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I thought the law school where I teach had my back. Then came the Hamas attacks on Israel.
CHICAGO (JTA) — I have been a law professor at DePaul University College of Law for several decades. DePaul is an urban, Vincentian, Catholic university that has long been a school of choice for First-Gen students, including law students. As a First-Gen college and law school graduate, I identify with the mission of the school and have always taken great pride in my professional affiliation.
In recent years, people often ask me about the climate at DePaul, specifically in the context of antisemitism facing Jewish students. Personally, I have not encountered any negativity or hostility from any of my students or colleagues, despite being openly Jewish and observant. In fact, several of my Muslim students have talked to me about Judaism and my faith. We have compared notes and shared perspectives. One of my most recent research assistants, a Palestinian man with extended family living in Israel, came across my book “Remix Judaism,” and we had a great conversation about whether and how its concepts could apply to his religion. We also talked about Israel and what life is like for his family living there. This is the model of what education should be: open conversation and communication that broadens one’s horizons and viewpoints.
Still, like almost all universities, DePaul has hopped onto the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion train and that ride often is tone-deaf to antisemitism. At my law school, despite a multitude of DEI trainings over the past several years, not one faculty program dealt with antisemitism or the challenges facing Jewish individuals in our current reality (despite my suggesting we make this a focus of one program). This past summer, another research assistant who was helping me edit a law review article about the Holocaust and “ghetto art” told me that of all the programs required for students focusing on tolerance and inclusivity, not one even touched upon Jews or antisemitism.
Thankfully, however, my law school has been spared the type of ugly incidents that have plagued other law schools such as Berkeley, where student groups pledged to block speakers who held pro-Israel views, and CUNY, where a law student used her graduation speech to denounce Israel and it supporters.
But at DePaul’s undergraduate campus several miles north, things are different. Last December, an article in the Wall Street Journal reported that students at DePaul University “ejected Jewish students who support Israel from clubs and study groups,” citing affected students. When the president of our university communicated to us about this article, he emphasized his desire to fight antisemitism in our community and asked for our input. I wrote to him emphasizing that if schools are funding clubs that exclude students simply because they are pro-Israel, that is a cause for concern unaddressed by his community letter. To my surprise, he never responded to me, even when I sent the letter again a month later. I took note but still wanted to give the benefit of the doubt.
But the university’s communication to us on the Monday after Israel was attacked by Hamas was a wake-up call. Our president and three other high-level administrators opened their message to the DePaul community with the following words: “Our hearts ache to see the horrific violence and tragic loss of life taking place right now in Israel and Gaza. We pray for peace.” Later on, it called for “an immediate de-escalation of the current situation.”
I sat with this grossly inadequate and maddening communication overnight, and the following day I once again reached out to our president to express my deep disappointment with the letter’s failure to call out, and explicitly condemn, the barbaric terrorism perpetrated upon Israel. I pointed out that, by comparison, the university spared no effort in the past in calling out other bad actors in connection with racial and other injustices. In contrast, the university’s pleas for de-escalation in this context not only diminished the suffering of those who were so brutally attacked, but also compounded the pain for Jewish students, staff and faculty, all of whom were already feeling isolated and fragile.
Again, no response. And to the best of my knowledge, none of the other faculty I know who wrote to the president received a response. It is almost as though the entire DePaul Jewish community had become invisible in the academic home I had cherished for so long.
In recent years, higher education in the United States has become the target of well-deserved criticism regarding not only an absence of educational rigor but also a troubling lack of viewpoint diversity in most universities. Too many vitally important conversations on matters involving hotly contested political and cultural issues can only be held behind closed doors rather than in classrooms or at faculty meetings.
But when terrorists kill over 1,400 Jews, the choice to refrain from explicitly condemning those who perpetrated these unimaginable atrocities cannot be justified. I have no clue as to why DePaul, and so many other universities, failed to condemn explicitly the terrorism. Some might attribute it to the academy’s love-affair with the concept of “intersectionality,” which almost always results in a negative stance toward Israel, even if not Jews as a whole. Or could it be just plain old antisemitism dressed up in a more “intellectually respectable” exterior?
Whatever the reason, by making this choice in the wake of Oct. 7, DePaul University has sent a clear message to its Jewish students, faculty, staff and alumni. I can no longer give the benefit of the doubt.
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Brown University Reactivates Students for Justice in Palestine Following Suspension
Illustrative: Brown University students gathered outside University Hall. Photo: Amy Russo of USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
Brown University has reinstated Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a notorious anti-Zionist group widely recognized as a leading driver of campus antisemitism, following a suspension related to its conduct at anti-Israel demonstrations last year.
“Brown leaders have continued to work to ensure that all members of our campus community understand the expectations and community standards for demonstrations and protests on campus,” university spokesman Brian Clark told The Brown Daily Herald, which first reported the story on Tuesday. “While Brown’s policies make clear that protest is an acceptable means of expression on campus, it cannot interfere with the normal functions of the university.”
Brown University first launched investigations into its anti-Israel groups and individual students following their riotous conduct during a protest of the Brown Corporation that was held in October 2024.
Staged outside the Warren Alpert Medical School to inveigh against the corporation’s recent rejection of a proposal to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — which aims to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination — the demonstration saw the Ivy League students engage in harassment and intimidation, according to a community notice obtained by The Algemeiner. The protesters repeatedly struck a bus transporting the corporation’s trustees from the area, shouted expletives at them, and even lodged a “a racial epithet … toward a person of color.”
Other trustees were stalked to their destinations while some were obstructed from entering their bus, according to the missive by Russell Carey, Brown’s interim vice president for campus life and executive vice president of planning and policy. The official added that the students — many of whom are members of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has links to terrorist organizations, and its spin-off, Brown Divest Coalition (BDC) — harmed not only the trustees but also the university as an institution of higher learning.
Speaking to The Herald, anti-Israel activists denied any wrongdoing and accused Carey of inciting an “attempt to attack and defame student protesters holding the corporation accountable to their decision to continue to invest in companies enabling genocide and apartheid.” Framing themselves as victims, the students added that the Brown Corporation should be “deeply ashamed.”
Brown went on to suspend SJP, stripping the group of its recognition and privileges.
According to The Herald, the university has terminated the suspension and re-recognized SJP despite finding it guilty of “disruption of community” and “harm to persons.” However, the group is on probation until the end of this academic year.
An SJP operator acknowledged that political pressure may have contributed to the group’s reinstatement, noting that a local American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter demanded that the university lift its suspension in January in a letter which lodged allegations of free speech violations.
Even with the group restored to good standing, its activity remains restricted. It may not “hold rallies or demonstrations for the remainder of the academic year” and is barred from holding “teach-ins and speaker events until November,” the Herald said.
Anti-Israel and far-left activity has caused Brown to incur exorbitant financial penalties imposed by the US federal government.
In July, Brown agreed to pay $50 million dollars and enact a series of reforms put forth by the Trump administration to settle claims involving alleged sex discrimination and antisemitism, the school’s president, Christina Paxson, announced.
“The university’s foremost priority throughout discussions with the government was remaining true to our academic mission, our core values, and who we are as a community at Brown,” Paxson wrote. “This is reflected in key provisions of the resolution agreement preserving our academic independence, as well as a commitment to pay $50 million in grants over 10 years to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island, which is aligned with our service and community engagement mission.”
The resolution made Brown University the latest higher education institution at the time to accede to US President Donald Trump’s demands for policies that would pull academia back from what he has described as an ideologically leftward drift that has precipitated racial hatred against Jews and violations of the rights of women designated as female at birth. The government is rewarding Brown’s propitiating by restoring access to $510 million in federal research grants and contracts it impounded.
Per the agreement, shared by Paxson, Brown will provide women athletes locker rooms based on sex, not one’s self-chosen gender identity — a monumental concession by a university that is reputed as one of the most progressive in the country — and adopt the Trump administration’s definition of “male” and “female,” as articulated in a January 2025 executive order issued by Trump. Additionally, Brown has agreed not to “perform gender reassignment surgery or prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to any minor child for the purpose of aligning the child’s appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex.”
Regarding campus antisemitism, the agreement calls for Brown University to reduce anti-Jewish bias on campus by forging ties with local Jewish Day Schools, launching “renewed partnerships with Israeli academics and national Jewish organizations,” and boosting support for its Judaic Studies program. Brown must also conduct a “climate survey” of Jewish students to collect raw data of their campus experiences.
Another major provision shutters any Brown initiatives which may advance the aims of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement.
“Brown shall not maintain programs that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotas, diversity targets, or similar efforts,” the agreement stipulated. “Brown will cease any provision of benefits or advantages to individuals on the basis of protected characteristics in any school, component, division, department, foundation, association, or element within the entire Brown University system.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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New MIT Accuser Comes Forward With Harrowing Antisemitism Allegations
Illustrative” A pro-Hamas encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 6, 2024. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is being accused by another alleged victim of refusing, as de-facto policy, to quell antisemitic discrimination which violated rights guaranteed by Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act.
The complainant, a male researcher, came forward to join a lawsuit that the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed in June, which required its being amended to include him. According to court documents shared with The Algemeiner, he endured psychological torment, having been swarmed by “masked” pro-Hamas activists clamoring for the destruction of Israel and students who “interrogated” his Jewish identity, pelting him with slurs and threatening to “prevent” his reproducing to bring “more Jewish children” into the world.
While administrators received formal complaints describing in harrowing detail the severity of the bullying being perpetrated against the student, they allegedly took no action. Left to stand alone, the student resorted to concealing his Jewishness on a campus which purports to be one of the most inclusive in the country.
“Antisemitism continues to persist at MIT, ultimately allowing the abuse to escalate until a promising Israeli researcher was forced from his lab. This not only deeply impacts this individual, but an entire campus and the communities this researcher, and other like them, could help through their work over the course of their careers,” Brandeis center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “MIT has had countless opportunities to stop this harassment and protect their Israeli and Jewish students and faculty. Instead, antisemitism has only worsened at MIT — an outcome made possible by the administration’s continued negligence.”
As previously reported, the other plaintiffs, Lior Alon and William Sussman, allege that MIT became inhospitable to Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, as pro-Hamas activists there issued calls to “globalize the intifada,” interrupted lessons with “speeches, chants, and screams,” and discharged their bodily fluids on campus properties administered by Jews. Jewish institutions at MIT came under further attack when a pro-Hamas group circulated a “terror-map” on campus which highlighted buildings associated with Jews and Israelis and declared, “resistance is justified when people are colonized.”
The suit added that Alon — who lived through both intifadas, or periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels, as a citizen of Israel and lost his childhood friend to the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre — has personally been victimized by campus antisemites. During anti-Israel encampment protests in spring term 2024, Alon was prohibited from entering the Kresge Lawn section of campus, through which he needed to pass to access his office. The edict allegedly came down from pro-Hamas activists and was enforced by an MIT police officer, who became an accessory to the group’s usurpation of school property.
Later, Alon was allegedly harassed by Michel DeGraff, a tenured linguistics professor. According to the suit, DeGraff posted videos of Alon on social media, replete with his “personal information, including details of his Israeli military services,” as well as spurious accounts of his life which portrayed him as sinister. The productions inspired misfits to approach him in the streets, as they showed up at “the grocery store and his child’s daycare.”
All the while, MIT’s administration allegedly refused to correct the hostile environment.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, MIT has allegedly ignored dozens of complaints of antisemitic discrimination. Discrimination there has been described in harrowing testimony provided by students at hearings called by the US Congress, in social media posts, and in comments to this publication. Only last year, MIT student Talia Khan told members of Congress that attending the institution “traumatized” her, charging that it has “become overrun by terrorist supporters that directly threaten the lives of Jews on our campus.”
Khan went on to recount MIT’s efforts to suppress expressions of solidarity with Israel after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, which included ordering Jewish students to remove Israeli flags from public display while allowing Palestinian flags to fly across campus. She described the double standard as a “scandal” alienating Jewish students, staff, and faculty, many of whom resigned from an allegedly farcical committee on antisemitism. Staff were ignored, Khan said, after expressing fear that their lives were at risk, following an incident in which a mob of anti-Zionists amassed in front of the MIT Israel Internship office and attempted to infiltrate it, banging on its doors while “screaming” that Jews are committing genocide.
“These incidents demonstrate what happens when antisemitism is allowed to flourish in the absence of leadership and accountability,” Jonathan Polkes, global co-chair of legal practice White & Case, the law firm partnering with the Brandeis Center to litigate the suit, said on Wednesday. “Through its inaction, MIT allowed a tenured professor to use his position of power to persecute Jews without consequence — breaking both federal and university laws in the process. Our clients are taking a courageous stand against injustice, and we are proud to represent them.”
Commenting on the lawsuit, MIT has previously said, “MIT will defend itself in court regarding the allegations raised in the lawsuit. To be clear, MIT rejects antisemitism. As President Kornbluth has said, ‘Antisemitism is real, and it is rising in the world. We cannot let it poison our community.’”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Charlie Kirk’s Producer Debunks Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theories Pushed by Lawmaker, Podcasters, Pro-Iran Propagandist
US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club, Washington, DC, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA) via Reuters Connect
Last week’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has animated a wave of anti-Israel conspiracy theories, inspiring voices on both the far right and far left to join together in promoting an assortment of unsubstantiated claims inflected with conventional antisemitic tropes.
On Monday, Kirk’s producer and a billionaire supporter of Israel both rejected the allegations fueled by Max Blumenthal, a fiercely anti-Israel journalist promoted by Iranian state media who carries a long record of smearing the Jewish state.
Blumenthal, editor of the Grayzone website, published claims from anonymous sources that Kirk had been pressured at a Hamptons gathering hosted by billionaire Bill Ackman weeks before his death. Kirk was reportedly “hammered” over his views on Israel by Ackman and other pro-Israel advocates, leaving him to feel blackmailed.
The report named Natasha Hausdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel as among those who berated Kirk. Hausdorff confirmed to the New York Post that she attended the meeting but called the accusation “categorically untrue” and added that whoever said it “is absolutely lying.” Ackman also denied the charge, calling the claim “totally false.”
Blumenthal has long written articles sympathetic to Hezbollah, the former Assad regime in Syria, and Hamas. In 2013, he notably published Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, which Eric Alterman, media columnist for the leftist flagship magazine The Nation, described as “a propaganda tract” that could “have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed).”
The Grayzone report has since influenced Candace Owens, the podcaster who has been widely accused of antisemitism, and US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), among others, demonstrating a convergence between far-left and far-right figures in promoting antisemitic narratives and anti-Israel conspiracies.
Owens — who previously worked with Kirk before her shift to open, unapologetic opposition to Israel and promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories, which resulted in her termination from her job as podcaster at The Daily Wire in March 2024 — claimed during a Monday monologue that pro-Israel forces staged an “intervention” with Kirk involving Ackman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She alleged Kirk, an outspoken supporter of Israel who often called out the dangers of antisemitism, was changing his views and offered “a ton of money” to remain pro-Israel, comparing the meeting to a “re-education camp.” Owens said Kirk refused the offers, warning her followers to be “very wary and suspicious of the people who are already telling us to stop asking questions about the Charlie Kirk assassination.”
The podcaster later clarified that she was not directly accusing Israel of orchestrating the murder but argued Kirk had faced “extreme pressure” over his views. Owens also shared social media posts criticizing Netanyahu, captioning one with “All will be revealed.”
Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, responded on X, saying Owens had “slandered” him by accusing him of staging an intervention and suggesting that he blackmailed Kirk. He denied ever offering Kirk or Turning Point USA, the political advocacy organization he started, any money, pressuring him on Israel, or threatening him. “In short, this was not an ‘intervention’ to ‘blackmail’ Charlie Kirk into adopting certain views on Israel,” Ackman wrote in his statement. He described his interactions with Kirk as cordial and said he admired him.
Ackman said he and Kirk first connected on Zoom in June, then worked together to organize a conference of conservative influencers in Bridgehampton in August. He said about 35 influencers attended, collectively reaching more than 100 million followers, and that discussions included a range of issues such as economics, dating, immigration, and Israel. He added that participants expressed varied views on Israel and US support for the country.
Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” corroborated Ackman’s account. In a statement, Kolvet said he had spoken with three Turning Point staffers who were present at the gathering in question and that “Bill never yelled at Charlie, never pressed him on Bibi [Netanyahu], never gave him a list of Charlie’s offenses against Israel.” Kolvet added that Kirk himself had told him he had a “cordial relationship” with Ackman and that the event was “productive.”
Despite those denials, the conspiracy theories gained further traction on the far right. Greene wrote on X that supporters should “believe Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson” over “Bibi Netanyahu (a foreign country’s leader),” before warning: “Do not allow a foreign country, foreign agents, and another religion tell you about Charlie Kirk. And I hope a foreign country and foreign agents and another religion does not take over Christian Patriotic Turning Point USA.” She described Kirk as a “Christian martyr” and suggested Jewish influence threatened his movement.
On July 28, Greene accused Israel of engaging in a genocide in Gaza.
The New York Post reported that Owens’ comments relied in part on Blumenthal’s Grayzone article. In addition, Owens suggested law enforcement had intentionally allowed Kirk’s killer to evade capture, though police have charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah with the shooting.
Authorities have not presented any evidence linking Israel or pro-Israel figures to the crime. Rather, the alleged shooter’s animosity toward Kirk’s positions on LGBTQ issues appears to have inspired the attack, according to prosecutors.