The level of overt bigotry and intolerance that Jewish students face on college campuses is unprecedented. The Anti-Defamation League tallied a 500% increase in antisemitic acts on campus from Oct. 7, 2023, to Sept. 24, 2024, compared to the same period in the prior year. The ADL separately found that 73% of American Jewish college students personally experienced or witnessed an act of antisemitism in just the first three months of the 2023-24 school year. It is time to invoke the “nuclear option” and put universities on notice that if they cannot intervene to protect their Jewish and pro-Israel students, their federal funding will be cut off.
This spiraling hatred is no coincidence, as bad actors have targeted our country’s institutions of higher learning, and administrators have not acted boldly to stop it, as required by law. The ugliness is being driven by the explicitly genocidal boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign, which calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, with BDS founder Omar Barghouti saying the campaigners “oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.” Frequently, university professors are the ones leading this movement, leaving students fearful both within and outside the classroom. The AMCHA Initiative has found that “schools that are promoting BDS or other kinds of anti-Zionist rhetoric … are three to eight times more likely to have incidents that target Jewish students for harm.”
In theory, relief is available through the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which is empowered to address violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects people from discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin. For example, OCR found that the University of Vermont had mishandled antisemitism complaints, possibly creating a hostile environment for some Jewish students. As part of an agreement to resolve OCR’s investigation, the “university agreed to review and revise its policies to ensure that the university’s response is consistent with federal law, provide training to staff, and educate students and staff about Title VI’s prohibition of harassment.”
However, the sad truth is that OCR investigations typically take months, if not years, and rarely create any meaningful change. In the meantime, universities have tolerated and, in some cases, even perpetrated rampant abuses against their Jewish and Israeli students. At Northwestern University, it was discovered that faculty members and Northwestern’s provost were willing to appease organizers of illegal encampments by removing Sabra hummus from campus dining facilities because of the brand’s perception as an Israeli product. At the University of California, Berkeley, law school, nine campus affinity groups, including Women of Berkeley Law, prohibited supporters of Israel from speaking about any topic — effectively banning 90% of Berkeley’s Jewish law students, according to Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. At Columbia University, a campus rabbi called on Jewish students last spring to stay home after the administration lost control of the campus to an anti-Israel mob.
Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary of education for civil rights, told lawmakers in September that it was unlikely that universities would lose federal funding over antisemitism in the near term. A 325-page report by the education committee of the U.S. House of Representatives found a widespread lack of accountability for “antisemitic harassment, assault, trespass, and destruction of school property” from some university leaders. The House committee’s findings “indicate the need for a fundamental reassessment of federal support for postsecondary institutions that have failed to meet their obligations to protect Jewish students, faculty, and staff, and to maintain a safe and uninterrupted learning environment for all students,” according to the report. The report also found that despite the overwhelming and dangerous levels of antisemitism, universities such as Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia either dismissed the allegations or became combative with those who were trying to solve the crisis on their hands.
The uncomfortable truth is that universities have received billions of dollars in federal funding for student aid, research and development, and institutional support. In addition, their tax-exempt status has allowed them to grow multibillion-dollar endowments. Meanwhile, universities are also taking billions of dollars further hand-over-fist from foreign governments, with the largest being the jihadist-adjacent monarchy of Qatar. This Persian Gulf petrostate is the longtime host of the terrorist group Hamas and is notorious for treating a large percentage of its population as slave labor. Many of these campuses maintain anti-Israel Middle East studies programs that receive federal funding despite being affiliated with the hateful Middle East Studies Association, which calls for an academic boycott of Israel. It’s no wonder that Jewish students are declining admission offers from elite schools where they are neither protected nor welcome.
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The reality is that American taxpayer dollars should not fund institutions that contravene the principles of religious freedom and tolerance. The federal government must act to prompt real change on campus. In the 1960s, the federal government withheld federal money from school districts over their refusal to integrate, leading to the rapid collapse of the segregationist education system. Today, Congress and the executive branch should act boldly to ensure the end of institutional antisemitism in higher education.
The rule should be simple: Maintain no tolerance for BDS or antisemitism on campus or lose access to all federal funding. Only in this way can our colleges and universities return to their core mission of welcoming and educating all students, which is no less than they, and all U.S. taxpayers, deserve.
Eyal Yakoby, a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in political science and modern Middle East studies, is a prominent voice on issues of radicalism and antisemitism in universities.