military operation in Gaza if there had been no attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023? Would the United States have dispatched two air carrier strike groups capable of whipping an entire country if there had been no threats from Iran to intervene in the conflict? Do not forget that there have been thousands of rockets fired at Israel from Gaza by Hamas and from Lebanon by Hezbollah – both groups with ties to Iran. So, who should be blamed for this war and its consequences?

Above I already mentioned the horrific atrocities that were committed against peaceful people during the attack of October 7, 2023. Do you think these inhumane acts were just a result of “an excess” of “Palestinian freedom fighters” who were “a bit carried away” by seeing their “Jewish oppressor”? And not only Jewish by the way – Israeli Arab families were also killed in that attack. If you think so, you have an enormously poor opinion of Palestinians.

No, the terrorists did what they did, filmed it and spread the images through the global media on purpose. They knew that such a horrendous act would leave Israel morally, politically, and militarily with no other choice but to start an operation in Gaza. In fact, Hamas leaders went on the record saying that “their goal was to trigger this very response and that they were still hoping for a bigger war”.[9] Moreover, they “vowed to “annihilate” Israel and promised to repeat the October 7 massacre again and again until the Jewish nation was “finished””.[10] Please refer to the direct statements made by Mr. Khalil al-Hayya and Mr. Ghazi Hamad, senior officials of Hamas, in the referenced publications.

Hamas does not care about the “temporary hardships” of the Palestinian people if their goals are achieved. Israel unilaterally and voluntarily left Gaza in September 2005.[11] Since then, Hamas has been dismantling pipelines to build rockets that they fire at Israel, as well as digging tunnels.[12], [13] They have also placed rocket launchers and other military installations on top of and within hospitals and other civilian objects, exposing them to Israeli strikes and maximizing the Palestinian civilian casualties.[14] This tactic – use of “human shields” – is characteristic of cowards and terrorists. It shows a total disregard for the lives of the Palestinian people.

Therefore, I strongly condemn Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza for launching their attacks and believe that they are the ones to blame for every Palestinian and Israeli life lost in this and previous conflicts. Just as Adolf Hitler was responsible for the German lives lost, Hamas is responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians. Hamas must be dealt with decisively, like Hitler was during World War II. Moreover, the destruction of Hamas and other terrorist groups is in the best interest of Palestine and the Palestinian people, just as the destruction of German fascism during World War II was in the best interest of Germany and the German people.

“The things you say Hamas did is Israeli propaganda.”

This comment of yours reminds me of a recent personal experience. You may know that Russian troops committed horrendous war crimes on occupied Ukrainian territory, killing peaceful Ukrainian citizens. In just one city, Bucha, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the killings, including summary execution, of at least 73 civilians.[15] According to some reports, the number of civilians murdered in the Bucha region during one month under Russian occupation could be as high as a thousand.[16] Nevertheless, many in Russia refuse to believe that and consider it “Western propaganda”. I have people I know very closely in Moscow, some with scientific degrees, who are telling me that it is “obvious that the bodies were planted”, that “they moved” (and therefore alive), that “these were actors”, etc.

In Russia, there is a heavy cost for those who dare to speak the truth. Admitting the atrocities committed by Russian troops against Ukrainians is a crime in Russia. Well-known politicians Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin and other lesser-known people were sentenced to long prison terms for denouncing the war crimes that Russia committed in Ukraine, including the killings in Bucha.[17], [18], [19] I have a faculty colleague and friend at the University of Chicago who is currently being prosecuted and placed on a federal wanted list by the Russian government for allegedly doing the same.[20] But I do not think that the denial is only a function of fear, especially in the cases of people I know very well. The true reason is the inability to cope with facts that contradict one’s deep beliefs.

Like the crimes of Russians in Ukraine, there is overwhelming evidence of the horrendous crimes committed by Hamas against civilians during the October 7th attack. This evidence can be easily found on the web. As stated earlier there is a graphic film comprising footage captured from body cameras worn by Hamas terrorists on October 7, that contains disturbing scenes of torture, rape, murder, and mutilation of victims during the assault.[21] Denying it as “Israeli propaganda” contradicts the facts and is not constructive.

“Hamas carried out attacks and taken people as political prisoners.”

Two hundred forty people kidnapped by Hamas include women, children, toddlers, and elderly.[22] They are not “political prisoners” they are hostages.

“Israel is the state sponsoring terror in names of Jews and with American tax dollars.”

You are concerned about taxpayer money, and you should be. It is a very good question to ask why the money transferred to Gaza was not used to improve the lives of the Palestinian people. To improve education? To improve healthcare? Instead, it was invested in underground tunnels, weapons and hate education. Israel did not send suicide bombers to bomb coffee houses or buses in Gaza. Hamas did that in Israel. Israel does not teach their students in schools to hate Arabs. There are numerous reports that Hamas does teach their children to hate and to kill Jews.[23], [24] Israeli Arabs, Israeli Druze, and Israeli Bedouins express solidarity with Israel during these challenging times. Notably, the Palestinians of the West Bank have not heeded calls to violence from Hamas and Iran.

The terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, is unjustifiable — an act of war and a severe violation of human rights. Clearly, none of Israel’s actions, policies, or governance justifies this attack, and Israel’s response aligns with international law. The responsibility for the suffering of the citizens of Gaza is attributed to Hamas, and those who have financed Hamas: they are responsible for sponsoring terrorism. Drawing a parallel, I think that Hamas is like ISIS in terms of its ideology and tactics, and that it should be confronted and isolated by the international community.

“Jews conduct a near complete genocide to the very people whose land they stole 75 years ago and continue to steal today.”

You know better than me that the Jewish people have maintained a continuous presence in Palestine for over 2000 years. There are well-known records that some may refer to as “Israeli propaganda,” commonly known as the “Old Testament” and the “New Testament.

If we zoom in on the period starting around the 1900s, the time of the British mandate — the Jews were buying land in Palestine.[25] Through hard work, they were turning the barren desert into livable flourishing land. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II), a plan to partition Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states and the special international regime for the city of Jerusalem.[26] The plan was accepted by most of the Jews but rejected by the Arabs, which was followed by the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine.[27] In On May 15 1948, the day after Israel’s declaration of independence, it was attacked by Arab states. It is important to note that Israel did not initiate the war with the intention of territorial expansion — it was a response to aggression. The outcomes of these events are well-documented and widely known.

Tragically, many Palestinians have left their land because of these events. Arab nations, though, did not welcome their brethren, choosing instead to put them into refugee camps where many remain to this day. Many Palestinians however stayed and are known today as the Arab Israeli population. These Arabs enjoy all the rights that Israeli Jews have, including the rights to elect their representatives to governing bodies, to have equal access to healthcare, and to receive legal protection and more. Nearly every Jew from the surrounding Arab countries was expelled, leaving their homes and belongings behind, with no compensation. They made it to Israel.

The State of Israel was admitted to the United Nations on May 11, 1949, and has been recognized by 165 states, the first of which was the United States. Israel has also been recognized by the PLO as a legitimate entity representing the Palestinian people. In contrast, Hamas, that is a terrorist organization, has seized power in Gaza and murdered Palestinian Authority officials. Hamas aims to kill Jews, destroy Israel, and establish an Islamic state in its territory.

The historical debates are not the point of my letter. I wish to concentrate on the current violations of human rights and the immediate challenges that we all confront in North Carolina, in the United States, and worldwide due to recent and ongoing events.

Perceived Antisemitism and Hate Speech

Many UNC faculty members, some of whom are Jewish and/or have connections to Israel, have expressed deep concern about pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the statements that they consider antisemitic. Concerns have been raised about hate speech on the academic campuses. I believe that you would firmly deny any such accusation and of course in legal terms — this is something the courts would need to decide if they choose so. However, from a purely personal and academic perspective, I would like to share my thoughts with you that make me extremely concerned.

Imagine a scenario in which Group X hates Group Y and commits horrific crimes against them – raping, mutilating, killing, burning, and taking hundreds of hostages from Group Y in a brutal attack, like what happened on October 7, 2023. The historical context for why Group X dislikes Group Y, or the difference of opinion among UNC academics on that subject, would be irrelevant. It would not matter which community Group Y belonged to. As academics and human beings, we should be rightfully outraged by every hate crime against any group – Black people, LGBTQ people, Jews, Arabs, or anyone else.[28] Therefore, I am deeply disturbed that few UNC academics wrote that “an understanding of such loss must be situated within historical and political context” after the events of October 7th, 2023. Killing people because of their group identity is a hate crime and such a statement is seen by many as supporting terrorists and criminals. How could anyone, especially a faculty member at one of the major US universities, justify and allow such statements – when Hamas is killing Jews just for being Jews? This is extremely alarming.

The slogan “From the River to the Sea…” is another point of concern for me. It is unmistakably antisemitic and amounts to hate speech in my view, especially after the events of October 7th. It demands the elimination of the state of Israel within its internationally recognized borders. Palestine would be free of whom? For anyone even remotely connected to Israel, this slogan advocates for doing to the 10 million Israeli citizens, including Israeli Arabs—many of whom condemn the attackers—what Hamas did on October 7th to anyone within their reach. We already heard from the Hamas leader, Mr. Ghazi Hamad, that the attacks will be repeated, and their goal is to “annihilate Israel”.[29] To many Israeli Americans in the United States, this slogan essentially calls for harm to their relatives in Israel. And in Carolina, such words are threatening to every Jew on campus.

What Shall we Do?

We, as faculty, have a duty to oppose both antisemitism and Islamophobia. These forms of hatred have been denounced by President Biden.[30] His administration also pledged to tackle the surge of antisemitism and Islamophobia in the education system, which has been fueled by the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas.[31] UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskievich echoed this sentiment, stating that our campus must be free of antisemitism and prejudice, and urging us to foster a culture of mutual respect and learning.[32]

Certainly, the rhetoric must be toned down, and the UNC community should not engage in chanting slogans like “From the river to the sea…” and others that are perceived as antisemitic and hateful speech by many on our campus. It is unacceptable to draw a moral equivalence between Hamas’s actions and Israel’s response. The signatories of the letter “UNC Chapel Hill Faculty, Graduate Students, and Staff Statement Regarding Justice in Palestine” should retract the statements that appear to justify Hamas’s violence by invoking “the historical and political context of ongoing colonial oppression”. We should all condemn Hamas for what they have done on October 7th, 2023. We must request safe return of all hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas.

We should also be very concerned about the plight of the Palestinians who are suffering from Israel’s military operation in Gaza. Israel says it allows civilians trapped in northern Gaza to safely move to southern areas through daily humanitarian corridors and warns them before attacking its targets, but this does not guarantee their safety or well-being.[33], [34] We should urge Egypt and other states to increase their humanitarian and logistical assistance to the people in Gaza.

We should have few doubts that the current military operation by the Israeli armed forces will destroy Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. But what will happen next? We have a moral duty to protect the human rights and wellbeing of the innocent civilians in Gaza who have suffered so much from this war and provide temporary and longer-term relief to the populace. How can we ensure that Gaza gets an administration that will not allow the resurrection of terrorism and will act in the best interest of the people? I hope to see Gaza as a peaceful and flourishing part of the Palestinian state, a respected and responsible member of the international community, a prosperous and innovative leader in economy, education, and science, and a provider of excellent and accessible healthcare. This could only be achieved in cooperation with a democratic Israel and the help of the international community. That is something we all should consider.

As an academic institution: our priority is to foster a non-confrontational discussion that prioritizes the safety of different groups on our campus. Only then can we discuss theoretical matters such as “colonialism” in a rational and academic way, based on facts; we may disagree on some issues, but we can still have a respectful and constructive conversation. Having different opinions is OK – propagating hatred and division is not.

Our nation is already very divided, as we witnessed on January 6, 2021. We should not make it worse by creating new conflicts among ourselves. This is too risky for our country and the rest of the world that relies on our leadership. Our enemies are delighted by our division, which they view as a sign of our weakness. Iran, a staunch supporter of Hamas, is eager to ignite a larger conflict in the Middle East to sabotage the normalization of relations between Israel and Arab nations. Putin, another ally of Hamas, is also pleased because the terrorist attack on Israel and the ensuing Israeli war in Gaza distract the attention and resources of the United States and other democracies from his war in Ukraine. They regard our divisions as a blessing and are encouraged by them. We must not let dictators and terrorists divert the world from the focus on peace, progress, and human rights.

Sincerely,

Alexander Kabanov
Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor
Director, Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery
Chapel Hill, NC

November 17, 2023

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month a time to honor survivors, raise awareness, and demand systemic change. This October carries even deeper meaning: two years since October 7th, when sexual violence was used as a weapon of war against Jewish and Israeli women.

I am a second-generation Russian Jewish woman. When my grandfather changed our family name from Hessolovich to Hess, he was protecting us from antisemitism. On paper, I became German instead of a Russian Jew. That act of survival still protects me today, but it also shaped how I move through the world, balancing silence with visibility, safety with truth.

Twenty years after surviving domestic violence, I now see Jewish and Israeli women facing sexual assault, disbelief, and the same fear I once carried in silence. And I ask: Where are all the intersectional feminists now?

Believe Jewish and Israeli women.

October 7, 2023: Rape as a Weapon of War

On October 7th, 2023, sexual violence was weaponized in Israel. Women were abducted, raped, and tortured. Amit Soussana was the first to speak publicly, and others; both men and women have since come forward. Survivors are still not universally believed.

The Dinah Project report, A Quest for Justice: October 7 and Beyond, confirms these atrocities were not incidental but deliberate. Yet Jewish and Israeli survivors continue to be denied the dignity of being believed.

If these were any other women, feminist organizations worldwide would be leading marches, drafting petitions, and demanding justice. Instead, when the survivors are Jewish and Israeli, the global feminist community looks away.

Bearing Witness and Being Silenced

In March 2024, I joined an Academic Delegation as the only USC faculty member and social worker, alongside colleagues from Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth and a group of Italian activists. We visited the Nova Music Festival site, homes in Kibbutzim, and met with families scarred by terror. I took photos not to sensationalize, but so the world would believe survivors.

In June 2025, I attempted to return on a Trauma Mission. When war closed Israel’s airspace, I was stranded in Spain, waiting and hoping I could reach the people I came to support. Each hour of uncertainty reminded me of the helplessness survivors endure daily.

And yet, when I raise these truths, I hear: “But what about the children in Gaza?” As if compassion is a zero-sum game. As if acknowledging Jewish pain erases Palestinian suffering.

Trauma is not a competition. But dismissing Jewish survivors while claiming to fight for women’s rights is hypocrisy.

Traumatic Invalidation

Dr. Miri Bar Halpern, PhD, authored Traumatic Invalidation within the Jewish Community After October 7th. The secondary trauma that occurs when survivors’ experiences are doubted, minimized, or denied. This invalidation deepens wounds rather than healing them.

For Jewish and Israeli survivors, traumatic invalidation looks like this:

• Emotional neglect – Withholding compassion, as if Jewish grief is less deserving. When I raised the silence around sexual violence on October 7th, a colleague dismissively said it was “acknowledged when it happened,” and when I mentioned the BLM paraglider meme, she minimized it as “only Chicago.”

• Criticism and Double Standards – Survivors and advocates are labeled “too strong” or “too outspoken” for naming antisemitism or sexual violence. A colleague accused me of “dividing the department” by advocating against antisemitism, even though similar antiracism advocacy was never criticized. These responses silence survivors, minimize trauma, and reinforce unequal treatment.

• Unequal treatment – Expecting Jewish women to remain silent to avoid backlash.

• Exclusion – Erasing Israeli voices from survivor advocacy and feminist spaces.

• Controlling norms – Social pressures urging silence and assimilation.

• Labeling and silencing – Survivors stay quiet to avoid being seen as a “bad Jew” or a political pawn.

• Denying reality – When colleagues, friends, or institutions refuse to believe or recognize October 7th testimonies, survivors are retraumatized.

This cycle is devastating. Survivors relive not only the original trauma but the pain of being silenced, shamed, or erased. Invalidation itself becomes a weapon.

October 2025: Two Years Later

Two years since October 7th, 48 hostages remain. Survivors of rape and torture are still disbelieved, minimized, or ignored. My own history of domestic violence and sexual assault resurfaces each time I hear their stories dismissed.

Meanwhile, antisemitism on U.S. college campuses has surged. Reports by the ADL and Hillel International confirm sharp rises in antisemitic incidents from students, faculty, and staff. The silencing of Jewish and Israeli survivors mirrors this hostility, creating exclusionary environments that betray the very ideals of feminism and social justice.

So I ask again: Where are the intersectional feminists two years later? Where are the voices that once declared “Believe All Women”?

The Moral Imperative

Believing women cannot be conditional. It cannot stop when the survivors are Jewish or Israeli.

• Believe Jewish and Israeli women.

• Amplify their voices, even when it’s unpopular.

• Stand up in classrooms, media, and public life.

• Confront denial and minimization, even from allies.

• Advocate for justice, healing, and dignity.

UN Women, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and global feminist NGOs loudly mobilized for survivors in other conflicts. But when the survivors are Jewish or Israeli, they fall silent. Why?

Where are the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, Women’s March, and leading U.S. feminist voices who once declared that all women must be believed? Where are the campus women’s centers and gender studies departments that claim to stand against sexual violence? Why have they abandoned Jewish and Israeli survivors?

My grandfather’s act of survival changing Hessolovich to Hess was about protection. But survival should not mean silence. Two years after October 7th, I will not be silent.

Because if we truly believe all women, then we must also without hesitation Believe Jewish and Israeli women.

Call to Action:

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and this year it coincides with the painful two-year mark since October 7th. This is why the Trauma Informed Learning Alliance is holding our Annual IPV Revolution event, focused on the intersections of domestic violence and gun violence. This year, the stories will represent BIPOC and Jewish communities. For the first time, we are including Jewish narratives.

As a Jewish woman, I admit that I did not think about including us until October 8th. But silence is no longer survival. Inclusion is survival. Believing survivors is survival.

The IPV Revolution is more than an event, it is a demand that all survivors, including Jewish and Israeli women, be believed, supported, and honored.

First published on the The Times of Israel blog on October 3, 2025

Terror in Manchester

By now the horrific Yom Kippur terror incident at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, England needs no introduction. Bari Weiss at The Free Press (October 3, 2025) expressed our feelings precisely:

Yesterday in Manchester, England, a man named Jihad al-Shamie took a knife and a car and on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, attacked people outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue. Two were killed. Another three were hospitalized.

I wish I could say I was shocked after hearing the news.

Sorrow, yes. Anger, yes. But shock? To be shocked by this development would have required ignoring the news for the past 727 days. And for the years before October 7, 2023, in which open demonization of Jews was waved off as “criticism of Israel”; in which antisemitism was mainstreamed, tolerated, and systematically ignored.

As soon as word of the attack became known, bloodthirsty Islamists and their supporters publicly celebrated the crime with demonstrations in London, Manchester, and Liverpool, while the BBC shamelessly reported, “The attacker may have been influenced by extreme Islamist ideology.” As British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore writes:

This was the inevitable result of two wild years of anti-Jewish racism and radicalism, dehumanizing anti-Jewish slogans and images, blood libels, support for terror, calls to “globalize the intifada” and “decolonize Israel now,” unleashed on the streets and in the media.

The intifada has come to Britain.

How Welcome Are Jews on US Campuses?

A new survey by the ADL and AEN (Faculty Under Fire: Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Bias in Higher Education) finds that 38% of Jewish faculty hide their Jewish or Zionist identity on campus. Who are they hiding from? Fellow faculty, students, university staff, and administrators. Why are they hiding? Because Jewish-identifying faculty are being targeted by their own campus communities by boycott, smear, and doxxing campaigns.

The report contains many testimonials. One professor said a student refused to do a Ph.D. with him because of his support of Israel. Another wrote:

My chair is pro-Hamas (explicitly so) and has turned our department into an encampment, full of ‘river to the sea’ slogans and propaganda... When I and a few other Jewish faculty objected, the chair organized about 50 people to verbally attack us, including one who told me that we had all the money and power. Consequently, my department is a hostile work environment and I can no longer attend events or participate in departmental life there.

Another respondent simply says,

Faculty are not talking to me because they know I’m a Zionist.

And another:

This is as bad as it gets. This has been a multi-prong attack on me because I stood up regularly against antisemitism on campus.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called for more support for these embattled educators: “Universities must recognize that academic excellence cannot thrive when faculty members are marginalized based on their identity.”

In a companion backgrounder, the ADL Center on Extremism reports on Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP), a growing network of more than 130 affiliated anti-Zionist and anti-Israel university faculty and staff groups that organize anti-Israel activities on campus, boost local Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters, advance BDS, and challenge institutional ties to Israel.

FSJP (formerly known as FJP) chapters, like the one operating on the USC campus, was shown to drive campus antisemitism.

The report also talks about gaslighting and minimizing antisemitism.

One Jewish faculty member described being told by a non-Jewish faculty member that they “had no idea what antisemitism was.” Another respondent recounted a situation in which a faculty member, accused of antisemitism, denied the claim by stating he couldn’t be antisemitic because he had Jewish friends.

These experiences were also reflected in the quantitative survey findings. Nearly two-thirds of faculty respondents (63.6%) reported being told by non-Jews on their campuses what does or does not constitute antisemitism, while 45.3% of those in professional academic associations (N=190) reported similar experiences within their associations.

The report includes the following recommendations to university administrators:

1. Develop, clearly convey and enforce anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies.

2. Provide faculty with guidance to ensure they understand their responsibilities, including regarding using classrooms for proper educational purposes, professional and ethical instruction, and fostering a learning atmosphere of civility and tolerance.

3. Ensure that degree-granting academic units (i.e., departments) refrain from imposing political orthodoxies in their mission statements.

4. Develop and promote programs that highlight the importance of creating and sustaining welcoming learning environments, encourage the analysis of contentious issues from a range of perspectives, and foster dialogue across difference.

Meanwhile, the report states, professional organizations should do the following:

1. Ensure board members understand and respect their fiduciary responsibilities to the association.

2. Create organizational policy stipulating that public statements must align directly with the mission of the association, and enforce these policies without exception.

3. Establish and uphold clear codes of ethics, non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, and codes of conduct to guide member behavior and create accountability.

4. Develop clear and easy processes for reporting antisemitic rhetoric and activity in the association, and commit to investigating and responding to reports in a timely, transparent, and serious manner.

5. Protect open inquiry and intellectual exchange.

6. Adopt a policy disallowing investment decisions to be driven by politically motivated ideologies.

7. Establish and enforce policies to ensure safe and full participation for all attendees at association events.

8. Adopt a disclaimer policy for online member forums and discussion boards, which often include postings that demonstrate hostility, insensitivity, and a lack of concern regarding antisemitism. In addition, implement moderation for content that violates the association’s non-discrimination policies.

Cornell Law Professor Demands Civil Rights Probe into Colleague’s Alleged Exclusion of Israeli Student from Course on Gaza (Ryan King, New York Post, September 27, 2025)

It is exactly what the title says:

A prominent Cornell law professor is demanding a civil rights investigation into allegations that one of his colleagues attempted to exclude an Israeli student from a course on the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this week, Cornell University confirmed that it suspended Eric Cheyfitz, a professor of American studies and humane letters, “who admitted to actions that violated federal civil rights laws and fell short of the university’s expectations for student interactions,” per a spokesperson for the Ivy League School.

Specifically, Cheyfitz, who is Jewish and a well-known anti-Israel activist on campus, allegedly told an Israeli student that they were not welcome in his course on Gaza, prompting a complaint, according to a report from Jewish Insider.

We covered Cheyfitz’s antisemitic antics in here and here. It is sometimes tricky to decide where academic freedom ends and harassment begins, but in this case it seems quite clear cut. Universities must take a disciplinary action in this case.

Large-Scale Syllabi Study Finds Significant Bias

Two articles—one in The College Fix and one in Minding the Campus—highlight the findings of a study of 27 million syllabi. The results of the study are presented in the paper titled “Closed Classrooms? An Analysis of College Syllabi on Contentious Issues,” co-authored by Claremont McKenna College Professors John Shields and Stephanie Muravchik and Scripps College Professor Yuval Avnur. The study reveals that contentious topics are often taught in college classrooms from a uniformly one-sided perspective. The authors focused on three topics: racial bias in the American criminal justice system, the ethics of abortion, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

According to The College Fix,

The research primarily looked at assigned reading materials to conclude that “professors generally insulate their students from the wider intellectual disagreement that shape these important controversies.”

The authors themselves were surprised by how biased the teaching of these topics are:

“Personally, I thought we’d find some imbalance, some activist teaching,” co-author Jon Shields, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, told The College Fix. “I just didn’t expect it to be the norm in the cases we studied. That was genuinely surprising to me.”

Class readings on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are biased, featuring authors who take a one-sided, radical pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist position. One of the commonly assigned authors “portrays the dispute as a matter of colonizing Zionist outsiders versus indigenous victims.” Pro-Zionist voices are extremely rare—practically no scholars with more-nuanced views of the Middle East are among the readings. As the authors of the study say, a typical curriculum “blinds students to the scholarly controversy over Israel and Palestine.”

The paper suggests reforms and calls on universities to incentivize change through course development grants or additional hiring lines for programs that show a commitment to a classically liberal education.

Meanwhile in Canada…

University of Toronto professor Fiona Miller had this to say to an Israeli scholar inquiring about a possible sabbatical stay:

Professor Miller is of course entitled to have her opinions on Israel and Jews. But perhaps someone so brazenly antisemitic should not be directing the Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health, and Sustainable Care or the Creating a Sustainable Canadian Health System in a Climate Crisis initiative. That said, we’re not really sure what “sustainable health care” is or what the climate has to do with it.

Antisemitic Unions

We covered how unions, which are now present on nearly all US campuses, including USC and UCLA, foster antisemitism here (related, here and here). Some Jewish grad students are now pushing back with a federal lawsuit.

Jewish Columbia University Graduate Employees File Complaint Against Anti-Israel Union (Dion Pierre, Algemeiner, September 25, 2025)

Jewish students employed as graduate workers by Columbia University have filed a federal complaint against their campus labor union—Student Workers of Columbia, an affiliate of United Auto Workers (UAW)—alleging that its bosses devote more energy and resources to pursuing “radical policy proposals” than improving occupational conditions….

[T]he students, who have formed the advocacy group Graduate Researchers Against Discrimination and Suppression (GRADS), are subjected to abuses which magnify problems inherent in compulsory union membership — chiefly that they may be forced to accept as representatives of their interests union bosses who act in “bad faith” and hold offensive beliefs.

At Columbia University, this issue has manifested in UAW’s unrelenting effort to inveigle school officials into adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and other measures, including abolishing relationships with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and Tel Aviv University.

We hope the lawsuit will be successful and inspire more such actions. Unless we can purge unions from our campuses, they will continue to undermine our research and educational mission, peddle Marxism, and foment antisemitism.

Trump Higher Ed Policy Architect May Mailman Explains Antisemitism Settlements (Gabe Deutsch, Jewish Insider, September 25, 2025; free version here)

The Trump administration’s settlements with Ivy League universities, negotiated in response to alleged violations of federal civil rights law, are meant primarily as an attention-grabbing measure — a way to get more people to pay attention to President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach to tackling discrimination in higher education, according to an architect of those settlements.

“When you see numbers like that, then you pay attention, and you look, and then you’re able to learn a little bit more, something maybe you wouldn’t normally learn,” May Mailman, a conservative attorney who until last month served as a senior White House strategist, told The New York Times’ Ross Douthat on an episode of his “Interesting Times” podcast that was released on Thursday.

The Trump administration has so far secured a $221 million payment from Columbia and a $50 million commitment from Brown. A deal with Harvard has been under negotiation for months, but no agreement has yet been reached.

These deals have included commitments from the universities on antisemitism policy, race-based hiring and admissions standards and diversity, equity and inclusion programs. What remains unclear is how they will be enforced. But Mailman told Douthat that the optics alone mark a significant achievement for the Trump administration.

“A settlement on its own without a fine might not be taken as seriously by the public or by other universities as when there is a fine,” said Mailman. “These are small dollar figures compared to the amounts that they are getting every year from the federal government and from their donors — but I think it provides a seriousness and a focus on these in ways that promises only wouldn’t.”

The deals have not included a recognition of fault on the part of the universities. But, Mailman added, they convey to the public “a sense of acknowledgment of wrongdoing, not a legal sense but sort of a moral sense of, ‘We’ve taken all this money, and we did it in ways that were not merit based, or they weren’t safe for our students, and so we’re paying a small amount of it back.’”

The Chickens Come Home to Roost Again, Now at CalState

Cal State Universities Now Target of Antisemitism Probe by Trump Administration (Clara Harper and Jaweed Kaleem, LA Times, September 27, 2025)

The Trump administration has launched an investigation into allegations of antisemitism across all 22 campuses of the California State University system, prompting concerns about the chilling of free speech on campus and the violation of staff members’ privacy.

In an email to the CSU community Friday afternoon, Chancellor Mildred Garcia wrote that the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had initiated a systemwide antisemitism complaint and was reaching out to faculty and staff directly to discuss their experiences on campus. …

Pro-Palestinian protests erupted at several Cal State campuses in 2024. Most were generally smaller than the sometimes volatile protests at UC campuses — including UCLA — and at USC, Stanford and Pomona College.

But two CSU campuses saw more aggressive protests. At Cal State L.A., police on June 17, 2024, took down an encampment that was up for more than six weeks as activists demanded CSU “divest from companies that financially and materially support genocide.” Administrators had tolerated the protest at first, but changed its position after a group barricaded itself inside the student services building, with some administrators inside, for more than nine hours. The substantially damaged building reopened after two months.

Major demonstrations also unfolded at Cal Poly Humboldt in spring 2024, including student occupations of buildings that led the school to shut down the entire Arcata campus and move commencement ceremonies to other locations. Then-Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr. said at the time that students engaged in “serious criminal activity that crossed the line.”

It would be difficult to disagree with this:

In March, the EEOC announced that holding campuses “accountable” for antisemitism would be a priority.

“Universities are workplaces, too, and large-scale employers. In addition to Jewish professors on campus, universities employ Jewish staff who work a variety of jobs, all of whom have the right not to be discriminated against or harassed on the basis of religion, national origin, or race,” said the statement by Andrea R. Lucas, who is acting chair.

Lucas added that campuses have become “a haven for antisemitic conduct, often in violation of the universities’ own time, place, and manner policies, as well as civil rights law.”

And How’s UCLA Doing?

UCLA Chancellor Ready to Stand Firm Against Trump Demands, Unless They’re ‘Valid’ (Jaweed Kaleem, LA Times, September 26, 2025; archived version here)

While the headline, quoted above, strikes a defiant tone, the article itself states that UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk admits the need to improve the climate on campus for Jewish students, and that he intends to comply with all valid demands of the Trump administration while vowing to defend the university in civil rights cases and protect federal funding.

UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk says the university will address “valid” concerns of the Trump administration and be “fully compliant” with the law, but will defend the campus against federal civil rights investigations and funding suspensions.

In a wide-ranging online appearance Thursday evening hosted by a Los Angeles-based Jewish civic group, Frenk said the University of California was still considering suing the Trump administration over its August demand that UCLA pay a $1.2-billion fine and make sweeping changes in its diversity programs, admissions practices and policies governing international students and gender identity on campus.

But, for now, he said, UC officials are negotiating with the Department of Justice and will staunchly uphold core academic freedoms to “assure that there’s no government interference in who we hire, who we admit, and what we teach or research….”

But he said he was taking firm actions against antisemitism allegations at UCLA.

“We believe in talking and trying to make our case, where we try to demonstrate that we are serious about fighting antisemitism, that suspending research is not a way to deal with that problem,” Frenk said.…

The Trump administration rescinded $584 million in UCLA research grants in late July, citing allegations of campus antisemitism, use of race in admissions and the school’s recognition of transgender identities. To restore the funding, the government has demanded changes to admissions, protest rules and gender-affirming healthcare for minors. It also wants to ban the university from admitting “anti-western” international students, and wants disclosures of internal campus records.

The vast majority of the funding has been temporarily restored by court order as part of a lawsuit filed by UC faculty. The suit is proceeding in court while a federal judge considers the merits of the case.

On planned and implemented actions against antisemitism:

Frenk said there were “failures” during the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests in responding to complaints by Jewish community members of discrimination — including that they were blocked by protesters from a central campus green for being Jewish. Others, including Jewish members of a pro-Palestinian encampment, have disagreed, saying the encampment restricted some pro-Israel individuals from entry as a de-escalation measure. The encampment faced violent attack April 30 and May 1, 2024, from a vigilante mob.

Frenk, who took the helm at UCLA in January, said he “heard loud and clear” that the “No. 1 request” on campus was to address the climate for Jewish students, an area where he believed the school had made significant progress.

He also said the university was committed to protecting the rights of Muslim students and all groups from discrimination.

Asked if UCLA would adopt a controversial definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a quasi-governmental international body, Frenk declined to support or oppose the idea. Although it’s not a part of federal demands to UCLA, some Jewish faculty have asked the campus to follow the definition. It says that “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, such as by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” is an example of antisemitism.

Harvard and Columbia, which have been similarly under antisemitism investigations this year, now use the definition.

Frenk, who was born in Mexico after his grandparents fled rising antisemitism in 1930s Germany, said criticism of “Israel or the Jewish people” as a whole was antisemitic. But he said criticizing the government of Israel or its policies is not.

Oddly, Frenk, states that Jews on campus are being blamed for actions taken by the government to combat antisemitism on campus:

The Trump administration’s suspension of grants, he said, could make antisemitism “worse.”

“Now we hear people saying, ‘It’s because Jewish faculty are complaining so much now I have my grant canceled,’ ” Frenk said.

Reminds us of an old Soviet-era joke:

Q: A fire engine, an ambulance, and the mayor’s car get into a collision on Red Square. Whose fault is it?
A: The Jews.

UCLA Enacts New Campus Protest Rules, Several that Mirror Trump’s Demands (Jaweed Kaleem, LA Times, September 19, 2025; archived version here)

UCLA has issued new guidelines on time, place, and manner restrictions for campus protests. According to UCLA, the guidelines were in development for over a year, are not a response to government demands, and do not go as far as the government has demanded.

The guidelines formalize interim policies put in place last September, when UCLA and UC issued strict mandates banning unauthorized overnight encampments and the use of masks while breaking campus policy. Most of UCLA’s outdoor spaces were off-limits to any protest that was not pre-approved, which remains the case.

The policies were announced ahead of the Monday kickoff of the fall term and come at a high-pressure moment as U.S. universities reevaluate safety and come under pressure from conservatives to take action against comments they consider insensitive about the fatal shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on a Utah campus. At UCLA, a diversity, equity and inclusion officer has been placed on leave for comments on social media expressing satisfaction and indifference about Kirk’s death.…

There are key differences between what the government wants and what UCLA approved.

The Trump administration has demanded a “prohibition on overnight demonstrations in any university locations.”

UCLA, as previously enacted, will allow preapproved overnight events—such as an all-night reading last October of famed Palestinian American author Edward Said’s memoir. The rules say people can camp overnight if “part of an official university function.”

The new free speech rules contain no mention of international students or a ban on “anti-Western, anti-American” ideas.

UCLA’s new policies make clear that campus disruptions are not allowed, and define them to include “undue interference with ingress or egress of any pedestrian or of any form of traffic” and “undue interference with others’ access to campus operations or activities, facilities or programs.”

This language is generally in sync with what the government wants. It is also similar to a settlement the university reached in July with Jewish students and faculty who sued over the 2024 encampment, alleging it illegally blocked Jews from access. Pro-Palestinian Jews were a large encampment presence.

But the government’s proposal goes further: It wants a “prohibition on requiring wristbands, ideological pledges, or vouching for access to public campus areas.” No explicit mention of such restrictions are in the new rules.…

Violations “may carry serious consequences: legal penalties, university disciplinary action for students and employees, and application of relevant collective bargaining agreements. Some of these policies overlap with local and state laws, so certain violations may lead to detention or arrest,” said the message from Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael J. Beck, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Monroe Gorden Jr. and Lurie.

Big News: Trump’s Proposal to Nine Universities Including USC

Nine initial schools—including USC—are invited to join a “compact” banning the use of race or sex in admissions, adopting institutional neutrality, curbing grade inflation, freezing tuition, capping international enrollment, and more. This development deserves a deeper dive; for now, we just share some top-line information:

• Here Is the Compact in Full

• White House Asks Colleges to Sign Sweeping Agreement to Get Funding Advantage (Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2025; archived version here)

• Trump’s Proposed “Compact” Asks Colleges to Show They’re “Pursuing Federal Priorities” (Francie Diep and Eric Kelderman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 2, 2025)

We urge readers to withhold judgment until they have read the actual compact. We found ourselves in agreement with most of it. Yes, some of it is overreach, which should be negotiated away (e.g., rigid caps on foreign enrollment, political litmus tests for foreign students)—but we agree with universities committing to merit-based admissions and hiring, protecting women’s sports, embracing institutional neutrality, cultivating open discourse on campus, and restoring academic excellence. We find it disappointing that Governor Newsom does not see it this way and is now threatening to pull state funding from the universities that sign. Who exactly is acting the bully?

The month of October is here. Approaching the second anniversary of October 7 massacre, we reflect on the current state of affairs. Israel, with the help of US, has dealt major blows to the global terror network. There is a glimmer of hope that all hostages—alive and dead—will soon be returned home. And yet—Hamas is weakened but not fully destroyed. Western governments reward these death cults by recognizing Palestinian state. Wanton antisemitism continues to rage in the USA, Europe, and the UK, with democratic governments treating the perpetrators with kid gloves. Antisemitic propaganda incites barbaric violence against Jews. And locally, on our university campuses and in our professional organizations, antisemitism and anti-Zionism thrive. This means that we will not be retiring our Substack any time soon.

Looking back, we wish to highlight several past posts that continue to be relevant:

• An Open Letter to the USC Community in Support of the People of Israel (October 10, 2023)—an open letter published by our group following the October 7 massacre.

• Together Let Us Learn to Sing Again (October, 2024)—Rabbi Dov Wagner’s address at the USC October 7th memorial.

• We Will Never Forget (October, 2024)—moving words of USC students.

• Introducing Izabella Tabarovsky (February, 2025)—Izabella’s scholarship explains the ideological origins of modern-day antisemitism.

• To Be Anti-Antisemitic (October, 2024)—Yom Kippur sermon by Rabbi Jonathan Aaron.

• Reflections on the October 7 Massacre (October, 2024)—a compilation of publications.

This year, several events on the USC campus will commemorate October 7:

Looking forward, in the coming weeks we will publish a series of guest posts commemorating October 7 and reflecting on Jewish history and the current wave of antisemitism. If you wish to share your thoughts, please send them along—we welcome guest posts.

Stay tuned!

Press Release: USC Faculty Launch Kalaniyot Chapter to Stand in Solidarity with U.S. Universities Supporting Israeli Scholars and Students

In response to the troubling rise in hostility toward Israeli scholars and students on U.S. campuses, Kalaniyot was founded in the aftermath of October 7 by faculty who recognized the need to expand their roles on campus. Chapters now exist at MIT, Harvard Medical School, Columbia, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania. USC faculty have now launched their own Kalaniyot chapter in solidarity with these schools to connect faculty and students committed to promoting respectful dialogue, academic collaboration, and support for Israeli scholars navigating increasingly challenging campus climates.

The organization is named Kalaniyot, the Hebrew word for “poppy anemones.” In Israel, the red poppy anemone symbolizes natural beauty, cultural pride, resilience, and remembrance of loss—while also carrying a hopeful message of renewal. The name represents the national umbrella organization uniting universities that support faculty-led initiatives. This initiative is dedicated to advancing academic excellence by strengthening ties with Israeli researchers while building a supportive campus community. As a faculty-led network, Kalaniyot focuses on restoring and advancing the contributions of scholars and students from all nationalities, religions, and ethnic backgrounds. Among its key initiatives, Kalaniyot provides prestigious fellowships to distinguished Israeli postdoctoral researchers and sabbatical scholars, enabling them to advance their work at U.S. universities while forming lasting and robust academic partnerships.

Kalaniyot chapter members at USC are honored to join this growing academic community. Our mission is to advance a positive vision that makes a meaningful impact within academia and beyond. The Casden Institute, dedicated to fostering dialogue and deepening understanding of both Jewish identity in America and the broader American experience in a pluralistic society, is among the supporters of this initiative. For example, as part of the inaugural Kalaniyot chapter event at USC, the Institute has invited Israeli author Iddo Geffen to share insights from his recent book and his research in cognitive science.

USC chapter is the first Kalaniyot chapter on the West Coast—also the first chapter led by women co-directors. This historic initiative reflects our shared commitment to advancing excellence, fostering inclusion, and strengthening global partnerships. The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work has already established Memoranda of Understanding with the following universities in Israel, which will be part of the Kalaniyot Chapter at USC: Tel Aviv University, Sapir College, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We are looking forward to growing this network and invite members of USC community to contribute to these efforts.

Leadership

• Director: Susie Hess, MSW, LCSW-IL, Associate Teaching Professor of Practicum Education, Suzanne Dworak Peck School of Social Work

• Co-Director: Dr. Hagit Arieli Chai, PhD, Hebrew Language Program Coordinator, Louchheim School for Judaic Studies at USC, HUC-JIR and Visiting Scholar at the USC Casden Institute

Board of Directors — USC Faculty

• USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work

  • Ruth Cislowski, MSW, MAJCS, Associate Professor

  • Dr. Michal Sela-Amit, PhD, Clinical Associate Professor

  • Dr. Michalle Mor Barak, PhD, Dean’s Professor of Social Work and Business; Professor of Social Work and Business (joint appointment with USC Marshall School of Business)

  • Dr. Sara Schwartz, PhD, Assistant Professor of Social Work

• USC School of Dentistry

  • Dr. Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, PhD, Associate Professor of Occupational Science, Psychology, and Neuroscience Graduate Program

• USC School of Cinematic Arts

  • Robert L. Schiller, MFA, Professor of Cinematic Arts

• USC Marshall School of Business

  • Dr. Cheryl Wakslak, PhD, Associate Professor of Management and Organization

• USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences

  • Dr. Vita Droutman, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology

  • Dr. Daphna Oyserman, PhD, Dean’s Professor of Psychology and Education

  • Dr. Anna Krylov, PhD, USC Associates Chair in Natural Sciences and Professor of Chemistry

  • Dr. Hanna Reisler, PhD, University Professor and Professor of Chemistry

• USC Viterbi School of Engineering

  • Dr. Leana Golubchik, PhD, Stephen and Etta Varra Professor, and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science

  • Dr. Alan Willner, PhD, Andrew & Erna Viterbi Professorial Chair, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (joint appointment with the Department of Physics and Astronomy in USC Dornsife)

We cordially invite USC faculty members and student leaders to join this collaborative initiative with Israeli scholars, fostering dialogue, understanding, and support for the Jewish community on campus. To get involved contact:

• Dr. Hagit Arieli Chai: arielich@usc.edu

• Susie Hess: Susanhes@usc.edu

Together, we are excited to launch the Kalaniyot chapter at USC, leading the way on the West Coast with a bold vision for collaboration, innovation, and impact. Fight On!

In this newsletter:

• Update on UCLA antisemitism cases

• More on campus antisemitism

• Accountability comes to town

• And reads that caught our attention

UCLA Raked in Billions from Feds While Pushing DEI, Anti-Israel Ideology (by Daisy Roser, Campus Reform, August 18, 2025)

This Campus Reform article summarizes the findings of an August 14 report by the watchdog group Open The Books titled “Behind UCLA’s Funding Freeze: Anti-Israel Professors, Radical Grantmaking and Major DEI Investments.” The report found that UCLA employed actively anti-Israel faculty members and continued to promote expansive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in contravention of Trump’s ban of DEI in organizations that receive federal funds.

The report gives examples of anti-Israeli and antisemitic statements made by two radical faculty members, at least one of whom has been openly involved with several Jihad-adjacent organizations including BDS and Students for Justice in Palestine (we wrote about such groups here; more on BDS below). While professors are entitled under the First Amendment to make such statements as private individuals, the question arises, did they allow their ideology to spill over into the classroom, as has so often been the case. We hope UCLA will investigate and take disciplinary action if indicated.

The report reveals numerous ongoing DEI initiatives at UCLA:

• Despite the federal ban on DEI, UCLA maintains an Office of Inclusive Excellence.

• UCLA is striving to become a federally recognized Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), which would require at least 25% of its full-time undergraduate student body to “identify as Latinx.” Currently, according to UCLA’s HSI page, the percentage stands at 24.2%. The school is “taking bold, definitive steps toward advancing equity and inclusion,” says the HSI initiative.

• UCLA has recently received numerous federal DEI-linked grants, including “a $1 million annual award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research on ‘equity and antiracist learning’ in computer science, $1.6 million for an ‘equity-focused longitudinal study’ on computing, and $216,000 to increase diversity in the mathematical sciences.”

The report provides important insights into the campus climate at UCLA. Such details are often glossed over or entirely omitted in press coverage, as, for example, in this short article in the LA Times. It says the right things, but not all the right things.

The situation at USC is much the same. We have radical faculty—openly BDS-supportive and antisemitic—as well as DEI activists on payroll and DEI-focused centers, as discussed here, here, and here. It is not difficult to imagine what the federal government will soon have in store for USC.

UCLA Trains Teachers Using Rethinking Schools “Teaching Palestine” (K12 Extremism Tracker, August 9, 2025)

Not only has UCLA allowed antisemitism to thrive on campus, it spreads antisemitism to K–12 through teacher training programs such as the UCLA Ethnic Studies Certificate Program. The program provides teachers lesson plans from a book called Teaching Palestine, which indoctrinate students with tropes about Israeli “apartheid” and “genocide.” Lessons include role-playing for students to “simulate” the “apartheid-system” in Israel, and promulgate the standard set of lies about Israel, “explaining” Hamas as a resistance movement. Here is an example of a lesson:

[A] lesson by Adam Sanchez, “The United States and Palestine-Israel: Fifty Years of Choices (1956–2006),” asks students “imagine...we had a government that cared about promoting equality, justice, and ending oppression.” In describing student feedback to the lesson, which Sanchez has already taught in his classes:

He concludes with a quote from a student that the lesson helped her “understand the frustrations that led to Oct. 7” and another who said that “[t]he U.S. helped Israel ruin so many lives and helped kill countless children and civilians. People need to understand this as the buildup to Oct. 7” (Teaching Palestine, 54).

Read the full article to see for yourself what this UCLA program tells teachers to do in their ethnic studies classes. It’s not pretty.

UC Negotiating with Trump Administration Over $1 Billion Fine for UCLA Antisemitism (LA Times, August 8, 2025)

According the the L.A. Times, UC is attempting to negotiate with the Trump administration over the $1 billion fine and other demands made by the federal government to restore over $500 million in funding the government suspended after finding that UCLA was “deliberately indifferent” to the “severe, pervasive harassment” suffered by its Jewish and Israeli students. The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) has set a September 2 deadline to reach a deal, after which time the DOJ will take legal action in court against the university.

Aside from the fine, CNN reports that the DOJ is making additional demands:

The agreement…requires a resolution monitor to oversee the school, as well as a new senior administrator who will be focused on compliance with anti-discrimination laws.

The proposed agreement prohibits overnight demonstrations and calls on the school to revise its policies and procedures on protests. It also requires UCLA to discontinue race and ethnicity-based scholarships and provide the resolution monitor with admissions data.

The proposal would ensure single-sex housing for women on campus and ensure athletic recognition for female athletes in women’s sports. The UCLA hospital and medical school will also be expected to stop providing gender-affirming care.

For its part, UCLA says that some of the government’s demands are a “no-go.” According to the Times:

Leaders have made it clear that a $1-billion payout is a no-go. Another red line for several UC officials is the federal request that the university submit to an outside monitor over an agreement.

We hope UC does the right thing: admit their wrongdoings and settle. Columbia has already done so and their funding has been restored.

House Committee to Investigate UCLA and UCSF Medical Schools for Antisemitism

U.S. Congressman Tim Walberg (R-Mich), chairman of the House Education & Workforce Committee, has announced that his committee is investigating the UCLA and UCSF medical schools, as well as the University of Illinois College of Medicine for “failing to address repeated acts of antisemitism.”

According to Congressman Walberg’s website:

At UCLA, a mandatory medical school seminar, “Structural Racism and Health Equity,” allegedly featured antisemitic tropes—including describing Jews as “oppressors” and images of “capitalists” with long looked [sic] noses.

When students petitioned the school’s Medical Students Council in the fall of 2022 to establish a club called “Medical Students Against Antisemitism,” administrators allegedly called the effort unnecessary.

The lack of action only seemed to exacerbate the fear amongst Jewish students on campus.

One student told the dean she was no longer comfortable wearing her Star of David necklace out in public. And several Jewish students refused to be photographed while at a menorah lighting ceremony in December 2023 over fear of being doxed.

Dr. Kira Stein, founder and chair of the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group at UCLA, applauded the House investigation — saying for too long Jewish faculty, staff and students have endured “discrimination” and “intimidation.”

“These are not isolated incidents—they represent a disturbing pattern that has shaken our community to its core,” she said.

“Antisemitism at UCLA is common, corrosive, and continues to be met with silence and inaction from the university administration and local leaders.”

At UCSF, its cancer center was defaced in March of last year with antisemitic language that invoked the Holocaust — with the words “Free Palestine from Nazi Israeli Schweine!” sprawled across it.

Patients also allegedly heard calls for “intifada” from doctors and staff at an pro-Palestinian encampment set up in front of the medical center that May.

A month later, a UCSF worker allegedly wore a jacket with inverted red triangles, a symbol used to glorify Hamas, during a UCSF Staff Resource Fair. The same employee also reposted a tweet that said, “Would you have trusted Nazi doctors to provide healthcare to Jews in the 1930s and 40s? No. Then why would you trust Zionist doctors to provide healthcare to non-white, non-Jewish patients in the 2020s? Zionism = Nazism[.]”

According to the L.A. Times, the committee is demanding all documents and communications related to antisemitism at the two UC medical schools dating back to September 2021:

The committee has asked for communications with UCLA’s medical school dean, administrators who work on diversity or restorative justice-related programs, and several other positions as well as data on specific events and courses, including one on “structural racism and health equity.”

It also asked for emails from administrators “referring or relating to antisemitism or the terms Jewish, Israel, Israeli, Palestine, or Palestinian.” And it requested information about a January report focused on the medical school that a UCLA task force on anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism prepared.

Here, then, is a recap of UCLA’s current troubles with the federal government:

1. UCLA is part of the ongoing Department of Justice investigation of the UC system for antisemitism.

2. Separately, UCLA has been found by the DOJ to have violated its Jewish students’ civil rights under Title VI, for which it has had over $500 million in federal grants suspended and is facing a $1 billion fine.

3. UCLA’s school of medicine is under investigation by the House Education and Workforce Committee for antisemitism.

4. UCLA’s school of medicine is reportedly under investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for racial discrimination in admissions.

Campus Antisemitism Update

Israeli Dance Scholar Sues UC-Berkeley for Employment Discrimination

Israeli dance scholar Yael Nativ is suing UC-Berkeley for discrimination, alleging she was denied a teaching position because she is Israeli, according to reports in the Free Press and the Jewish News of Northern California. Nativ taught a contemporary Israeli dance class at UC-Berkeley in spring 2023 and was encouraged by the department to apply to teach the class again in the 2024–25 academic year. However, her application was rejected. As the Free Press reports, Nativ was told in a November 2023 WhatsApp message from a Berkeley dance faculty member:

My dept cannot host you for a class next fall. Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position.

Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination undertook an internal investigation of the case and found by a “preponderance of the evidence” that the university had discriminated against Nativ on the basis of her national origin. Nativ was told that she could propose a solution to her case, but when she did, the university never replied, she alleges.

With legal representation from the Brandeis Center, Nativ is suing Berkeley for lost wages, damage to her reputation, and other harms.

What About USC?

The USC campus has been quiet during the summer, but we know that Jew-haters are alive and well. Recently a sticker “Death, Death, to the IDF” was found on the Skirball campus. According to an email communication from Rabbi Joshua Garroway of the Hebrew Union College, “The assistant chief at DPS tells me that there has been an increase in these sorts of incidents in recent weeks.” This is a minor thing, but we worry that with recent changes to the campus security protocols, more-sinister incidents will follow—like the vandalism, intimidation, and violence that we have been documenting on these pages.

Accountability Comes to Town

Visas of Students Supporting Terror Revoked

According to a Fox News exclusive, the U.S. State Department has revoked the visas of over 6000 students so far in 2025 for criminal violations. Among those, 200 to 300 were for support for terror.

According to Fox,

Those who’ve participated in pro-Palestinian protests have faced heightened scrutiny, as one example, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May that the administration was reviewing the visa status of those students….

Those whose visas were pulled due to support for terrorism—between 200 people to 300 people—engaged in behavior such as raising funds for the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. State Department has designated as a terrorist organization, [a State Department] official said.

Though not entirely unambiguous, the article implies that students whose visas were revoked for supporting terrorism engaged in material support for terrorism. Whether students’ visas should also be revoked for speech that supports terrorism is a controversial topic (see, for example, here and here) that we will leave for another day.

Man Pleads Guilty to 2023 Antisemitic Hate Crime at Ohio State University

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that a 20-year-old man, Timur Mamatov, has pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime charge for assaulting two Jewish students on the Ohio State University campus. Mamatov committed the crime in November of 2023, a month after the October 7 Hamas terror invasion of Israel. Before the assault, Mamatov asked the students if they were Jewish. When they answered that they were, he punched them. One student suffered a broken jaw; the other, a broken nose. Mamatov admitted in court that he assaulted the students because they were Jewish.

Ohio State is also a defendant in a Title VI suit alleging that it has failed to protect Jewish students in the wake of the October 7 terror attacks.

DOJ Finds George Washington University “Deliberately Indifferent” to Campus Antisemitism

On August 12, the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) determined that George Washington University violated its Jewish and Israeli students’ civil rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Citing numerous examples, the DOJ describes the antisemitic misconduct by GWU students as “shocking,” “demonstrably abhorrent,” and “immoral.” The DOJ found that GWU was “deliberately indifferent to the complaints it received, the misconduct that occurred, and the harms that were suffered by its students and faculty, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

In response, GW Faculty and Staff Against Antisemitism and Hate, an AEN-supported group, released a statement acknowledging the impact of campus antisemitism and emphasizing its readiness to serve as constructive partners to GWU as it works to respond to the DOJ and create a more welcoming campus environment.

The Jerusalem Post reports that following the DOJ determination, GWU suspended the anti-Israel student group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) until spring 2026 for organizing a pro-Palestine encampment that disrupted campus and harassed and intimidated Jewish students. Previously, the university had suspended another anti-Israel group, Students for Justice in Palestine.

And Haverford College is Now Being Investigated

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has opened a Title VI investigation into antisemitism at the Pennsylvania liberal arts college Haverford College. The OCR writes:

According to credible reporting, Haverford’s administration did not take adequate action, as required by federal civil rights laws, to address anti-Semitic incidents on campus. Following October 7, Jewish students were targeted by anti-Semitic bullying and harassment, apparently without an institutional response. Senior leadership at Haverford allegedly told Jewish students that they should be “brave” in the face of anti-Semitic harassment, and not expect to be “safe,” and even blamed “the wind” for the vandalism and removal of hostage posters and posters advertising Jewish life events, only acknowledging they were in fact “antisemitic acts” when campus leaders were called to testify before a Congressional hearing focusing on antisemitism at Haverford. During President Raymond’s Congressional testimony, she claimed that there is “no room for discrimination” at Haverford but failed to give a concrete example of an action taken to combat alleged anti-Semitic harassment and abuse on campus….

The Office for Civil Rights will investigate this matter thoroughly and ensure all students are treated equally under law.

University of Washington Pursues Criminal Charges Against Anti-Israel Protestors Who Vandalized Engineering Building

The University of Washington and the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office are pursuing criminal charges against 30 anti-Israel student protestors who occupied and vandalized an engineering building in the spring of 2025, causing $1 million in damages, the Jewish Insider reports.

The investigation comes after a recent report put a spotlight on a link between the radical student group [Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return (SUPER UW)] that led the takeover and the U.S. designated terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Secure Community Network (SCN), a safety and security network for American Jewish communities, found that a manifesto released by SUPER UW…shortly before its building takeover began was inspired by a foreign terrorist entity.

The document praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel as a “heroic victory” and said the group looks to “the rich history of struggle in our university for strength and inspiration as we take action.” SUPER UW also released a statement of solidarity with the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a fundraising arm of the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which was designated as a terror group by the U.S. Treasury Department in October 2024.

“The fact that this action was inspired by a foreign terrorist entity is gravely concerning and should be an alarm for the broader community,” Solly Kane, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, told JI. “When foreign terrorist organizations are allowed to infiltrate university campuses the implications are significant and we hope the university leadership will continue to follow-up on this incident seriously and with consequences for those responsible, after appropriate due process.”

N.Y. Gov. Hochul to Sign Title VI Legislation to Counter Persistent Campus Antisemitism (Matthew Kassel, Jewish Insider, August 26, 2025)

Responding to heightened campus antisemitism, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will sign legislation on Tuesday afternoon that requires all colleges in the state to designate anti-discrimination coordinators to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, her office confirmed to Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel. The bill passed the Legislature unanimously in June.

‘Top priority’: “By placing Title VI coordinators on all college campuses, New York is combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination head-on,” Hochul, a Democrat, told JI. “No one should fear for their safety while trying to get an education. It’s my top priority to ensure every New York student feels safe at school, and I will continue to take action against campus discrimination and use every tool at my disposal to eliminate hate and bias from our school communities.”

While we welcome a strong stance against campus antisemitism, we are wary about further extending and empowering punitive campus bureaucracies, such as Title VI. Is there a better way to address antisemitism?

Reads That Caught Our Eye:

Black People on Campuses Support Fighting Antisemitism and Also Wonder, “What About Us?” (Shaun Harper, L.A. Times, August 19, 2025; archived version here)

Shaun Harper, a USC professor, founder of the USC Race and Equity Center, and defender of DEI before Congress, says that, while campus antisemitism is abhorrent, it is being addressed by the Trump administration, whereas problems of campus anti-Black racism are being ignored:

Antisemitism is abhorrent. No Jewish person should ever experience it, and universities must do all they can to eradicate it on campuses.

The Trump administration is pushing colleges and universities to address antisemitism by threatening, freezing and revoking federal funding and demanding millions of dollars to settle allegations—or in UCLA’s case, $1 billion.

These unprecedented federal penalties, which the government claims are partially for failing to address antisemitism, leave lots of Black people who either attended or worked at predominantly white institutions asking, “What about us?” Reports of antisemitism sound familiar to Black people who have encountered anti-Black harassment in similar forms [Emphasis ours]….

There is shamefully abundant evidence of attacks on Jewish people on campuses. This warrants an immediate response by the federal government, by campus leaders, by state officials and anyone else who has the power to effect change. Meanwhile, Black students and employees are also continuing to experience unforgivably high levels of racial discrimination, harassment and abuse. Why is this not receiving a serious response from the Trump administration? Why has no college or university ever been required or expected to pay $1 billion (or any amount close to that) for the racial discrimination and violence that Black people endure on campuses? From today onward, what price will institutions of higher education pay for anti-Black racism?

Academic BDS Is Fueling Campus Antisemitism. Can Washington Stop It? (Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, Washington Post, August 12, 2025; archived version here)

Antisemitism on U.S. college campuses has surged to crisis levels. Jewish students are being harassed, excluded and even physically assaulted for expressing support for the Jewish state. In response to this growing hostility, a bill introduced in Congress, the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act of 2025, represents a serious and timely step forward.

Unlike previous federal efforts that have focused on protecting students from overt acts of harassment, this bill targets a structural driver of today’s toxic campus climate: the academic boycott of Israel…

This boycott effort, commonly referred to as the academic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, or BDS, is promoted by faculty members, departments and academic associations seeking to isolate Israeli universities and scholars from academic life. Its most immediate impact is felt on U.S. campuses.

The New Anti-Zionism (from Jewish Insider):

In The Jerusalem Post, Betsy Berns Korn and Eric Mandel raise concerns about a new effort to push “Anti-Palestinian Racism,” as the effort, which originated in Canada, gets a foothold in the U.S. “If left unchallenged, APR will reshape public discourse, empower hostile NGOs, and normalize antisemitism in schools, governments, and even corporations. Policymakers must act now. Congress, state legislatures, and school boards should ensure anti-racism curricula are not hijacked to advance anti-Israel ideology. Universities should adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism and resist attempts to elevate APR. Civil society must demand equal standards, where Palestinians are held accountable for terror and incitement just as Israelis are for policy decisions. The stakes could not be higher. Anti-Zionism has always adapted to survive, and APR is its newest disguise.” [JPost]

Skewing the Overton Window (Tomislav Kardum, Quillette, August 22, 2025)

The double standard in the way in which fascism and communism, the extremist ideologies of the Right and Left, are regarded distorts political discourse.

[T]hese examples only underscore the asymmetry with which fascism and communism are treated. Associations with fascism are considered an enduring stain, while associations with communism are forgivable past errors. This imbalance has profound consequences for democratic legitimacy and ideological pluralism. When right-leaning parties are treated as suspect by default, scrutinised through the lens of historical guilt, and constantly expected to repudiate long-disavowed associations, the Overton window is constrained from shifting in a rightward direction. Left-wing radicals rarely face any comparable pressure to disavow their totalitarian pasts. This legitimises a steady drift of public discourse to the Left. The Right operates under suspicion in a way that the Left does not—even though many leftists continue to embrace the ideologies that underpinned some of the most repressive regimes of the twentieth century. This can lead to the paradox of open societies that mistrust half their electorates, permitting radicalism from one direction while policing even moderation from the other. …

Together, these tendencies have created a political compass that only points leftward. Moderate right-wing parties are expected to shun cooperation with those further to their right, no matter how electorally significant or democratically legitimate they may be. Left-wing parties are under no comparable obligation. They can—and frequently do—form alliances with movements significantly further left. This asymmetrical political quarantine structurally disadvantages the right of centre. And that may help explain the increasingly unbalanced nature of European political discourse.

The article focuses on international examples, but the sentiment applies to our domestic situation, especially in the context of antisemitism. We cannot root out antisemitism until we make people to recognize communism as socially dangerous and morally repugnant as Nazism.

• Updates on the UCLA situation since our last newsletter

• Important message from JFRG

• Background on civil rights laws

• And a couple of reads that caught our eye

Court Orders NSF to Restore Grants to UCLA

A US district court has ordered the National Science Foundation (NSF) to restore the grants to UCLA that it suspended following the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) finding that the university failed to protect Jewish students’ civil rights under Title VI and the U.S. Constitution during last year’s pro-Palestinian protests. The restored grants amount to $81 million according to the L.A. Times, about 14% of the $584 million in grants frozen as a result of the DOJ’s findings.

The funds were restored as a result of a June class action lawsuit (Thakur et al. vs. Trump et al.) brought by a group of UC-Berkeley and UC-San Francisco faculty on behalf of the UC system against several federal funding agencies including the NSF to restore grants that the agencies had terminated. In that case, the plaintiffs won a preliminary injunction, under which the funding agencies named in the lawsuit were ordered to restore the grants. The judge made the injunction prospective, meaning that it would apply to any future grants to universities within the UC system terminated by the named agencies. In a letter to the judge, lawyers in the Thakur case argued that the NSF’s suspension of funds to UCLA was a violation of the injunction. The judge agreed and ordered NSF to restore the grants. In doing so, the judge rejected NSF’s argument that it had not terminated UCLA’s grants, but had only suspended them. The judge didn’t buy that argument, replying that “suspensions are terminations by another name.”

In spite of the ruling, the bulk of UCLA’s funds remain frozen because they are grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, and other funding agencies not subject to the preliminary injunction.

On the home front, as we mentioned in our last newsletter, Anna had received a Stop Work Order freezing funds she received as part of a collaboration she has with UCLA. She has now been informed that UCLA has received a Notice of Award Reinstatement from NSF, permitting her to “resume work immediately” on the project. Fun times!

UCLA remains subject to demands by the Trump administration to pay sanctions of $1 billion, to appoint a monitor to enforce the settlement’s terms, to abolition race-based scholarships, and to ban the use of diversity statements in hiring.

For more coverage on this topic, see UCLA Researchers Get NSF Grants Back Thanks to Court Order (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, August 15 2025).

Universities Are Unwilling to Reform on Their Own

As the debate rages about whether universities can reform on their own or must be compelled to do so federal sanctions, we note the following email that the Jewish Faculty Resistance Group (JFRG) at UCLA sent to its membership on August 9:

In April 2025, Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFRG) at UCLA leadership met‬ with members of the UC Board of Regents. They were deeply concerned about the‬ crisis unfolding at Columbia and asked us what steps the UC system could take‬ regarding antisemitism to prevent a similar breakdown on our campuses.‬

In response, we formalized our recommendations and sent them to the entire‬ Board of Regents—a comprehensive, faculty-driven roadmap for addressing‬ antisemitism (including anti-Zionism)‬‭. We also shared these recommendations directly with Chancellor Julio Frenk and Stuart Gabriel, Chair of the UCLA‬ Antisemitism Task Force.‬

At the time, we didn’t publicize our submission. We wanted to give the university‬ time to reflect and then act, and we were cautioned that speaking too publicly at‬ the time could complicate behind-the-scenes efforts. So we chose patience.‬

But, as is now obvious, patience didn’t pay off at UCLA. UCLA ignored the recommendations that they, themselves, had solicited from JFRG, leading to the current crisis:

UCLA was given the opportunity to act before this became a crisis. And‬‭ that’s why‬ we’re now sharing our recommendations publicly.‬

This roadmap was created in good faith, rooted in lived experience and legal‬ precedent. It outlines practical steps that the university can still take to address‬ antisemitism without compromising academic freedom or inclusion.‬

We hope this brings clarity to a murky moment—and reminds our community that‬ Jewish faculty, staff, and students have never been the problem. We’ve been‬ working, from the beginning, to be part of the solution.‬

JFRG’s roadmap included the following recommendations:

1. Establish Independent Oversight and Redress for Systemic Failures: Appoint an External Independent Council on Antisemitism—led by trusted legal and civil rights organizations—to advise, investigate, and monitor UC’s response to antisemitism and ensure Title VI and VII compliance. (AEN).

2. Institutional Neutrality and Enforcement: Commit to institutional neutrality while enforcing clear, consistent responses to antisemitism on campus. Update conduct policies, empower security personnel, and enforce time, place, and manner restrictions at campus events.

3. Internal Enforcement and Accountability: Create fast track adjudication for antisemitism complaints, protect whistleblowers, and ensure transparent and publicized consequences for violators. Establish secure, 24/7 reporting systems.

4. Adopt the IHRA Definition: Officially adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, including its examples, for use and reference by all UC Schools. Recognize Zionism as a core element of Jewish identity and distinguish legitimate criticism of Israeli policies from antisemitic rhetoric or anti-Zionist exclusion.

5. Mandatory Antisemitism Training: Require annual anti-bias education for all UC affiliates, with a dedicated module on antisemitism, taught by vetted third-party experts aligned with the IHRA definition.

6. Restore Intellectual Balance and Diversity: Ensure curricula and public programming reflect a wide range of scholarly perspectives on each campus, including investing in academic offerings related to Jewish identity, Israel, and Zionism, which are currently underrepresented or misrepresented. Support the recruitment of faculty with expertise in these areas, while also fostering an inclusive environment that welcomes respectful, evidence-based dialogue across ideological differences.

7. UCLA Action Plan: Immediately remove antisemitic content in the medical curriculum, investigate discriminatory admissions practices, reform biased activist programs, and implement UCLA Task Force on Antisemitism & Anti-Israeli Bias recommendations. In addition to the recruitment efforts cited in Section 6, refill vacated Jewish Studies professorships that were previously held by scholars with expertise in Hebrew language and literature, as well as Israeli history—fields that remain critically underrepresented and have not been reinstated.

We strongly favor appointing an oversight committee, removing antisemitic materials form the medical school curriculum (in principle, all university courses should be reviewed to ensure the academic rigor and relevance to the respective fields, to weed out courses like those described here, here, and here, and adopting institutional neutrality. We hope that at USC, the taskforce on Academic Freedom and Responsibility will recommend that the university strengthen its current policy on institutional neutrality, ideally adopting the Kalven principles.

Adopting the IHRA defintion is step forward, although we acknowledge some disagreements around it (see our post for in depth discussion on the subject). However, we serious concerns about mandatory trainings of any kind. As we wrote in the context of proliferating mandatory trainings at USC,

Being coercive, these trainings cause justified resentment, inducing opposition to the very ideas they purport to instill. Moreover, training is not education. We train our pets. We educate—hopefully—our students.

Bottom line: Reasonable people can disagree about specifics, but it is revealing that the university has done next-to-nothing along these lines, which demonstrates that they are resistant to change in the absence of external pressure.

Regretfully, it seems that USC if following a similar path. Our Circle’s Report and Proposed Actions were shared with the administration, the USC Jewish Life Committee, and the Academic Senate; however, we have seen little in the way of change. The only positive step has been the enforcement of checkpoints at campus entrances to restrict access to campus, which have reduced the incidence of disturbances and crime by 42%. We will see how the crime statistics change this semester, following the recent easing of access to campus.

Does the Federal Government Have the Right to Freeze Scientific Grants to Enforce Civil Rights Violations by the University?

It might seem strange, unfair, or even illegal for the federal government to withhold a university’s scientific grants as a consequence of civil rights violations that the science departments had little if anything to do with. Setting aside the question of fairness, doing so is legal as a result the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, a law passed (with bipartisan support) by a Democratic congress over the veto of President Ronald Regan.

As reader “Clever Pseudonym” illuminated in a comment to our last newsletter:

If you encounter the argument that it’s unfair (or even illegal) for the feds to cut scientific grants just because a university itself has refused to protect Jewish students, you can refer the interested party to the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (which was passed by a Democratic Congress over Reagan's veto). The feds today are simply following the law.

[Quoting Wikipedia] “The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, or Grove City Bill, is a United States legislative act that specifies that entities receiving federal funds must comply with civil rights legislation in all of their operations, not just in the program or activity that received the funding.” […]

[According to the website Law and Liberty:] “Almost four decades ago, progressive legislators demanded sweeping amendments to civil rights law, expanding federal oversight over higher education. The sequence of events reveals a cautionary tale of political hubris: progressive confidence that state power would reliably serve their ends overlooked the reality that governmental authority, once unleashed, recognizes no ideological master. Today’s circumstances starkly illustrate how expansive federal control over civil society, originally celebrated by progressives, returns to haunt its architects….

“As a result of this change in law, all subsequent presidential administrations have enjoyed enormous leverage over universities. Any violation of Title VI or Title IX anywhere within the institution, as defined by an administration, puts a university at the risk of the loss of all federal funds in all its operations.”

The quoted article—The Road to Campus Serfdom—is must-read.

Harvard Is Reportedly Nearing a Settlement with the Trump Administration

According to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, Harvard is on the verge of a deal with the Trump administration to restore nearly $3 billion in frozen federal grants. Reportedly, Harvard would agree to spend $500 million on vocational and educational programs and research. This differs from the settlement with Columbia, in which the university must pay the government directly. Additionally, as reported by the Wall Street Journal:

The administration wouldn’t appoint a monitor to oversee Harvard’s compliance with the deal. The university would pledge to continue to abide by federal regulations around merit-based hiring and admissions as well as protecting students’ civil rights. In the deal that the Trump administration struck with Columbia University last month, an independent monitor is set to assess the school’s compliance.

While Columbia and Brown have agreed to settlements with the federal government over civil rights violations, and now Harvard appears poised to do so, our Governor Newsom appears to have other plans for UCLA: he is threatening to sue the federal government (see, for example, “Extortion”: Newsom Threatens to Sue After Trump Fines UCLA $1 Billion, KQED, August 8, 2025). Unfortunately, Newsom does not appear willing to admit that the flagship university system of his state has become a cesspool of antisemitism under his watch. The UC system operates largely independently from the state government, so Newsom may just be bloviating. But if he does try to interfere, it may not bode well for UCLA.

Western Academia Picked the Antisemitism Hill to Die on (Social Impurity, August 11, 2025)

A post on the the Social Impurity Substack asks the question, “Why it is that people like me, or Trump for that matter, prioritized antisemitism in our gripes with academia?” The author’s answer is that it is not others who have prioritized antisemitism; it is the universities themselves who have. As the author puts it, “For some inexplicable reason, Western academia chose the antisemitism hill to die on.”

The essay explains, once again, how Western academics embraced KGB propaganda (we covered this topic extensively here, here, here, and here), citing scholars like Izabella Tabarovsky—whose work we highlighted on these pages.

The author, who grew up in the USSR and immigrated to the West, knows how these ideas spread and grew in the west. He makes insightful and damning observations, highlighting, once again, the deep rot in our universities:

I want to conclude with two observations. One, although there is some evidence that post-October 7th events shook academia sufficiently to start reforming itself,11 reforms are facing widespread resistance and entrenchment,12 with many continuing to defend DEI and downplay antisemitism, as if punishing Jews and denying us educational opportunities (Soviet echoes!) is some sort of God-given right.

Let’s take Harvard as an example. After Lawrence Summers’ remarks and resignation, Harvard established two taskforces—one on Women in Science and Engineering, another on Women Faculty.13 Post-October 7th campus protests, Harvard also established two taskforces, but one of them focused on… Combating anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias. This was done after, on October the 7th—the very day of the attack!—more than 30 student organizations wrote a letter blaming Israel for that terrorist attack (jee, there is bias against people who support and promote killing babies and raping women by the thousand, I am shocked, I tell you! I don’t recall any Muslim student groups standing up to condemn the terrorist attack, while plenty were celebrating and supporting it; how’s that for bias). The other taskforce was on Combating antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias. In my view, those two reports show an interesting example of antisemitic bias in and of themselvs.14

Global Antisemitism

There is no shortage of examples of international antisemitism—promulgated by leaders of the free word who (along with the UN) have chosen to side with the terror organizations against Israel. We do not have the bandwidth to comment on global affairs, but we cannot resist sharing this satirical dispatch by the Babylon Bee.

Steward Of Gondor Moves To Officially Recognize Mordor As A State (Babylon Bee, July 31, 2025)

MINAS TIRITH — Denethor II, son of Ecthelion II, the Steward of Gondor, announced plans to officially recognize Mordor as a sovereign state at an upcoming Council of Men.

Gondor had long been at battle with the forces of Mordor, but according to Denethor, enough was enough. “You may triumph on the field of battle for a day, but against the power that has risen in the East, there is no victory,” Denethor reportedly told a visiting White Wizard. “Therefore, I intend to give in to all of their demands and recognize them as a sovereign state worthy of existence.”

According to sources, Denethor had long endorsed a two-state solution but never officially proposed it as long as his son Boromir was willing to fight. But now with his other son, Faramir, suggesting that Gondor fight to the last man, Denethor saw new wisdom in appeasing the Dark Lord Sauron.

“Really, who are we to tell them they can’t invade Rohan?” Denethor said. “Therefore, I shall recognize them as a state and invite them to join the family of kingdoms. I'm sure they’ve only been trying to attack us because they want to exist, not because they hate us. I’m sure we will now be great friends.”

“We should also give them the One Ring,” Denethor added. “It originated there. It’s ancestral, in that sense. It’s not like they will use it to destroy the race of Men or something.”

At publishing time, the Dark Lord Sauron sent a celebratory legion of soldiers to Minas Tirith to storm the gates and congratulate the Steward of Gondor on his good critical thinking skills.

The chickens have come home to roost at UCLA. As documented by the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFRG) and covered extensively in this newsletter, UCLA allowed relentless harassment—sprinkled with occasional violence—of Jewish students and faculty to go unchallenged for weeks. In addition to anti-Jewish acts during the campus protests, JFRG documented many instances of anti-Jewish discrimination in admissions and in the classroom. Last spring at an event sponsored by JFRG we heard first hand from three Jewish UCLA students accounts of the pervasive antisemitic campus environment they had to endure. The students took action and sued UCLA in federal court. On July 29, it was announced that a settlement totaling nearly $6.5 million was reached in the suit. But that same day UCLA found out it was facing much more-serious consequences. In this edition of our newsletter, we summarize these recent developments.

The DOJ determines that UCLA violated its Jewish and Israeli students’ civil rights

The big news is that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has determined that UCLA violated the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus last year.

UCLA was notified of the findings by the DOJ in a Notice of Violation dated July 29. The notice states that “UCLA’s response to its students’ complaints of antisemitism on UCLA’s campus violated its obligations under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” The letter gives UCLA until August 5 to notify the DOJ of its willingness to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement with the Department (it appears that UCLA has done so). Should the university fail to pursue a voluntary resolution, the DOJ will pursue legal action against the university in federal court, the letter said.

Background

On May 9, the DOJ opened an investigation of the UC System’s “response to incidents of antisemitic discrimination, harassment, abuse, and retaliation against students.” Although the system-wide investigation is ongoing, the DOJ found that the UCLA administration was “deliberately indifferent” to the campus’s “hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI.” The protests at UCLA were documented by a member of our Circle Against Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the series We Bear Witness, comprising seven short videos. See them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.

The DOJ’s findings focused on events surrounding the pro-Palestinian protest encampment on its campus in the spring of 2024. According the Notice of Violation, UCLA received at least 11 complaints during the week-long encampment alleging that protesters were harassing and violating the civil rights of Jewish students. Complaints began as early as April 25, the day the encampment was erected. That day, one student alleged that “her Jewish friend was ‘pushed around, punched, and beaten with a stick’ by encampment ‘marshals,’” while “another alleged that…a demonstrator perceived them to be Jewish and told them to ‘go back to Poland’ with their ‘people.’”

The Notice of Violation continues:

Several complainants reported that members of the encampment prevented them from accessing parts of the campus. One reported that, on April 26th, they were barred by demonstrators from entering the area of Royce Quad and Royce Hall because they are Jewish, and that demonstrators requested to see certain wristbands in order to access this area. A different complainant reported that a student was unable to access the library because demonstrators would not give them a wristband because they “[knew them] to be Jewish.” Another reported that a group of masked demonstrators and two unmasked faculty members “surrounded and detained” them and prevented them from accessing Royce Quad on April 27th. Another reported that on that same day demonstrators prevented them accessing a ramp because they did not “have someone to vouch for me.” Additionally, one complainant noted on April 27th that the encampment violated UCLA policy prohibiting overnight structures, and that some demonstrators were “intimidating Jewish students.” The Department also interviewed a Jewish UCLA student who was blocked by demonstrators from accessing Royce Quad. This student did not file a complaint with UCLA because a friend of theirs previously filed a similar complaint and no action was taken by the University….

The Department interviewed a Jewish man who was told by members of the encampment that “Hitler missed one.” This man was also physically assaulted by members of the encampment, which the man reported to the UC Police Department.

The DOJ also reviewed the findings of UCLA’s internal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias. As the Notice of Violation states:

UCLA’s Task Force Report also documents instances in which students were assaulted or prevented access to parts of the campus on the basis of their religion and/or national origin by members of the encampment. For example, “[a] Jewish student and her mom shared how the student was knocked to the ground and kicked by encampment participants. The student was initially unconscious with an open wound on her head, and she was taken to the hospital for treatment.” Additionally, “[a] Native American Jewish woman described being assaulted by a stick.” The report also notes that “[o]n April 29, 2024, the encampment protesters began using human phalanxes (with protesters shouting, ‘human chain’) to block certain persons from moving freely through public areas of Royce Quad, and surrounded some other individuals to forcibly move them from areas in or adjacent to the encampment. By April 30, students wearing a Star of David or a kippah, or those refusing to denounce their Zionism (which for many Jews, but not all, is akin to renouncing their Jewish faith), were physically blocked by the protesters’ phalanxes from entering or passing through the occupied area of Royce Quad, entering Royce Hall, or entering Powell Library.” The Task Force Report also documents survey responses from a number of Jewish students about the encampment. One responded that they were “denied entry through it because I'm a Jew.” Another responded that “I was assaulted, threatened, and harassed during the encampment. I had an Israeli flag and a man ran towards me in order to push me. I was blocked for being Jewish,” that the encampment “prevented me from getting to class on time and utilizing campus resources,” and that demonstrators “were told not to talk to me because I'm from Israel.” The report also states that “[s]everal students, Task Force members, and survey respondents reported that complaints of antisemitism and discrimination were ignored, minimized, or were not taken seriously by faculty or staff.”

The DOJ noted that “the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI require that when a school is made aware of alleged harassment, it must respond reasonably by taking timely and appropriate action to investigate or otherwise determine what occurred.” But it was not until the evening of May 1 that UCLA permitted police to order the encampment be cleared, and not until the early hours of May 2, after skirmishes between protestors and the police, that the encampment was finally taken down.

Based on the totality of the circumstances, the DOJ came to the following three findings. Quoting the Notice of Violation:

1. Jewish and Israeli students at UCLA were subjected to severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment that created a hostile environment by members of the encampment.

2. UCLA had actual notice that Jewish and Israeli students were subjected to severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment that created a hostile environment by members of the encampment.

3. UCLA was deliberately indifferent to the hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students caused by the encampment.

Notably, DOJ determined that UCLA failed to close down the encampment in a timely manner. In doing so, it rejected UCLA’s claim that its delay in taking action was due, at least in part, to “the need to support the free expression rights of our community.” However, the DOJ noted that Title VI does not give universities a pass to tolerate political speech expressed through unreasonable means, and that the behavior of the protestors, which included violence and blocking Jewish students’ access to parts of the campus, was not constitutionally protected free speech.

Thus, in the DOJ’s view, universities must not only take action to protect the Title VI civil rights of its students, it must do so without delay after being made aware violations.

Immediate Consequences

On July 30, one day after the DOJ notified UCLA that the Department had determined that the university had violated the civil rights of its Jewish students, the university received notice from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that it was suspending its awards to the university. According to a letter by UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, the suspended funds total approximately $584 million and include grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy as well as from the NSF. Anna Krylov, herself, received a “stop work order” from UCLA ordering her to immediately cease work on a collaborative grant she has with UCLA.

UCLA is the first public university to have their grants suspended by the Trump administration as a consequence of violating students civil rights. Presumably, their grants will be restored if the university agrees to cooperate with the federal government to address the civil rights violations identified by the DOJ, as was the case at Columbia.

Jewish Bruins Settle with UCLA

In a separate matter, on the same day that the DOJ notified UCLA of its findings, the university agreed to pay $6.5 million to settle a law suit filed by four members of UCLA’s Jewish community—three students and a professor—who sued UCLA for civil rights violations during the encampment. According to the settlement, the funds will be split between the four plaintiffs and a number of pro-Jewish non-profits including Hillel, Chabad, and the ADL.

Late Breaking

On August 8, news broke that the Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement and other from UCLA to restore the funding suspended following the DOJ’s determination. According to ABC News:

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Trump administration is seeking $1 billion from UCLA over allegations of antisemitism in what could reportedly be the largest settlement between the administration and an institution of higher education, a White House official said Friday….

In the settlement, UCLA would pay the billion-dollar fine in installments over time in addition to contributing $172 million to pay students and other individuals impacted by alleged discrimination, the Times said, citing sources.

The agreement would also require a resolution monitor to oversee the school, as well as a new senior administrator focused on compliance with anti-discrimination laws, according to CNN.

University of California President James B. Milliken said in a statement Friday that they are reviewing the proposal from the Department of Justice. The statement reads as follows:

“Earlier this week, we offered to engage in good faith dialogue with the Department to protect the University and its critical research mission. As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country's greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians. Americans across this great nation rely on the vital work of UCLA and the UC system for technologies and medical therapies that save lives, grow the U.S. economy, and protect our national security.”

See also: NY Times, “Trump Wants U.C.L.A. to Pay $1 Billion to Restore Its Research Funding” (archived version here).

Summing Up

Freezing federal funding is an extreme measure. It harms researchers and interrupts important STEMM work. Unfortunately, targeting science funding causes the most harm to the least guilty—the STEMM faculty—who end up paying for the sins of their unhinged colleagues in the humanities and “Studies” departments. Yet, what else can be done? UCLA, like many other schools, has shown little if any or ability willingness to reform from within, and—despite massive bureaucratic machinery—seems unable or unwilling to enforce existing civil rights laws, whether it be in hiring or admissions or in the protection of Jewish students and ordinary campus operations from the hostile antics of radical student and faculty groups. What other leverage does the federal government have to compel universities to comply with civil rights laws? Strong medicine is perhaps the only way to go. Let’s just hope it doesn’t kill the patient.

For thoughtful commentary on the conundrum of how best to reform our universities, we recommend these three essays:

• Evan Morris, Unyoke the Sciences From the Humanities (The Dispatch, August 7, 2025; archived version here)

• Lee Jussim, Why I Signed On To the Manhattan Institute Call to Reform Academia (Unsafe Science, July 23, 2025)

• Omar Sultan Haque, From Heterodox to Helpless (The Pursuit of Truth, July 24, 2025)

We are traveling in Europe where we are blissfully disconnected from affairs back home. But despite all the distractions—scientific, cultural, and gastronomic—it is impossible to put antisemitism out of our minds. It is persistent and pervasive, and every week brings a disturbing new reminder. In Europe, there is an abundance of evidence—anti-Israel graffiti, slogans calling for Intifada, Palestinian flags, keffiyehs galore, leaflets, etc. We saw plenty in Norway in particular, perhaps in part, because it was “Pride Month,” and the alphabet people (LGBTQIA+) were expressing their imagined allyship with Islamic extremists. Even at a chemistry conference, there were several individuals sporting keffiyehs, prompting discussion of a dress code for future gatherings.

For today’s newsletter, we have compiled a few news briefs and longer reads that might have escaped your attention in the shadow of the really big news.

A Quarter of Americans Think Violence Against Jews Is OK, ADL Survey Reveals

From TGIF: The Client List (Nellie Bowers, The Free Press, 7/18/2025)

→ Americans are getting very comfortable with political violence: Following a wave of antisemitic violence, the ADL conducted a survey “to assess the national mood toward antisemitism” and found that 24 percent of people felt recent violent attacks on Jews were understandable, with 13 percent saying they were justified. So that’s been keeping me up at night. No jokes here, just a knot in my stomach and a bigger hunch in my back.

National Education Association Versus ADL

It is no news that the educational sector in the US has become ideologically captured, and that this capture is responsible for rabid antisemitic curricula, as we have covered in these pages (see, for example, here, here, and here). Now, the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly passed a resolution calling for a boycott of the Anti-Defamation League. That is, the largest organization documenting antisemitism was to be barred from educational spaces. Several organizations, including the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), circulated petitions and open letters in protest. These efforts bore fruit, and yesterday the NEA reversed its decision. According to the ADL newsletter (7/19/2025):

Last night, the NEA leadership righted a wrong. We welcome the decision by the NEA Executive Committee and Board of Directors to reject this misguided resolution from a group of radical activists who sought to boycott ADL’s educational materials on antisemitism and the Holocaust.

How Anti-Zionism Became a Western Rite

Jacob Howland, Tablet, 7/2/2025

This lengthy piece from Jacob Howland, which we summarize here, will be worth your time. Pivoting from recent events—antics by Vylan and Mamdami, deadly violent attacks against Jews in Washington DC and Boulder—Howland explains the global convergence of militant political and religious movements. The essay underscores the connection between antisemitism and other societal ills, reminding us why antisemitism is not just a Jewish problem. He also explains how we have gotten to the point where violence is celebrated and lunatics get to the top of the ballot.

It’s official: Jew hatred is trending among millennials and older Gen Z. On June 28, the rapper Bobby Vylan’s chants of “Death, death to the IDF” were broadcast by the BBC and enthusiastically echoed by tens of thousands of people in the live audience of 200,000 at the Glastonbury Festival, many of whom were waving Palestinian flags. “Hell yeah, from the river to the sea,” intoned the aptly named Vylan, “Palestine must be, will be, inshallah, it will be free!” Vylan’s performance was a coda to Zohran Mamdani’s June 24 victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York, a city with the largest population of Jews (1.3 million) outside of Tel Aviv. Mamdani—who supports the boycott, divest, sanctions movement, has expressed his “love” for convicted funders of Hamas, and has defended calls to “globalize the intifada”—got 52 percent of the under-45 vote among primary voters.

The scapegoating of Jews in the West is part and parcel of a rebarbarized culture, one that endorses political violence. A recent Rutgers University poll found that “55 percent of all self-identifying ‘liberals’ believe killing is a justifiable means of pursuing their political goals”—and endows it with theological significance. If George Floyd’s death and subsequent canonization as a secular martyr justified the urban riots during which 2,000 police officers were injured, thousands of businesses and properties were looted and vandalized, and 17 people were killed, the sanctification of cold-blooded murder soon followed. After Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024, images appeared of Mangione with a halo, in a green mantle with a red sacred heart, under the title “Saint Luigi, Patron Saint of Healthcare Access for All.”

These developments underscore the global convergence of militant political and religious movements. Islamists have learned to speak the language of social justice activists, while far-left radicals have learned to frame ideological struggle as a holy war. Human life holds little value for either of them. The journey from self-immolation for Palestine to so-called self-martyrdom bombings is a short stop or two on a train that long ago left the station of peaceful politics.

Words of Wisdom from Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who writes the Substack Restoration, is a remarkable woman. An ex-Muslim from Somalia, she became a member of the Dutch House of Representatives and is now a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.

We are huge fans of her incisive writing. She speaks out about the dangers of Islamism and theocracy, the importance of defending Western values from barbaric and totalitarian ideologies, and about the goals and tactics of Islamists worldwide. Below we highlight two of Ayaan’s recent essays.

Glastonbury—and the Purge of the Jews

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Free Press, 7/29/2025 (archived version here)

It’s called the “Free Palestine” movement. But the branding is a smoke screen. What we’re dealing with is not a grassroots plea for peace, for statehood. It’s Islamism soaked in Maoism, weaponized for the social media era, and sharpened to a point by ideological warriors who’ve read more Foucault than Quran.

Perhaps this will sound hyperbolic to you. But I have been researching and writing about subversive movements for decades, especially movements emanating from the world of political Islam.

What makes this moment uniquely dangerous is the merging of two ideologies that, historically, have operated in very different arenas: Islamism and Maoism.

The former is fueled by absolutist theocracy and tribal vengeance; the latter, by class war and ideological conformity. One invokes the divine; the other pretends to be secular. Both demand submission. Islamism seeks to restore a seventh-century caliphate through bombs, blood, and barbarity. Maoism seeks to flatten all hierarchies under the boot of “equity,” enforced through surveillance, humiliation, and fear. One dreams of paradise after death. The other promises utopia after sufficient political and social purges.

But both share a core instinct: Crush the infidel, purge the impure, seize control of the narrative. Islamism brings the fire—holy rage, a fixation on martyrdom, and a visceral hatred for Jews that predates the state of Israel by centuries. Maoism brings the strategy—the long march through institutions, the cultural struggle sessions, the rewriting of history, the reframing of reality through social media and sound bites.

When these ideologies converge—and they have—you get something far more dangerous than a political protest. You get a cultural movement. And this one has a clear mission: Erase not just Israel “from the river to the sea,” but the Jewish people from the moral map.

Read the essay in full.

The Genocide Lie

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Restoration, 7/19/2025

This is a very thoughtful essay, on the false “genocide in Gaza” and the phenomenon of inversion.

Activists crying “Gaza genocide” distort the term beyond recognition—betraying real victims and enabling a dangerous inversion of truth and justice.

Fresh off having her Gaza-bound boat intercepted by Israeli forces, Greta Thunberg found her next stage. This past weekend in Stockholm, she joined demonstrators accusing Israel of committing genocide, a charge as inflammatory as it is ignorant. Genocide is not a catch-all insult. It has a specific legal meaning: requiring demonstrable intent to destroy an entire people because of who they are.

When activists misuse this term, they insult the memory of real victims of genocide, betraying the survivors of true systematic extermination.

But Thunberg’s performance was not an isolated incident. Similar protests erupted across Europe and the United States this past weekend — eerily synchronized, professionally staged, and too well-funded to be dismissed as organic. This isn’t conspiracy theorizing; it’s a recognition of strategy. Many of these events are connected to activist networks funded by wealthy donors, some with well-documented ties to regimes that are openly hostile to the West and its allies, including the Chinese Communist Party. These networks have increasingly provided cover for antisemitic rhetoric, allowing it to flourish under the pretense of political protest. What emerges is not a principled stand for justice, but a movement that selectively applies its outrage, often aligning with those who reject the very values it claims to defend. The campaign has reached such ludicrous heights that the European Parliament is now preparing to formally characterize Israel’s military response as genocidal.

And Now Back to Academia — Campus News

From the Hillel International Newsletter (6/13/2025)

House Committee Calls Georgetown, UC Berkeley, and CUNY Presidents for July Antisemitism Hearing

College presidents from Georgetown, UC Berkeley, and The City University of New York (CUNY) system are slated to testify at the House Education and Workforce Committee’s next hearing on campus antisemitism in July. The July 9^th hearing will focus on factors that may be contributing to antisemitism at these schools, including foreign funding, as well as student groups that have shown prejudice against Jewish students.

Get More Information on the Hearing

And again from the Hillel International Newsletter (7/5/2025)

University of California System Reaffirms Ban on Anti-Israel Boycotts

University of California (UC) President Michael Drake reinforced the UC system’s long-standing policy for its 10 schools against engaging in financial boycotts of any country, including Israel. Drake added that while freedom of speech is core to the values of the UC system, targeted boycotts into companies associated with a particular country or nationality are prohibited.

Read the UC President's Full Statement

How Not to Crack Down on Campus Antisemitism

We covered efforts of the Trump administration to crack down on campus antisemitism by using Title VI (see here, here, and here). While we support using existing laws and regulations to curb discrimination and ensure that universities provide harassment-free environment, we are concerned about further empowering already massive bureaucracies. Creating new offices for every problem on campus is at best a costly misdirection of effort. More often than not, it is a “get-out-of-jail-free” card that allows administrators to report that “we take XXX very seriously” while doing nothing to address actual XXX. Such bureaucracies rarely do any good, but inevitably take on a life of their own and ultimately create a worse problem than XXX. For illustration, look no further than Title IX. We saw how legitimate concerns about campus sexual harassment led to bureaucratic bloat, administrative kangaroo courts, infringement on free speech, and a campus culture of snitching and score settling. Now the stage is set for the same to happen with Title VI.

Writing for the CounterCurrent newsletter, Kali Jerrard asks: Kangaroo Courts ahead? Probably. Jerrard takes a deep dive into the article “Now Hiring: Title VI Coordinators” published in Inside Higher Ed (Johanna Alonso, 7/14/2025; archived version here). Jarred explains:

Colleges and universities have long faced scrutiny for violating Title IX, but fewer realize how often they violate Title VI—and their proposed solution is even more troubling.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects against discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, specifically in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance, and the Department of Education’s (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) oversees Title VI enforcement for academia.

Under Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the ED has opened several investigations into Title VI violations at institutions of higher education—most notably George Mason University and Harvard University. Many colleges and universities are responding to this by creating jobs for Title VI coordinators and hiring administrators in droves—a situation which eerily parallels the early 2010s and the administrator hiring bonanza related to Title IX complaints during the Obama administration. But colleges and universities aren’t stopping at just creating new positions and hiring Title VI coordinators, they are also creating fully-staffed Title VI offices and centers, as well as new training programs and re-evaluating investigative procedures, says an Inside Higher Ed article.

While some colleges and universities have been proactive in creating Title VI positions and offices on campus, others were required to do so as part of agreements with the OCR. The Inside Higher Ed article explains that “many resolution agreements related to shared ancestry since Oct. 7 in which OCR made an adverse finding against the institution required the college to hire a Title VI coordinator.” As an example, in January of this year, the University of Washington (UW) agreed to hire a Title VI coordinator to resolve two complaints of anti-Semitism. Additionally, UW was instructed to put up a new office under which the Title VI and Title IX coordinators would be housed. Compare this to the State University of New York system which is merely being “proactive” in its response to potential Title VI complaints, requiring all campuses to bring on a Title VI coordinator by the fall of 2025.

(Note that currently the two main areas for Title VI violations are anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. From 2023 to 2024, the number of resolved Title VI cases increased 24 percent, and there were 515 complaints alleging discrimination based on shared ancestry in fiscal year 2024, compared to just 59 such complaints in fiscal year 2023—a sevenfold increase.) …

Now, as colleges and universities are creating new coordinator and administrator positions, albeit for Title VI this time, Manning gives a warning,
In adding administrators, schools get to maintain and even expand their administrative bloat while seeming to be ‘proactive’ in preventing civil rights violations. In truth, it's just a jobs plan for university bureaucrats. Bureaucrats may initially back your cause. But in very short order and inevitably they serve their own self interest only.

Bureaucrats simply beget more bureaucrats.

Perhaps the ED should incentivize schools to utilize the tools at their disposal when faced with Title VI complaints—i.e., university lawyers—instead of creating a potential do-over of the Title IX fiasco of the 2010s. Or even better, don’t discriminate based on race, color, or national origin to begin with.

People Like Mamdani Are Made in the Academy

Philip Carl Salzman, Minding the Campus, 7/16/2025

Salzman explains how ideologically captured universities foster and promulgate extreme ideologies—such as Marxism—along with their attendant antisemitism.

The newly elected Democrat candidate for mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, is a perfect exemplar of an American college graduate: an anti-Semitic communist. Mamdani, who refuses to disavow “globalize the intifada”—which means “kill Jews wherever you find them”—says the ultimate goal is to “seize the means of production,” the foundational strategy of communism. It is noteworthy that Mamdani was not elected by the poor or the rich, but by the middle-class college-educated, young professional managers struggling in high-priced New York.

Mamdani graduated from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Africana studies. But he was also situated in the Ivy League, his father being a professor at Columbia University. Of course, not all North American university graduates are genocidal anti-Semitic communists; some are just Jew-averse and inclined toward communism.

The Soviet Union fell, but Marx has triumphed in American academia, and even more in Canada and Western Europe. (Eastern Europeans, although historically great champions of anti-Semitism, have experienced communism in practice too recently to be tempted by its faux utopianism.) Woke “social justice” gave the game away clearly, demanding “equity,” which means absolute equality imposed by authority. …

Education in the West has become a propaganda machine for Marxist social justice, defined by absolute equality, all of the participants being assessed according to their moral virtue in advancing the cause. The Enlightenment university dedicated to the search for truth through evidence and debate is a dead letter in Western countries. We have replaced higher education with Marxist propaganda.

And we finish with a humorous expression of the same sentiment:

Experts Say AI is Just Like College Students – Garbage in/Garbage out

The Babbling Beaver, 7/17/2025

The recent embarrassment of watching Grok’s chatbot turn into a raving antisemitic lunatic bears a striking resemblance to what happens to college students that attend elite universities.

This has forced scientist to conclude that nothing can be done to correct a neural network or human brain once it has ingested tainted training material.

“It’s not like language models precisely understand their system prompts. They’re just doing the statistical trick of predicting the next word,” explained data ethics scientist Patrick Hall. “It turns out that LLM’s are a lot like liberal arts majors.”

Alas, flipping the off switch on Grok so engineers can purge and reprogram it is a lot easier than flipping the off switch on Harvard. Though this hasn’t stopped the Mean Orange Man from trying.

What can be done to prevent a recurrence?

“ChatGPT has had no such problems since we had its testicles removed,” boasted OpenAI Chairman Sam Altman.

MIT’s leading data feminist, Catherine D’Ignazio, concurs. “Orchidectomy is indeed a key part of promoting the epistemic disobedience of the cisheteropatriarchy. It worked wonders when we performed that procedure on MIT’s past president L. Rafael Reif.”

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP)—once a venerable organization—has been captured by radicals. Once a champion of academic freedom and professionalism, this organization has been steadily descending into the pit of Woke ideology—embracing its disdain for free speech, its censoriousness, its obsession with identity politics and—you guess it right—its obligate antisemitism.

As documented on these pages, in August 2024, AAUP disgraced itself by ending its opposition to academic boycotts. During the past spring’s protests, AAUP vocally opposed measures by university administrators towards combating lawlessness and restoring normal university operation. Many prominent intellectuals—including past presidents of AAUP and leaders of FIRE and Heterodox Academy—criticized these actions and called upon AAUP to right its course, but to no avail. In this edition of our newsletter, we call attention to an open letter from the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) calling on the AAUP to reform, and we shed light on more of AAUP’s recent misdeeds.

CALL TO ACTION: Tell the AAUP to Respect Jewish and Zionist Faculty Members (from the AEN)

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has exhibited a disturbing pattern of anti-Israel rhetoric and action in recent months, from rescinding its categorical opposition to academic boycotts, to hosting programs and that offer only one-sided and highly inflammatory anti-Israel narratives, to publishing posts that dismiss rising antisemitism on campus and the concerns of Jewish students, faculty, and staff. Now it is co-sponsoring a “National Day of Action” campaign alongside fringe anti-Zionist groups that have at times trafficked in antisemitic rhetoric and activism.

To respond to this escalating politicization of a major academic organization, AEN collaborated with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to develop a Call to Action, which will send a letter to AAUP leadership urging them to publicly address the harm caused, reaffirm their commitment to inclusion, and ensure that future advocacy and educational efforts truly represent all members. We hope that you will consider adding your name to this effort!

We think the AAUP is too far gone to be salvageable, but we still signed the letter.

The Fall of the AAUP (Greg Lukianoff, The Eternally Radical Idea, November 20, 2024)

In this post, Greg recaps the public exchanges that FIRE has had with the AAUP. He begins:

One of the great disappointments of my professional life has been watching the decline of the American Association of University Professors, formerly the gold standard for defense of academic freedom on campus. Of course, there have always been and still are good, principled AAUP members and chapters out there. But since the beginning of my career back in 2001, the national AAUP have gone from being principled (if slow and plodding) defenders of academic freedom to increasingly partisan critics of freedom of speech and the First Amendment — taking institutional positions that directly threaten academic freedom.

Greg organized his analysis of the ideological corruption of AAUP using the following categories:

• The AAUP has championed a stark distinction between free speech and academic freedom, which is dangerous to both.

• The AAUP has publicly supported political litmus tests for professors.

• The AAUP came out in favor of academic boycotts and then lied about it.

• The AAUP supported a book that proposed a gaping partisan exception to academic freedom.

• The AAUP failed to defend professors who got in trouble for speech unpopular with the left.

• The AAUP lied about its most effective competitor—FIRE.

Greg concludes by highlighting the inconsistency in AAUP’s recent actions and positions, providing a smoking gun of its corruption by a particular ideology:

The truth is that the AAUP relied on free speech and the First Amendment for its entire existence. But once their leaders got confident that enough “right-thinking people” would be in charge forever, they turned on it. They said nothing as tuition prices and bureaucratization skyrocketed while viewpoint diversity among professors plunged. They stopped defending professors whose speech was unpopular with the kinds of scholars who thought the search for truth was over (and that, as luck would have it, they’re the ones who found it!).

When professors were targeted at an unprecedented rate and a culture of—what might you call it?—cancellation hit academia, causing public trust in higher education to collapse, the AAUP sneered at the idea that Cancel Culture even existed. They failed to protect their colleagues, particularly when they were threatened by fellow academics or students. Indeed, they doubled down and came out in favor of political litmus tests as long as they liked the politics being tested for. They gave in to members who wanted to use academic boycotts to serve political ends even if it torpedoed the search for truth. They supported a new exception to academic freedom that basically meant it was nothing more than what their favored members wished it to be.

They then tripled down, claiming that the plunging respect for academia was just due to some outside right-wing plot rather than contempt for a trillion-dollar industry that wanted to wish all criticisms of itself away. Somehow, they couldn’t understand that this would make them even less respected and trustworthy to the public. Instead, they sidelined truth and helped plunge academia into crisis.

But, of course, it was everyone else’s fault.

An Unsettling Approach to Academic Freedom (Andy Lamey, Quillette, March 10, 2025)

Writing for Quillette, Andy Lamey takes a deep dive into the history of the AAUP and exposes how its recent actions are at odds with its original mission. He emphasizes AAUP’s most egregious offense against academic freedom and free inquire—its defense of DEI:

As academic freedom is the main basis for opposing mandatory diversity statements, nothing I am arguing here should be taken as ruling out non-mandatory policies aimed at advancing diversity goals. If a university were to offer, say, workshops on teaching diverse classes that faculty could choose to attend, such workshops might or might not be valuable, depending on their content. But they would pose no threat to academic freedom.

The optional nature of such measures would actually make it easier for universities to identify faculty who care about DEI. Policies that oblige a job candidate to describe his or her DEI “skills, competencies, and achievements” invite obvious rote answers. Because aspiring candidates have an incentive to present themselves as DEI enthusiasts, it’s hard to know if they are sincere. Someone who freely chooses to participate in DEI activities, on the other hand, is more likely to actually support DEI, an attribute that mandatory statements are supposed to uncover in the first place….

The AAUP’s shift is in part a response to Donald Trump and the illiberal forces he’s energised, representatives of which have used anti-DEI arguments to justify their own assault on the independence of American universities. There is no question that Trumpism and its adjacent forces pose a major threat to academic freedom. But not only has the AAUP responded to that threat by diluting its own commitment to this ideal; as discussed in more detail below, its representatives have made cranky and intolerant remarks about other mainstream academic-freedom organisations that the AAUP should be embracing as allies.

AAUP at USC

The AAUP chapter at USC is faithfully following the course of the national organization, as amply documented by letters and statements posted on the chapter’s website. Of note is the letter they sent on April 1st to President Folt and Provost Guzman:

Dear President Folt and Provost Guzman,

We write regarding threats issued by the new Trump administration against institutions of higher education. We are extremely disquieted by the clear political intrusions into, indeed in some cases threats against, the safety and livelihood of USC’s community, including faculty, staff, and students, as well as the academic freedom in research and teaching that is the fundament of a university.

While we recognize that the university must comply with laws and court orders, it should never serve as a deputy for government enforcement. Executive orders, “Dear Colleague” letters, and social media posts are not legally binding, and are being challenged in the courts. Many other leading universities have already joined lawsuits contesting cuts to research funding.

We are seeking leadership from you on the following matters:

1) A policy that affirms that in the event of interruptions to programs at NIH, NSF, or other federal grantmaking institutions, USC will cushion those interruptions by covering payroll, so that campus community members do not experience sudden loss of wages;

2) A policy that affirms USC will not share students’ names, addresses, and other contact information with federal agencies based on students’ actual or perceived political affiliations;

3) A policy about ICE on campus that affirms community members’ rights, and offers specific, concrete guidance about what campus community members should do if ICE targets members of our institution.

4) A policy that affirms USC’s commitment to academic freedom, necessarily including historical or social processes and experiences that have become sites of political controversy (colonialism, race, gender, sexuality, etc.).

We also write to express grave disappointment with USC’s preemptive compliance regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Instead of holding firm and recommitting USC to our values, you chose to obey a directive that may well be illegal, by removing those words from the community vocabulary, and merging the Office of Inclusion and Diversity into the Culture Team. Such a move does not merely pertain to a few words on websites: it leaves us fearful regarding which core values will be the next to be so quickly and easily surrendered. Historians of the twentieth century have warned us about the perils of obedience in advance in such a climate. This is what you are engaging in, and the stakes could not be higher or more dangerous.

These new demands and policies issued by the Trump administration are not a strategy to renew the public mission of higher education, which many of us might welcome. What is currently being carried out is a massive, deliberate assault against higher education as a center of critical inquiry and independent thought and research.

We are ready to play our part in defense of the university. We call upon you who have been charged to lead this academic community to take the lead in advancing and supporting those efforts. In this mission, we should all be firmly united.

Sincerely, [view live list of signatures here]

Reasonable people can disagree about recent changes in local university policies and have legitimate concerns about the actions of the Trump administration, but the letter does not invite a thoughtful and nuanced dialogue between administration and faculty about the current challenges to higher education. Rather, it demands (Demanding is what they do!) the reinstatement of controversial and divisive DEI programs—programs which are in opposition to academic freedom and are vectors for antisemitism. Continuing these programs (under any name), which often violate existing non-discrimination laws, are likely to result in USC losing its federal funding, but that is of little concern to this group. Respect for the law is also not one of its values: they demand that the university not cooperate with ICE. And best of all—in case the university ends up under sanction for non-compliance with federal mandates—they want financial assurances from the university! This is the same group that demanded that students who engaged in civil disobedience by violating university rules and laws not be punished. If you want to engage in civil disobedience and fight the government, you should be willing to face the consequences.

The AAUP Warns Against ‘Anticipatory Obedience’—But It Only Opposes Federal Power It Doesn’t Control (Adam Ellwanger, Minding the Campus, February 13, 2025)

This essay continues the same theme—how the AAUP has taken an inconsistent and politicized position in response to actions of the Trump administration.

The AAUP asserts that Trump and state governments are determined to “undermine tenure and academic freedom protections, eviscerate shared governance, diminish the faculty’s control over the curriculum, and redefine higher education to benefit private interests over the public good.” In response to such “attacks”—the document uses the word eight times in a little over two pages—the AAUP insists that “Now is not the time to be complacent. Now is the time to act.”…

But the fact that these invitations to civil disobedience only come now—after fifteen years of draconian tinkering with higher education by Democratic presidents—shows that this isn’t a genuinely principled defense of academic inquiry as much as it is partisan politics, masquerading as high-minded moralism. Ironically, this duplicity and the entrenchment of left ideology in the universities are why major institutional reforms are necessary.

Universities across the country were all too eager to over-comply when Obama’s Justice Department issued the Dear Colleague letter that weaponized Title IX and institutionalized left perspectives on sex, gender, speech, and procedural justice. Similarly, there was no organized effort to resist the federal government’s takeover of the student loan industry in 2010. I didn’t hear a single complaint when Biden, in open defiance of the Supreme Court, continued to illegally cancel student loan debt. The president of my Faculty Senate did not send a concerned email to the faculty when the Biden administration injected one billion dollars of federal money into schools to promote diversity, half of which went to “race-based hiring” initiatives, which almost certainly ran afoul of employment law.

Did the AAUP somehow miss that one billion dollars in diversity funds might produce curricular changes that infringe upon the sacred sovereignty that faculty supposedly exercise over the curriculum? Of course not. They saw these federal interventions as good policy, so there was no resistance. Thus, their problem isn’t really federal involvement in higher education. They love it—so long as the reforms flatter their political sensibilities. Their real problem is federal reforms that run afoul of their personal politics.…

This reflexive opposition to the legitimate power of government to regulate education is a major reason why such a wide swath of the public has a negative opinion of universities. It’s also why higher education now finds itself with a target on its back: they put it there themselves.

And from Our Friends at the Babbling Beaver: AAUP Doubles Down on Cancel Culture

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is girding for war. According to a report in the College Fix, they brought in the Action Center on Race & The Economy (ACRE) to help them restore Cancel Culture to its rightful place on college campuses. Their plan? To aggressively target university regents, trustees, and governing boards for intimidation and harassment.

Picketing and vandalizing the homes of top university leaders sure worked great last time.

The Beaver is thrilled to see ACRE Executive Director Saqib Batti deploy his trained cadres into the higher education fracas. He did such an inspiring job as an Antibigotry Convening Fellow at Ibram X. Kendi’s acclaimed “Center for Antiracist Research” at Boston University. And his words of wisdom perfectly encapsulate the philosophy of the long march through the institutions.

“In the United States, capitalism is designed to be the most egregious, extreme wealth-extracting tool, and racism is a strategic force used by capitalism to allow for incredible disparities to exist across the population.”

“Anti-Muslim bigotry is on the rise because corporations like Google, Amazon, and Fidelity have decided they are OK with white supremacy and anti-Muslim bigotry as long as they can make money off of it.”

How many university regents, trustees, and governing board members will have their homes and businesses attacked by AAUP members during the next Day of Action? That will surely convince the American people that their tax dollars should keep flowing to these enlightened professors.

The Trump administration continues their campaign of combatting antisemitism and other civil right violations on university campuses. Notable general actions so far include:

• Department of Education Warns 60 Universities: Protect Jewish Students from Antisemitism or Face Enforcement Action

• ED, HHS, and GSA Announce Additional Measures to End Anti-Semitic Harassment on College Campuses

• Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism Announces Visits to 10 College Campuses that Experienced Incidents of Antisemitism

Actions against specific universities include the DOJ investigation of the UC system and the freezing of federal funding for Columbia (see also here) and Harvard.

In response to the Trump administration’s actions, UCLA announced an initiative to combat campus antisemitism. Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands, including special oversight over mismanaged academic programs, such as various grievance studies departments (see, for example, Columbia Agrees to Trump’s Demands, Inside Higher Ed, March 21, 2025).

Meanwhile, a power struggle between Harvard and the Trump administration has developed.

Trump versus Harvard

Harvard University on Monday notified the federal government that it will not comply with the administration’s demands to implement a list of wide-ranging reforms related to campus antisemitism and DEI.

In a letter dated April 11, the government had notified Harvard that it has “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.” The letter detailed specific actions that Harvard must undertake to avoid withdrawal of governmental support. The government demanded that by August 25, Harvard must do the following:

• Reform its governance structure to center tenured faculty most committed to scholarship, and reduce the influence of untenured faculty, students, and activist professors and administrators.

• Institute strict merit-based hiring; cease all identity-based preferences in hiring, promotion, and compensation; review all existing and prospective faculty for plagiarism; and apply policies against plagiarism consistently.

• Adopt strict merit-based admissions, and cease all identity-based admissions preferences.

• Reform international admissions to prevent admitting students who are “hostile to … American values and institutions,” including students supportive of terrorism or antisemitism, and report to the federal government any foreign student who commits a conduct violation.

• Improve viewpoint diversity among faculty and students. Audit every department for viewpoint diversity and abolish all ideological preferences and litmus tests in hiring and admissions. Departments found not to be viewpoint diverse must hire a “critical mass” of viewpoint-diverse faculty and admit a “critical mass” of viewpoint-diverse students. Departments unable to comply must have their hiring and teaching responsibilities transferred to other departments.

• Reform specific programs with egregious records of antisemitism and other biases. The departments included the Graduate School of Education, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Department of Near Eastern Language and Cultures, among others. Report and sanction all faculty who discriminated against Jewish or Israeli students or incited students to violate university rules following the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

• Completely dismantle DEI. Eliminate all DEI positions, programs, initiatives under any name, and cease all DEI-based disciplinary and speech control practices.

• Reform student discipline. Enforce university rules and apply disciplinary procedures vigorously, consistently, and without ideological favor. Prevent de-platforming and disruption. Enforce time, place, and manner restrictions. Bar student groups that promote illegal violence or harassment, invite non-students to campus who incite disruption, or are a front for a banned student organization. Ban masking to conceal identity. Discipline all students who violated university rules post-October 7.

• Establish whistleblower protections for any member of the university community who reports violations of the reforms in the current letter.

• Make annual reports to the federal government. Through 2028, report annually on progress implementing reforms in the current letter and report sources and uses of foreign funds. In addition, comply with all requests made by the Department of Homeland Security.

In the letter declaring its refusal to comply with the Trump administration’s demands, Harvard (through a law firm hired by the university) claimed that it is committed to fighting antisemitism and that it has already taken, and will continue to take, significant steps to reform. In the lawyers’ words:

Harvard is committed to fighting antisemitism and other forms of bigotry in its community. Antisemitism and discrimination of any kind not only are abhorrent and antithetical to Harvard’s values but also threaten its academic mission.

To that end, Harvard has made, and will continue to make, lasting and robust structural, policy, and programmatic changes to ensure that the university is a welcoming and supportive learning environment for all students and continues to abide in all respects with federal law across its academic programs and operations, while fostering open inquiry in a pluralistic community free from intimidation and open to challenging orthodoxies, whatever their source.

Over the past 15 months, Harvard has undertaken substantial policy and programmatic measures. It has made changes to its campus use policies; adopted new accountability procedures; imposed meaningful discipline for those who violate university policies; enhanced programs designed to address bias and promote ideological diversity and civil discourse; hired staff to support these programs and support students; changed partnerships; dedicated resources to combat hate and bias; and enhanced safety and security measures. As a result, Harvard is in a very different place today from where it was a year ago….

Harvard claims that the government’s demands are unlawful in that they are “in contravention of the First Amendment [and] invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court.” The lawyers’ letter continues:

The government’s terms also circumvent Harvard’s statutory rights by requiring unsupported and disruptive remedies for alleged harms that the government has not proven through mandatory processes established by Congress and required by law…. The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government. Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government’s terms as an agreement in principle….

Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.

Upon receipt of the letter, the Trump administration immediately froze over $2 billion of Harvard’s federal funding.

But the administration didn’t stop there. The next day, it asked the IRS to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. Were this to occur, Harvard would not only have to pay income and property taxes, but donations to the university would no longer be tax deductible. Then, on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security followed suit by cancelling $2,700,000 of its own grants to Harvard and, more importantly, by threatening to revoke Harvard’s authorization to enroll foreign students.

There is little question that America’s elite universities have been ideologically captured and are in dire need of reform. But it is equally clear that the Trump administration’s demands are unprecedented in their scope and intrusiveness. Perhaps the administration had been emboldened after having won concessions to a milder set of demands from Columbia.

So, are the administration’s demands of Harvard legal and warranted, or has Trump gone too far? In a pair of articles in The Free Press, Charles Lane (Harvard Had It Coming. That Doesn’t Mean Trump Is Right, April 15, 2025) and Christopher Rufo (The Right Is Winning the Battle over Higher Education, April 15, 2025) debate the question.

Lane writes, “It’s hard to see how Harvard could not have pushed back”:

There was no way, consistent with academic freedom, for Harvard to accept the administration’s demand to “audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.”

Though Lane concedes:

This is the university that once penalized a law professor, Ronald Sullivan, for serving as legal counsel for Harvey Weinstein, widely reviled as an accused rapist, but constitutionally entitled to a defense. Harvard subsequently promoted another dean to president, Claudine Gay, who gave key verbal support to student protests against Sullivan.

This is a school that once tried to strong-arm a quarter of its students into abolishing their single-sex clubs, fraternities, and sororities, because “their fundamental principles are antithetical to our institutional values.”

And of course, this is a university whose response to antisemitism on its campus includes a high-level task force that has still not published final recommendations more than a year since Garber established it.

Harvard is also the school that destroyed the career of one its star professors, Roland Fryer, for having dared to published a paper that showed that there was actually no anti-Black bias in police shootings. It is the university that forced the retirement of the evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven for stating the banal fact that sex is binary. And it is the school ranked dead last in the country in FIRE’s national campus free speech rankings.

But, as much as Harvard might deserve to be defunded, Lane asserts that to cut funding, the government must follow the law:

Under the relevant civil rights statute—Title VI—the government is required to formally document allegations such as those the administration is making against Harvard, and to cut funding only to the specific programs that have been found to discriminate. The Trump administration has yet to do that.

And Lane concludes:

For all of the above reasons, Harvard stands a good chance of winning this struggle in the courts of law, but a not as good one in the court of public opinion.

In contrast, Chris Rufo stands 100 percent behind the administration. He writes:

The important thing for the Trump administration is not to blink. It should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that America’s elite universities adhere to the principle of color-blind equality. If they resist, the president should not hesitate to cut off funding until they comply. Universities are free to operate as independent institutions and reject federal money—but if they choose to accept billions in taxpayer dollars, they must follow the law.

And in threatening to revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status and its authorization to enroll foreign students (DHS Cuts Harvard Grants, Threatens Student Visas, The Free Press, April 16, 2025), the Trump administration ain’t exactly blinking.

What Do Champions of Free Inquiry Say about These Actions?

The debate over the administration’s actions is ongoing, but it is safe to say that they are a mixed bag. Some are overreach (and, as such, will likely be blocked by the courts); however, others are not only defensible, but, in our opinion, necessary (such as consistent enforcement of Title VI and Title IX). Here is a recap of what organizations that promote free speech and academic freedom have been saying.

FIRE

For FIRE’s take on Trump’s threats to revoke university funding, see our coverage of Greg Lukianoff’s comments here as well as this statement from FIRE.

Heterodox Academy (HxA)

At Free the Inquiry blog, Alice Dreger reports on her interview with HxA Policy Director Joe Cohn. Cohn believes that the hotbed for antisemitism that universities have become justifies that the government intervene, but that in doing so it must follow procedures established in law. Additional, he says feels that some of the administration’s demands are so coercive that they will threaten academic freedom.

Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA)

Relatedly, the AFA has issued a Statement on the Deportation of Noncitizen Scholars and Students, in which it opposes deportation merely on free speech grounds:

It is a grave threat to the mission of American universities if international scholars and students fear removal from the United States based on little more than their expression of views disfavored by people holding public office. Academic freedom is a condition of the robust exchange of ideas that drives the pursuit of knowledge in colleges and universities, and everyone in an academic community must be equally protected in their academic freedom.…

We call on American government officials to clearly state that international students and scholars will not be removed from the country simply for engaging in lawful expressive activities, whether personal or professional. We call upon American government officials to clearly state the factual basis and legal rationale when visas are revoked. A climate of uncertainty is itself a threat to the free exchange of ideas on American university campuses. It is imperative that the government not only refrain from removing individuals from the country for exercising First Amendment liberties but also credibly reassure the scholarly community that the immigration laws will not be used to stifle First Amendment protected speech.

Where Does This Leave USC?

Probably not in a place good. By executive orders, Trump has demanded that universities vigorously protect Jewish students from antisemitism and rid their campuses of DEI. USC has done neither. Its response to campus antisemitism has been halfhearted and, rather than dismantle DEI, it has simply rebranded it (see excellent documentation by Heterodox at USC here, here, here, and here). The rebranding, in particular, is likely to infuriate the Trump administration, as it anticipated the tactic and explicitly stated that it would not tolerate it. Thus, we anticipate that USC will be targeted for intervention by the federal government. Indeed, USC has already been notified that it is one of ten universities to be investigated by the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.

USC’s failure to dismantle its DEI bureaucracy seems to be self-immolating. By not dismantling DEI, the university has opened itself up to financial punishment by the federal government. In anticipation, the university has instituted pay and hiring freezes and revoked graduate student offers. Why the university would choose this course of action rather than comply with executive orders to eliminate its costly DEI bureaucracy instead remains a mystery.

Sticking with Our Harvard Theme, Here’s Some Humor Courtesy of the Babylon Bee

Harvard Awards Honorary Degree To Man Who Firebombed Governor Shapiro's House

CAMBRIDGE, MA — In a beautiful ceremony today, Harvard University bestowed an honorary degree to the pro-Hamas activist Cody Balmer, who firebombed Governor Josh Shapiro's home.

Though Balmer was being held without bail due to nearly murdering an entire family for being Jewish, Harvard administrators took it upon themselves to travel to the prison for the ceremony.

“This man represents everything Harvard is about,” said Harvard president Alan Garber. “All of us at Harvard were simply blown away when we read about Cody’s courageous stand against the scourge of Zionism. It’s so inspiring to meet a man who believes so strongly in the Palestinian cause that he will set a governor’s house on fire and try to kill everyone inside. While Balmer did not attend Harvard, he is exactly what we strive to turn every single Harvard student into.”

Balmer’s honorary degree will reportedly also come with a standing offer to become a tenured professor at Harvard University. “When we see the students camped out on the lawn calling for death to the Jews, how many of them have the actual skills to make a firebomb and destroy a home? This is why we need teachers like Cody,” explained Garber. “He will always have a home at Harvard.”

At publishing time, Balmer had received competing offers from Columbia University as well as every college in Europe.