Federal Task Force to Visit 10 Universities, New Report on Antisemitism, and a Weekly Digest of Depravity

USC is among the 10!

Demosntrators at Columbia University on February 27, 2025. Image via The Free Press (Deborah Lipstadt: Why I Won’t Teach at Columbia)

In this newsletter: Federal task force on antisemitism will be visiting 10 campuses including USC; American Jewish Committee releases report documenting the state of antisemitism in the US, with analysis of student surveys; recent examples of campus antisemitism; and a dose of humor at the end. Read on—but keep an eye out for the words “Message clipped. Click here to view entire message.” Be sure to click that button to see the entire newsletter, or read the newsletter on our Substack.

Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism Announces Visits to 10 College Campuses that Experienced Incidents of Antisemitism, Office of Public Affairs, Department of Justice (February 28, 2025)

The Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced that it will be visiting 10 university campuses that have experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023. Created pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order on Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, the Task Force set as its first priority to eradicate antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.…

The 10 universities identified by the Task Force are: Columbia University; George Washington University; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California.

According to Daily Trojan (Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism will Visit USC, Zachary Whalen, February 28, 2025):

The Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism will visit USC to assess if the University violated federal law by failing to protect Jewish students and faculty from discrimination….

The task force will meet with University leadership, impacted students and staff, local law enforcement and community members to determine if USC requires “remedial action,” though it didn’t specify what action would be taken.

Good news—we have recommendations ready for the task force—summarized in our Report on the Climate and Call for Action, with additional suggestions here.

The State of Antisemitism in America 2024 (American Jewish Committee)

American Jewish Committee, the global advocacy organization for the Jewish people, has released the annual State of Antisemitism in America Report, the first analysis of the impact of antisemitism on American Jews and the U.S. general public for the full-year following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis. The data, from surveys conducted in Fall of 2024, assesses and compares Jewish and general population perceptions of, and experiences with, antisemitism in the United States.

The report is the largest annual poll of its kind and the first report to analyze a half decade’s worth of this type of data from both American Jews and U.S. adults.

As AJC CEO Ted Deutch said, “Antisemitism has reached a tipping point in America… That one-third of American Jews have been the target of antisemitism in the past year should raise red flags for every American and our leaders.”

A few additional highlights:

American Jewish Connection to Israel

• 81% of American Jews say caring about Israel is important to what being Jewish means to them.

• The majority of Americans agree: denying Israel’s right to exist is antisemitism. 85% of American Jews and the general public believe the statement “Israel has no right to exist” — the foundational core of anti-Zionism — is antisemitic.

Where the American General Public Stands

• A majority of U.S. adults (72%) say antisemitism is a problem in the U.S. today.

• Almost 6 in ten (59%) U.S. adults say antisemitism has increased in the U.S. in the past five years, and the vast majority (88%) of this group say they are concerned by the increase.

• Nine in 10 (90%) U.S. adults say antisemitism affects society as a whole and everyone is responsible for combating it.

Particularly jarring—but, unfortunately, hardly a surprise—are the findings about students’ experiences and the role of faculty in fomenting antisemitism. From AJC Global Voice:

Nearly one-third (32%) of American Jewish college students report feeling that faculty on their campuses have promoted antisemitism or fueled a learning environment that is hostile to Jews, according to new data from American Jewish Committee (AJC) and Hillel International. As part of AJC’s State of Antisemitism in America 2024 Report, AJC and Hillel International partnered to document Jewish students’ experiences during their time on campus. The report details how American Jewish college and university students are experiencing antisemitism, both in and outside of the classroom.

The data points to a troubling trend: many Jewish students feel they cannot trust all faculty to foster the educational environments they deserve—free from anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bias.

“How are Jewish students supposed to show up and engage in class or have trust in their educators if they feel that their professors are creating a hostile environment for Jews on campus?” said AJC CEO Ted Deutch. “If students feel that they need to just keep their head down and earn their grade, they are not fully participating in the educational experience that they have a right to and deserve. Educators and administrators need to take action to ensure that their classrooms and campuses are places free from hate, bigotry, and harassment so that all students—including Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist students—have the opportunity to grow and thrive.”

Antisemitism on American Campuses: The Depravity and Lack of Accountability Continue

First up: Columbia… Again

Image via New York Post (Pro-Hamas protesters seize control of historic Barnard academic building and assault college employee)

From TGIF: Gold Bars, Gold Stars, Gold Cards (The Free Press, February 28, 2025)

→ Columbia likes being taken over: More than 50 anti-Israel protesters took over a Barnard building this week, to protest the recent expulsion of two student Hamasniks. Masked and keffiyeh-clad students beat drums, chanted on megaphones, and listed demands. Videos show protesters passing food around in the building (10 bucks says it was beans) and chanting. But this video from inside the Hamas building is the real gem:

Student: “They’re asking if the dean can go to the bathroom.”
Crowd: “No!”
Another student: “Yes, but we’re gonna boo her while she does it.”

These logistical indignities are always what gets me about these scenes. Like, “Excuse me, so I know you said no justice no peace—but the maintenance staff needs to be gone by 5 so do you think you will get peace by then? No?”

It’s also worth noting that Columbia receives over a billion dollars in taxpayer money every year. We pay for the pleasure of this.

The biggest problem—as we see it—is the lack of enforcement of university rules and existing laws. As long as campus thugs can act with impunity, they will continue doing so. A few expulsions and deportations would go a long way to putting a stop to this madness. But guess what the punishment was for the Hamasniks at Barnard who vandalized the building and assaulted an employee? None! From Jerry Coyne (Saturday: Hili Dialogue, Why Evolution Is True; March 1, 2025)

As I predicted, the protestors who had a sit-in at Barnard, injuring an employee, were not punished at all. They were protesting the expulsion of two students for disrupting a class on the history of Israel (bolding is mine):

Chanting “there is only one solution, intifada revolution” and beating drums, the students began their sit-in. Their demands included the immediate reversal of the student suspensions and amnesty for all other students disciplined for pro-Palestinian activism. They also requested a public meeting with Dean Grinage, who they said could decide on appeals of the student suspensions, and with President Rosenbury.

“Disruption until Divestment, Resistance Until Return, Agitation until Amnesty,” Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, a banned group on campus, posted on X with images of the sit-in. “We will not stop until our demands are met.”

After several hours, a faculty intermediary, Kristina Milnor, the chair of the Barnard classics department, told the students that Dean Grinage had offered to meet with up to three protesters, but only if they came in unmasked and showed identification, according to video posted by the protesters.

The students rejected the terms. President Rosenbury was in Florida, Professor Milnor told the students.

About 8:30 p.m., Robin Levine, a Barnard spokeswoman, issued a statement saying that if the students did not agree to leave the building by 9:30 p.m., “Barnard will be forced to consider additional, necessary measures to protect our campus.”

She said that the college did not know if all of the protesters were Barnard students, and that there had been violence entering the hall.

“We have made multiple good-faith efforts to de-escalate. Barnard leadership offered to meet with the protesters — just as we meet with all members of our community — on one simple condition: remove their masks. They refused. We have also offered mediation,” Ms. Levine said in the statement.

The deadline was relayed to the protesters by another faculty member, who told them they had an hour more to talk, before officers from the Police Department might come. Several students were seen escaping out a first-floor window as the deadline came and went.

At 10:40 p.m., the protesters, chanting and beating a drum, marched out peacefully. At least nine Police Department vans were parked on Riverside Drive near the campus about 10 p.m.

Here’s a news video:

The students were part of Students for Justice in Palestine. The fact that these students suffered no punishment, even attacking someone and sending him to the hospital, is shameful. Very few campuses seem to levy any punishment on students who break the rules about protesting.

Can Columbia be saved? Perhaps—there is always a glimmer of hope. Not everyone at Columbia is complicit. On February 3, nearly 200 faculty members sent a letter to Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong asking the university to take measures to better protect Jewish students. Note that it is not easy to get 200 signatures—only one of our open letters got close to this mark.

Group of Columbia Faculty Members Urges University to Take Action to Protect Jewish Students (Rebecca Massel and Spencer Davis, Columbia Spectator, February 12, 2025)

The letter included 10 recommendations on how the University can protect and support its Jewish students. The recommendations include implementing a mask ban, enforcing time, place, and manner regulations, establishing stricter disciplinary procedures, removing Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies Professor Joseph Massad from the classroom, and announcing a date for the opening of the Global Center in Tel Aviv.

The letter also called for the university to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism (we discussed the debate surrounding the definition here).

Bowdoin College

Bowdoin’s Hamasniks, who were suspended following illegal protests, in the end faced no accountability and were allowed to return to campus (Bowdoin College Students Suspended over Protest Return to Campus, Alex Haskel, News Center Main, February 26, 2025). We were too optimistic when we reported on their suspensions here and took it as sign of the tide turning.

Sara Lawrence College

Sarah Lawrence’s Hollow Promises—'Inclusion' Excludes Jews (Samuel Abrams, Minding the Campus, February 11, 2025)

I recently spoke with a senior at Sarah Lawrence College (SLC), where I have taught for 15 years. We had never met before. The student hopes to graduate this spring, but that remains uncertain. Now at home, taking classes remotely, unsure if graduation will be possible.

The students stays away out of fear. As a Jewish Zionist, the student—like others—has faced threats and harassment. The college experience has been anything but normal. No real campus life. No security. No peace. Sarah Lawrence has let this happen. It has become a place where students like this one, and professors like me, are targeted for our faith, heritage, and belief in Israel’s right to exist.

That choice should not be necessary. Writing in response to Cooper Union’s failed motion to dismiss Title VI claims, U.S. District Judge John P. Cronan made it clear: the responsibility falls on colleges and universities to protect their Jewish students from harassment—not on those students to hide themselves away in a proverbial attic or attempt to escape from a place they have a right to be.

Yet SLC has done nothing to stop this. A Title VI claim filed by Hillels of Westchester in March 2024, for example, is now under investigation by the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. The complaint, Hillels of Westchester says:

documented a long history of systemic hostility toward these students, who are subjected to discrimination, harassment, and intimidation on the basis of their Jewish ancestry and ethnic identity. The complaint established how SLC administrators and faculty failed to protect or defend these students and, in some cases, were complicit in perpetuating this hostility and discrimination.

And since the complaint was filed, the campus environment for Jewish students has worsened. In Spring 2024, Sarah Lawrence College awarded a “Group Excellence Award” to a student group that had celebrated the October 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis and hosted an event in support of Palestine. This recognition, which highlighted the group’s “outstanding leadership,” was deeply painful for Jewish students, especially when the DEIB Director forwarded the invitation to Jewish groups. In November 2024, anti-Israel activists took over an administrative building, held a multi-day protest, and called for divestment from Israel, while distributing materials supporting Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Several faculty members supported these actions, holding classes in the occupied space. The administration failed to support Jewish students, enforce the school’s code of conduct, or hold individuals accountable.

If the SLC’s commitment to inclusion were more than empty rhetoric, it would be working to resolve the serious problems on campus—not allowing its campus to remain hostile to Jewish students.

McGill University

From the World Jewish Congress newsletter:

McGill University Vandalized Amid Pressure Campaign to Adopt BDS Policies

Reacting to the violent attacks by over 40 anti-Israel vandals who smashed the windows of five campus buildings, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs condemned the destruction, stating that the protesters had “crossed a line” in their intimidation efforts. Read More...

Georgetown University

Georgetown Law Event Postponed Amidst University Investigation (also from WJC)

Following news that a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S. designated terrorist organization, was scheduled to speak at an upcoming event, the outcry from the Jewish student community prompted an university investigation into the 'serious security concerns.' Read More...

Hunter College, CUNY

Narrated by Jerry Coyne (Friday: Hili Dialogue, Why Evolution Is True, February 28, 2025):

I mentioned a few days ago that Hunter College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY), had advertised for a “Palestinian scholar,” using antisemitic terms for the job requirement. Now the position has been removed per order of governor Kathy Hochul. (The job ad was here, but is gone.)

New York governor Kathy Hochul took an unusual interest in the hiring practices of the City University of New York on Tuesday when she ordered the public system to take down a job posting for a professorship in Palestinian studies at Hunter College.

CUNY quickly complied, and faculty at Hunter are up in arms over what they call a brazen intrusion into academic affairs from a powerful state lawmaker.

The job posting was for “a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality.”

“We are open to diverse theoretical and methodological approaches,” the posting continued.

In a statement Tuesday night, Hochul said the posting’s use of the words “settler colonialism,” “genocide” and “apartheid” amounted to antisemitic attacks and ordered CUNY to “immediately remove” the posting.

A few hours later, CUNY complied, and system chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez echoed Hochul’s criticisms of the posting.

“We find this language divisive, polarizing and inappropriate and strongly agree with Governor Hochul’s direction to remove this posting, which we have ensured Hunter College has since done,” he wrote in a statement.

Hochul also directed the university system to launch an investigation at Hunter “to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom.” Matos Rodríguez appeared to imply the system would follow that order as well, saying, “CUNY will continue working with the Governor and other stakeholders to tackle antisemitism on our campuses.”

A CUNY spokesperson declined to say whether the system would launch a probe into the posting at Hunter but wrote in an email that “each college is responsible for its own faculty job posting.”

And of course faculty are pissed off:

Faculty at Hunter are livid about the decision, according to multiple professors who spoke with Inside Higher Ed both on the record and on background. They say it’s a concerning capitulation to political pressure from an institution they long believed to be staunchly independent.

Is this academic freedom, and Hochul’s order violates it? Well, it’s advertising for a professor who will propagandize his/her students against Jews, so it’s not a clear-cut violation. Teaching anti-Semitism, which is clearly what CUNY wants, is probably against the law.

Antisemitic Indoctrination Begins in K-12

Writing for The Free Press, Frannie Block and Will Sussman (Welcome to Hamassachusetts, February 13, 2025) document antisemitic propaganda distributed by the Massachusetts Teachers Association—the largest labor union in New England, representing 117,000 members:

Inside the Massachusetts statehouse on Monday, State Representative Simon Cataldo displayed the image of a dollar bill folded into a Star of David in front of a packed audience of teachers, activists, and staffers. They were there to attend a hearing on the state of antisemitism in Massachusetts public schools.

“You’d agree that this is antisemitic imagery, correct?” Cataldo, who co-chairs the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, asked Max Page, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)—the largest union in New England, representing 117,000 members.

“I’m not gonna evaluate that,” Page responds calmly.

Cataldo pressed him. “Is it antisemitic?”

Page continued to sit stoically, before breaking into a smile. “You’re trying to get away from the central point,” Page said, “which is that we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way.”

And a Couple of International Highlights

TGIF: War Games (The Free Press, February 21, 2025)

→ Weird how everyone got mad at once: After two Australian nurses joined a livestream video to say they would kill any Israeli patients they got their hands on, it seemed pretty clear-cut what should be done: Obviously fire the nurses, disavow the statements, say they were bad apples. But no. Nope. More than 50 Australian Muslim groups and community leaders came out in support of the two. The Muslim groups claimed the nurses were victims of “the weaponization of antisemitism.” Two nurses who said Israelis should die, and that they would kill any who came to the hospital—and maybe have—are being defended as the victims. Why? Because the outrage over their comments was a little too outraged.

The Muslim groups write in their statement of solidarity: “Outrage is manufactured when it serves a political narrative, with silence strategically deployed when the truth might expose the complicity of those in power.” I’m not sure that’s how you define manufactured outrage. A lot of people being upset about something doesn’t mean the anger is fake. But the implication is obvious: A dark shadow hand is doing this! And it rhymes with The Kews, but it’s frankly Islamophobic to suggest that I mean the Jews.

Also in Australia: “Gas the Jews” was graffitied on a building in Melbourne where a business founded by Holocaust survivors operated until recently.

And here is an update on the story, with a campus twist, from the last week TGIF:

And for our weekly dispatch from down under, remember the pair of Australian nurses who said they would kill any Israeli patients they encountered? A student was removed from a Sydney school after defending them, and now a group of fellow Aussie high schoolers are protesting his removal. Their protest chant of choice? “Allahu Akbar.” There’s something really wild about hearing dozens of young men with Australian accents chanting Allah Akbar.

TGIF: Gold Bars, Gold Stars, Gold Cards (The Free Press, February 28, 2025)

→ Lost in translation: A BBC documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone had a lot of problems, but one is that they didn’t actually tell viewers what Palestinians were saying. The British broadcaster mistranslated or just left out any Palestinians’ references to the Jews or praise of jihad. The word Yahud, Arabic for Jew—and it also kinda sounds like it already—was changed to Israel or Israeli forces. A Palestinian’s praise of Yahya Sinwar’s “jihad against the Jews” was translated as Sinwar’s fighting “Israeli forces.” Watch this side-by-side. It’s a pretty perfect example of how Hamas’s war to eliminate Israel and expel all Jews from the Middle East is whitewashed into a gentle call for better military ethics. A call for an end to the military-industrial complex.

→ Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral was the hottest party last week: Hundreds of thousands of people attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah—a founding member of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that once killed over 240 Marines and other servicemen—in a packed stadium in Beirut. And it was the hottest ticket in town. One Hezbollah politician said: “This massive crowd confirms that Hezbollah is still the most popular party at the Lebanese level.” Maybe at the American level too. Take Jackson Hinkle, who’s on the board of the American Communist Party. He posted a picture of himself at the funeral, and took a video with other mourners of Nasrallah where he agreed with his new friends that “Death to America” was a metaphor.

Other attendees included: sometime Vermont congressional candidate Chris Helali, former University of Bristol professor David Miller, Nelson Mandela’s grandson Zwelivelile Mandela (who was also denied entry into the UK due to his support of Hamas), and Tara Reynor O’Grady, Irish activist and president of No Peace Without Justice.

Ussama Makdisi, a professor at UC Berkeley, posted the following about the funeral: “Always remember that every anti colonial leader who ever emerged among any people across the entire history of the non-West has been demonized by Western imperialists, their local acolytes, and their camp followers among historians.”

Finally, a Dose of Humor, Courtesy of the Babbling Beaver: UVA Hamas Terrorist Supporters Host Black Keffiyeh Gala for Gaza

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) University of Virginia chapter hosted a swank affair this past Sunday to celebrate the courageous Hamas warrior victory over fearsome settler-colonialist dead babies, soliciting donations to sustain the good people of the intifada.

Tuxedo and keffiyeh clad supporters ululated over champagne and caviar, raising thousands of dollars to help advance the noble cause.

Khaled Mashal and Moussa Abu Marzuk, Hamas’s compassionate billionaire leaders, made a surprise appearance via Zoom from their five-star Qatari penthouse suites. They thanked SJP along with all righteous American college students for the generous support that makes their lifestyles possible. (Ismail Haniyeh sent his regrets as was dispatched by the IDF to entertain 72 virgins.)

Georgetown adjunct professor Josh Ruebener harangued the crowd with tales of Zionist perfidy as youth poet laureate Marjan Naderi recited her famous slam poetry celebrating Islamic feminism and her idyllic childhood in Afghanistan.

The after-dinner charity auction was the main highlight of the evening. Up for grabs: liberated household items from the October 7th raid. Enthusiastic bidders were eager to grab a piece of history, comparing their trophies to getting a piece of the Berlin Wall.

“We will support the people of Palestine forever, even if it means martyrdom for every last one of them,” SJP organizers declared. A good time was had by all as they danced the night away toasting Hamas’s successful resistance campaign.