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Dept. of Education to investigate antisemitism on at least 4 more campuses including Rutgers and Tulane
(JTA) – The U.S. Department of Education has opened 12 new investigations into the handling of discrimination at colleges and school districts since Thanksgiving, in the latest expansion of the department’s scrutiny of civil rights issues since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
At least four — and almost certainly more — of the new investigations are related to antisemitism, which the department vowed in October to combat on college campuses using all of its available tools.
Rutgers University, Tulane University, Santa Monica College and Union College are all facing allegations that they failed to respond adequately to antisemitism, spokespeople for each of the schools confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency or other outlets.
A K-12 school district in Georgia said its investigation was not related to antisemitism, while two other schools declined to say what their investigations concerned. Several major institutions including Stanford University and the University of California-Los Angeles did not respond to requests for comment.
The department’s civil rights office has made a point of focusing on antisemitism- and Islamophobia-related complaints that allege violations of Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on several categories including “shared ancestry.” More than two dozen such cases have been opened since Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, amid political pressure in the face of rising concerns about campus antisemitism.
Many such Title VI cases involving allegations of discrimination toward Jews are brought by pro-Israel advocacy groups, including the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Lawfare Project, which often seek to define anti-Zionist speech in university spaces as antisemitic.
The department has previously initiated investigations at schools including Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania — whose president Liz Magill recently resigned from her post following blowback from her handling of a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. Opening an investigation does not mean that the department believes a complaint has merit.
The agency does not disclose specifics about the investigations it initiates, leaving the schools and advocacy groups that may be involved in the cases to fill in the details. But even the schools themselves say they are not always immediately aware of why they are being investigated. An education department spokesperson pointed to a November press release about antisemitism- and Islamophobia-related investigations as “context” for the latest round.
A spokesperson for Rutgers University in New Jersey, which had an investigation opened into it on Monday, told JTA it was over “alleged incidents of harassment in October and November 2023 of students on the basis of their national origin (shared Jewish ancestry and/or Israel).” The spokesperson said the school was given no further details.
A hedge outside Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, July 30, 2016. (Tomwsulcer via Creative Commons)
Rutgers this week announced it was suspending its campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine following allegations of disruptive protests. The school also briefly suspended its law school’s Student Bar Association last month after it tried to impeach a Jewish member over a message-board battle about Israel and Hamas.
A spokesperson for Tulane University in New Orleans, which had an investigation opened Dec. 5, also told JTA that its inquiry was tied to antisemitism concerns — specifically over an Oct. 26 pro-Palestinian rally held near the university at which four individuals not affiliated with Tulane were arrested and several people, including Jewish students, were injured.
“Antisemitism and other forms of hate have no place at Tulane University,” spokesperson Michael Strecker said in a statement. “The incident at the center of this investigation took place at a rally organized by a group that is not recognized by Tulane. The rally was deliberately staged on public property contiguous to our campus but over which we have no control.”
Strecker added that the university increased security on campus and increased its own antisemitism training, among other measures, following the incident, and that it would “fully comply” with the investigation. A lawyer for one of the Jewish students assaulted at the rally told Tulane’s student newspaper they “had no idea” about the investigation.
A trustee for Santa Monica College told a local newspaper that its own investigation, opened Dec. 4, was also related to antisemitism, as a student club council had briefly denied recognition to a local chapter of Students Supporting Israel in late October. University administrators reversed the decision the next day, saying there was “no lawful basis” to deny the club; in a statement, the college told the Santa Monica Daily Press, “This prompt action demonstrates the college’s commitment to a discrimination-free environment for all students.”
And a statement from Union College in Schenectady, New York, reveals that its own investigation opened Dec. 5 also involves allegations of “a claim of discrimination toward Jewish students.”
“Specifically, the unnamed complainant alleges that Union College failed to respond appropriately to incidents of harassment in October and November 2023,” the statement reads. It goes on to say that the school “stands against hate in all forms, including antisemitism,” and “has seen no violence, or threats of violence, on campus since the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas on Israel.”
Cherry blossoms on the University of Washington Quad in Seattle, March 14, 2010. (Brewbooks via Creative Commons)
Representatives at two other universities, the University of Washington-Seattle and the University of California-San Diego, told JTA they would cooperate with their investigations but did not say whether the inquiries involved antisemitism. Cobb County School District in Georgia told a local reporter that the investigation opened into it on Dec. 5 was not related to antisemitism.
Requests for comment to the other colleges that have also had recent discrimination investigations opened were not returned. The other schools are UCLA; Stanford; Whitman College; Montana State University; and the University of Cincinnati.
Recent news reports from some of these colleges indicate that they, too, have been the sites of conflict involving Jewish concerns. A conservative radio station has reported that staff at a University of Washington diversity and inclusion office emailed students Oct. 25 to call Israel “oppressors and colonizers, while Palestine stands as the oppressed and colonized.” The letter also accused Israel of “genocide” and said, “We firmly support the cause of Palestinians and their fight for freedom from the unlawful and oppressive settler colonial apartheid state.” The letter was reportedly unsanctioned by the school and staffers who sent it were disciplined.
A video shared on social media from UCSD in November claimed that the university had evacuated a building in which Jewish students were discussing antisemitic threats against them; the university denied the allegations. The video showed pro-Palestinian protesters gathering outside an area where Jewish students were congregating.
At UCLA, administrators last month condemned antisemitic language spoken by students at a pro-Palestinian protest at which students bashed a piñata with an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while yelling through a microphone, “Beat that f–king Jew.”
And at the University of Cincinnati, the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was admonished shortly before Halloween for a social media post that promoted a “Spooky Zionist” meeting theme, according to local reports.
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The post Dept. of Education to investigate antisemitism on at least 4 more campuses including Rutgers and Tulane appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
The post Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
The post Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue first appeared on Algemeiner.com.