Y ou’ve got to hand it to the pro-Hamas campus protesters: They know how to put pressure on universities. While students are stressing about final exams or trying to make graduation plans, busy protesters are messily expanding their tent cities on the most iconic portions of college campuses.

For universities that have so far acquiesced to this madness, difficult choices abound. Do nothing and pro-Hamas protesters promise to ruin graduation ceremonies for those very students who had their high-school graduations ruined by the pandemic. But using the police to clear out tents will play right into the protesters’ hands. Like the proto-socialist peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, upon first contact with a law-enforcement officer, campus students are eager to yell, “Help, help, I’m being repressed!”

Faced with this dilemma, some universities are pursuing a third way: appeasement. But this path has led universities to a legally precarious place. By making promises to help “Palestinians,” “Gazans,” or “Arabs” with scholarships, jobs, and other resources, these universities are violating federal civil-rights law. The remedy for these violations may be much more painful than lawfully dealing with protesters.

At Northwestern University, officials entered into an agreement with pro-Hamas demonstrators who had occupied a picturesque space called Deering Meadow. This tent city was short-lived; a few dozen students occupied the space for four days. But under the agreement, the protesters gained valuable concessions. Among other things, Northwestern promised to provide the “full cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates to attend Northwestern for the duration of their undergraduate careers.” The agreement also provided for “funding two faculty per year for two years,” with the provision that these professors will be “Palestinian faculty.” Finally, the university promised to “provide immediate temporary space for MENA/Muslim students.” (MENA stands for “Middle East and North Africa”.) Given Northwestern’s annual cost of attendance (approaching $100,000 a year for tuition and room and board) and the average salary and benefits of university faculty, this agreement is worth millions.

Rutgers University soon followed suit. After three nights occupying leafy Vorhees Mall, pro-Hamas campus protesters negotiated an even more generous appeasement agreement. Following this deal, Rutgers issued a press release explaining that the agreement’s purpose was to address the “needs” of “Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian” students. (The needs of Jewish students were not addressed, even though Rutgers has the second-largest Jewish student population of any U.S. public university.) Rutgers officials agreed to “work with a committee of students, faculty, and staff to implement support for 10 displaced Palestinian students to finish their education at Rutgers.” That’s twice the number of scholarships promised by Northwestern. Second, officials agreed to “develop a plan for the creation of an Arab Cultural Center,” which will be a “designated physical space” that offers resources exclusively to “Palestinian and Arab students.” Like the Northwestern agreement, the value of this agreement, considering costs of attendance, is at least $2 million.

As recipients of federal funds, universities like Rutgers and Northwestern are subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits all discrimination “on the grounds of race, color, or national origin.” By providing scholarships, faculty positions, services, and space based on national origin, these universities are violating Title VI. As the United States Supreme Court recently explained in the case outlawing affirmative action at Harvard, Title VI prohibits a university from using race or national origin as a “negative.”

And that’s what’s happening here. Discrimination in favor of Palestinians or MENA individuals is discrimination against individuals not in those categories. As with college admissions, scholarship funds, faculty jobs, and student-organization space are all zero-sum. So when universities grant a benefit to one group based on national origin, then that category operates as a “negative” against those groups that were not eligible for the generous benefit. That’s discrimination, and it violates Title VI.

Fortunately, Title VI provides an important mechanism by which to challenge this illegal discrimination: a federal complaint and investigation system. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed Title VI complaints against Northwestern and Rutgers with the Department of Justice on behalf of its client, Young America’s Foundation, a conservative student organization with members at both campuses. It will now be up to DOJ to investigate those complaints.

While “progressive” universities have been all carrot and no stick, if DOJ finds Title VI violations in these appeasement agreements, these universities will come up against the stick of Title VI. This could mean fines, a DOJ enforcement action in federal court, or even the loss of federal funding. (According to USASpending.gov, Northwestern raked in over $463 million in federal funds in 2023, while Rutgers took in $241 million.)

Discrimination based on nationality is, to say the least, an odd way for universities to address the problem of unruly protests. Instead, they should follow the lead of those who successfully navigated these waters, such as University of Florida president Ben Sasse. “We just don’t negotiate with people who scream the loudest,” he said. The solution to the current campus unrest is simply the evenhanded application of existing rules. Illegal encampments should be removed, with the assistance of law enforcement if needed, and rule-breaking students should be punished. Universities that choose appeasement should expect to feel the consequences.