As students return to campus for the Fall semester, anti-Israel campus groups plan to “engage in further action” despite widespread spring escalations and subsequent disciplinary actions. Universities, Congress, and legal groups have spent the entire summer preparing as “no peace” is expected in the fall.
Last semester, a “Jew Exclusion Zone” was set up at the University of California, Los Angeles, Jewish students were assaulted in several campus communities as antisemitic incidents skyrocketed, and University of Pennsylvania professors formed a human barricade to disrupt law enforcement while chanting slogans comparing police officers to the Ku Klux Klan for arresting militant protesters.
Here is everything to know about anti-Israel efforts on campus this semester, as well as how radical groups receive help from inside and outside influences and what is being done to combat the antisemitic conduct expected to continue.
Seven anti-Israel campus groups reveal plans for fall semester
Anti-Israel groups are determined to return to campus with “renewed energy” for the fall semester. Seven chapters from universities across the nation shared their plans for the coming semester with the Washington Examiner.
Last semester’s escalation resulted in outbreaks of violence, thousands of students being arrested, encampments being torn down by police, universities caving to the demands of protesters in order to disband other encampments, and dozens of civil rights investigations over allegations of antisemitism.
“The administration will have no peace until they divest all holdings from weapons manufacturers and the Zionist entity,” the University of Chicago’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter told the Washington Examiner. “The university’s repression of pro-Palestine students only breeds resistance.”
“Crackdowns on protests have never worked and have instead just lead to more violence,” Colorado State University’s SJP chapter warned. The chapter said that while it does not have plans to set up an encampment, it will “engage in further action this semester” and will continue to do so “until Palestine is free and the genocide ends.”
Several groups described the disciplinary challenges they must deal with as they all confirmed their efforts will continue this semester. The Palestine Solidarity Committee at the University of Texas, Austin, for example, has been suspended by the school. “This summer has seen a disciplinary process wrongfully brought by the university,” the group said.
As universities around the country implement new rules and face increased scrutiny to enforce the rules they already have on the books, “the risks associated with campus activism have made us more cautious,” Kent State University’s SJP chapter said. “These challenges have unified students and strengthened the movement against genocide, apartheid, and occupation.”
The groups informed the Washington Examiner of plans to demonstrate including protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; boycott, divestment, and sanctions-aligned campus campaigns; marches; speaker events; “politicizing” campuses to stand against Israel; and “educating” their peers on the matter.
Inside and outside help: Faculty plays ‘a pivotal role’
Last semester, many anti-Israel campus groups were openly and privately aided by university employees as well as outside influences. Experts and university employees told the Washington Examiner they expect this to continue in the fall.
The University of Pennsylvania’s anti-Israel encampment and demonstrations featured some of the most notable examples of help and influence from university employees and outside agitators.
The Washington Examiner obtained photos of Penn professors providing aid including transporting supplies and charging batteries, as well as communications between student protesters discussing how one particular professor was “willing to let us use their office” to charge their devices.
The professor being discussed was Huda Fakhreddine, who regularly spoke at encampment rallies and used social media to mobilize students from other universities to participate in the Penn encampment. Fakhreddine is one of two professors who are plaintiffs in a lawsuit aimed at preventing the House Committee on Education and the Workforce from obtaining documents relating to campus antisemitism.
Additionally, Charlotte E. Jacobs, director of the Penn independent school teaching residency program, English professors Chi-ming Yang and Dagmawi Woubshet, and two other faculty members were arrested after forming a human barricade in an attempt to disrupt police as they arrested students and tore down the encampment on May 10.
Two senior administrators and one senior program director at Penn shared their concerns with the Washington Examiner regarding the help anti-Israel protesters received from inside and outside influencers. They said they were particularly “surprised” when they did not see any mention of Jacobs’s arrest despite photos surfacing on the internet, given her position of prominence and work with elite private schools.
The Washington Examiner inquired with the school’s newspaper about their omission of Jacobs from their reporting in June, but no mention was added. One senior administrator characterized the omission as “protecting her from her own adult decisions” while she reaps the “perverse” benefits of her actions “giving her credibility with those who are also ideologues.”
The senior staff members additionally raised concerns about the involvement of Students for Justice in Palestine co-founder Hatem Bazian, who spoke at the encampment, due to his statements and social media posts calling for an “intifada” in America, defending Hamas, and expressing support for terrorists on multiple occasions, as well as his fundraising for a Hamas-linked charity.
Democratic Pennsylvania state Rep. Rick Krajewski also allegedly aided protesters by warning them of the coming police “sweep” of the encampment, according to encampment group chat communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Examiner. This allowed encampment members to hide their “sharps” and reinforce their barricades.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Fakhreddine, Jacobs, Bazian, and Penn for comment.
Another example of alleged staff involvement in anti-Israel activity was recently brought to light in a Tuesday Title VI complaint against the State University of New York, Purchase. A student government leader “desecrat[ed] and damag[ed] private property (including sacred religious items) belonging to Hillel by removing them from a locker and throwing them on the floor,” according to the complaint.
StandWithUs, the organization that filed the complaint, told the Washington Examiner that only the SUNY Purchase administration and police department had access to the key needed to access the locker, according to their understanding of the situation.
The Washington Examiner reached out to SUNY Purchase to inquire about staff involvement in the incident.
In a statement shared with the Washington Examiner, Purchase College president Milagros Peña said that the school rejects antisemitism, is currently investigating the claims, and “remains steadfast in our commitment to providing a safe and hate-free environment where there is zero tolerance for bias, hatred, or discrimination.”
“The missing piece in talking about campus antisemitism, broadly, is faculty,” AMCHA Initiative co-founder Tammi Benjamin told the Washington Examiner in an interview. She said faculty plays “a pivotal role, without which much of what’s happening simply would not be happening.”
Benjamin previewed her report for the AMCHA Initiative that will look at how the increase in faculty organizing under national and international networks following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel has contributed to antisemitism and unrest on campus. She argued that faculty involvement was the driving force keeping the encampments alive as long as they were last semester.
“Unless universities can rein in their faculty and somehow establish and enforce policy to prohibit faculty from using the university as their political playground, the situation will only get worse, much worse, very quickly,” she warned. She explained that faculty have all the leverage over the university presidents because they have tenure and can weaponize votes of no confidence against leaders in their efforts to “capture” campuses.
Benjamin gave an example of a newly established school policy that has already been violated at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she used to teach. The university regents implemented a rule restricting departments from using their website homepage for activist purposes in July, but the school’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department still has an invitation to join the school’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapter up on their homepage over a month later.
The Washington Examiner reached out to UC Santa Cruz for comment.
Jewish groups prepare civil rights action on campuses ‘ripe’ for antisemitism
Last semester’s anti-Israel escalation created a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus, and organizations such as StandWithUs, the Brandeis Center, and the Anti-Defamation League argue that universities and school districts are fostering hostilities through negligence and deliberate actions. The federal government may choose to defund universities that do not comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Those groups have been working to hold schools accountable by filing Title VI civil rights complaints and lawsuits. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened over 100 investigations into universities and school districts around the country in response to antisemitic conduct stemming from campus escalations since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“We’ve spent the entire summer preparing for the upcoming semester,” Yael Lerman, director of StandWithUs’s legal department, told the Washington Examiner in an interview. She said StandWithUs has been “assessing which campuses are ripe for potential Title VI and other legal actions,” as well as creating a number of fact sheets for high schoolers and college students so they “can know what their rights are and what legal actions they can take to protect themselves and fight back against antisemitism.”
“We have spent time training students by conducting ‘know your rights’ sessions,” which inform students of the “free legal resources behind them” and how StandWithUs can help if they witness or are the victim of antisemitism. She also said the organization has “continued working on ongoing cases from the last semester and setting the groundwork for potential lawsuits.”
She added, “We basically have prepared, strategized, expanded our legal team, and put everything in place so that when the new semester starts, we hit the ground running.”
After Jewish students reported feeling increasingly unsafe on campuses last semester, three legal experts explained how the government can step in when civil rights are found to have been violated on campus. Jeffrey Robbins asserted that “not only is it permissible, it’s the responsibility” of the government to defund universities that foster hostile environments for Jewish students.
One major challenge in holding schools accountable that may not be overcome until after the election in November has been a lack of action on Title VI from the Biden-Harris administration. In contrast, former President Donald Trump has promised to come down hard on universities fostering hostile environments for Jewish students, including a vow to deport foreign anti-Israel student protesters who do not “behave.”
In most cases, alleged antisemitic conduct is not made public until it is brought to light in a Title VI complaint or lawsuit. StandWithUs’s Title VI complaint against SUNY Purchase on Tuesday brought to light a student government-led campaign to remove the school’s Hillel that violated school policy and may have resulted in a civil rights violation. The Jewish campus group was allegedly “slander[ed]” with “antisemitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories, including calling Hillel an ‘illegitimate club,’ ‘occupiers,’ and ‘privileged.’”
A major Title VI decision looms at the University of California, Irvine, where a Jewish student was detained, punished, and initially withheld graduation after he slapped a graphically antisemitic poster out of his face, without harming any students. A day after the Washington Examiner reported on this, the school decided to let the student graduate. However, his record has not been cleared, and since this may impact his ability to pass a bar exam, the student, with the help of StandWithUs, must decide whether to pursue Title VI action soon.
The Office of Civil Rights came to its first decision on Title VI investigations related to the war in Gaza in June, finding evidence of violations at the University of Michigan and Hunter College. The office issued a number of requirements both schools agreed to, including the reopening of Hunter College’s investigation into an antisemitic incident, training for faculty and students, and detailed reporting.
‘Basic rules’: What schools are doing to prepare for unrest
With more demonstrations on the horizon as anti-Israel groups gear up for the fall semester, schools are tasked with finding a balance between free speech and civil rights. Schools cannot limit speech but can enforce reasonable “time and place and manner” restrictions so that students of all religious and ethnic backgrounds can have equal access to education under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Washington Examiner discussed preparation plans with some of the schools most affected by last semester’s escalation, including California State Polytechnic University’s Pomona and San Luis Obispo campuses, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the New School.
“Anyone who jeopardizes or undermines the safety of campus through unlawful activity or violations of university policy is subject to the consequences of their actions,” a spokesman for Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, said. “These are not the university’s rules but the basic rules of society by which we all live.”
He added that while the school “believes in and fully supports lawful protests and demonstrations,” one of the most important responsibilities it has is “to ensure the safety and well-being of all members of the campus community.” As a result, “the university will fully enforce the laws and rules governing our campus to protect our community,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Cal Poly, Pomona, noted that the California State University Office of the Chancellor created a new “Interim Systemwide Time, Place, and Manner Policy” following the events of last semester. The Pomona campus has also circulated a free speech guide and has “campus safety plans in place for various scenarios and will continue to watch events at other universities to learn any useful lessons.”
UC Berkeley will “develop a systemwide framework for consistency of implementation and enforcement” of policies aiming to protect students from harassment while maintaining freedom of speech, according to a letter sent to the campus community.
According to a letter sent to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, campus community, the school will be creating a Campus Demonstration Policy Task Force and commissioning an “independent, third-party expert to review the events of April 29-30 and May 7-8, including the interventions of the Demonstration Response and Safety Team (DRST), and risk assessments and administrative decisions that ultimately resulted in police engagement.”
A spokeswoman for the New School, a private college in New York, said the school “regularly reviews its policies and procedures to support a rigorous, equitable, and intellectually challenging learning environment” and “believe[s] deeply in making space for educational dialogue in our community to better understand complex and challenging issues, and in supporting a healthy and safe living, learning and working environment.”
“That long-standing commitment informs our planning for this fall — a process that has been underway since the end of the spring semester — and includes a new course this academic year in Socially Responsible Investing: History, Theory, and Practice that will be open to all members of our community free of charge,” she added.
The Office for Civil Rights has opened up Title VI investigations into UC Berkeley, UMass Amherst, and the New School over tensions related to the war in Gaza since Oct. 7.
Other schools around the country have taken different approaches. A number of universities have suspended or disciplined their Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, while the University of California system has banned encampments and face masks and Northwestern University is implementing “mandatory trainings on antisemitism and other forms of hate” for incoming and returning students.
While universities are implementing new policies aimed at protecting Jewish students from antisemitic campus conduct getting in the way of their education, Lerman from StandWithUs expressed concern about whether schools will actually enforce new and existing policies. “It’s been less about whether we have the rules in place and much more about the total lack of enforcement,” she said.
How Congress is planning to ‘keep the pressure up’
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce held several hearings where members of Congress grilled university presidents over rampant antisemitism on their campuses that substantially increased in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. These hearings were some of the biggest catalysts for anti-Israel escalation.
“The committee’s goal since day one of the investigation has been to ensure the safety of Jewish students on campus, including by holding leaders who were complicit accountable,” AnnMarie Graham-Barnes, the committee’s deputy communications director, told the Washington Examiner.
“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that many of the worst offenders continue to send, at best, mixed signals, so the committee’s expectations for the fall semester are not high,” she said. “When you have Harvard reversing its disciplinary decisions, Columbia cutting ties with only three of the four deans involved in the texting scandal and refusing to punish those involved in encampments/the Hamilton Hall takeover, there’s little incentive coming from universities for individuals to change their behavior.”
“But regardless,” Graham-Barnes added, “the plan remains to keep the pressure up, demand accountability, and make sure the American people know just how bad things are.”
Two campus antisemitism bills will also face consideration after being advanced by the House Ways and Means Committee in June.
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The University Accountability Act would financially penalize schools that receive a civil judgment from a federal court for violating Title VI, and the Protecting American Students Act aims to mitigate campus agitation from foreign influencers by adding approximately a dozen universities to the list of schools paying a tax on their endowments by having them exclude certain foreign students from their head counts.
In May, the House passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which expanded the definition of antisemitism that the Department of Education uses to enforce anti-discrimination laws. The bill has not yet hit the Senate floor.