President Trump is attacking universities across the nation, threatening their federal funding for what his administration calls inadequate action to combat antisemitism. His arguments are that many universities have not protected Jewish students on their campuses from protests and writings supporting Palestinians in response to the nearly two-year Israel-Gaza conflict. The president cites Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as the foundation for his actions, which bars discrimination against race, color or national origin.
However, these views conflate antisemitism, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian positions. Trump also appears to believe that using antisemitism is a strong lever to redirect university policies around his broader attack on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or DEI policies.
Trump’s actions have been disruptive across higher education. Despite such overreach, most institutions have simply genuflected, as with the recent resignation of the president of the University of Virginia — a move that stoked further protests across campus.
The boldest retort has come from Harvard, which began its response on April 29 with a more than 300-page report on antisemitism and anti-Israel biases. The actions by the Trump administration to keep Harvard from enrolling international students, to lose its accreditation and to terminate its federal funding are weapons against Harvard and higher education in general. Taxes on large university endowments is yet another tool being used to dampen the influence of the most prestigious and influential schools.
Yet Trump using antisemitism in this manner may lead to more, not less, antisemitism in the future.
Antisemitism is nothing new, and is an ongoing concern for all Jews. It is a particular form of racism, whereby certain groups are discriminated against based on their race, country of origin, gender or, more broadly, anything that makes them different from the majority — and a convenient scapegoat.
As Trump exploits disdain for antisemitism to execute his own personal crusade against higher education, his laser focus on Jewish students and faculty becomes exploitive in and of itself. It draws unnecessary attention to these people in such a way that has been twisted to make them look like victims, which they are not.
Jewish students are well represented in higher education, making up between 8 and 24 percent of the undergraduate student bodies at Ivy league schools. The list of public schools that have 10 percent or more of their undergraduates identifying as Jewish is both long and geographically diverse, including the University of Florida (19 percent), the University of Maryland College Park (19 percent) and the University of Michigan (15 percent). In contrast, Jews are estimated at around just 2 percent of the general U.S. population. Given that the Jewish culture strongly supports and advocates for education, this should not be a surprise.
Even before Trump’s recent actions, race preference in higher education has been under a spotlight. The 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College ended affirmative action based on race in college admissions. Jews were contributors to this ruling, as quotas on Jewish students that existed in the 1920s were cited by two justices. The ruling did not, however, directly affect DEI activities on campuses.
As Trump uses antisemitism to fulfill his personal attacks on higher education, he is inadvertently giving preferential treatment to Jewish students at these institutions. Yet this is exactly what DEI does for members of underrepresented groups on campuses — the very thing that Trump disdains about DEI (or what he refers to as an “illegal discrimination”) and says he wants to end. The only difference is which group is given favored treatment.
The University of Michigan acknowledged in 2024 that its DEI efforts were counterproductive, fostering resentment, bitterness and discord amongst all community members. In the current political climate, the school went one step further and closed its DEI offices, as have numerous other schools.
This does not mean that physical and verbal harassment of any subgroup in a population should be tolerated. What it does mean is that when any subgroup is singled out, the “laws of unintended consequences” can produce a whiplash effect over time. The fire attack in Boulder, Colo., may be an example of such behavior.
All groups and subgroups should be treated fairly. But “fair” does not always mean “equal.” By using antisemitism as the stick to punish universities, Trump’s Machiavellian plan is on full display, exploiting the negative connotations associated with antisemitism even though his issue is much broader with higher education.
If Trump truly cared about stifling antisemitism on university campuses, he would not use it to fulfil his broader crusade against higher education. Indeed, his current efforts only serve to inflame antisemitism and make it worse.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A data scientist, he uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy.