Universities have set up task forces, tightened discipline policies and used surveillance cameras to track protesters’ movements. They have hired private investigators to examine cases of anti-Israel speech and activism.

These are just a few of the measures administrators have taken to curb criticisms that they have allowed antisemitism to fester as pro-Palestinian demonstrations spread across campuses during the last academic year.

On Wednesday, President Trump signed an order meant to push them to do more — to “prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”

Specifically, it directed several agencies, including the State and Education Departments, to guide colleges to “report activities by alien students and staff” that could be considered antisemitic or supportive of terrorism, so that those students or staff members could be investigated or deported as noncitizens.

The wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel have mostly been nonviolent. Protesters have said they are exercising their right of free expression, by demonstrating against Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza. But some protests have led to vandalism and clashes between pro- and anti-Israel demonstrators. The police have been called to campuses to break up encampments and protests, and in the process, hundreds of students have been arrested.

Many Jewish students have said they felt unsafe or unsettled by the yelling outside their dormitory and classroom windows and threatened by the chanting of slogans that some construe as antisemitic.