US Education Dept announces antisemitism investigations into 5 universities

The United States Department of Education has launched investigations of five universities to determine whether to meet their legal obligations in protecting students from antisemitism.

The press release announcing the investigations was published Monday on the U.S. Department of Education’s website, stating that it will examine “five institutions of higher education where widespread antisemitic harassment has been reported.”

The schools under investigation are Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, The University of California, Berkeley, and The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Each of these universities has been accused of allowing unlawful antisemitic discrimination.

The investigations are being opened by the Office of Civil Rights and will be conducted to ensure that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act is being followed by these schools.

As recently as last week, a Jewish professor at Columbia University’s business school resigned, saying that “the university has made its position clear by platforming and empowering a known radical antisemite to indoctrinate impressionable minds,” referencing another Columbia professor’s praise of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.

The Education Department’s statement regarding the investigations included comments from Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor, who harshly criticized both the universities’ tolerance of “widespread antisemitic harassment” and “the Biden administration’s toothless resolution agreements.”

“Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses, nor will it stand by idly if universities fail to combat Jew hatred and the unlawful harassment and violence it animates,” Trainor said.

The new investigations come shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order designed to combat unlawful discrimination against Jews.

The executive order declared that “it shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”