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University of California, Santa Barbara Accused of Ignoring Antisemitic Bullying of Student

University of California, Santa Barbara student body president Tessa Veksler on Feb. 26, 2024. Photo: Instagram

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) has been accused of responding inadequately to the antisemitic harassment of its Jewish student government president, Tessa Veksler, and thus violating Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act, The Algemeiner has learned.

According to a civil rights complaint filed with the US Department of Education by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Veksler was endlessly bullied at UCSB after Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7. Anti-Zionists there allegedly sent her threatening messages, called her a “Ziofascist,” and slashed pictures of her displayed around the campus.

In February, her bullies escalated their scare tactics, graffitiing over a dozen messages at the school’s Multicultural Center which called her a “neutral ass b—ch” and said “resistance is justified,” “you can run but you can’t hide Tessa Veksler,” and “get these Zionists out of office.” Additionally, someone graffitied “Zionist not welcome” on a door, just inches away from a mezuzah, a small parchment scroll containing Hebrew verses from the Torah that members of the Jewish community fix to their doorposts

Later, a faction of anti-Zionists in the student government attempted to remove Veksler from office.

The Brandeis Center alleges that UCSB did not address the problem in a way that is consistent with its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which requires universities to implement robust measures that stop discriminatory behavior and prevent its recurrence.

“The harassment started online, and the university didn’t do anything to intervene despite Ms. Veksler’s pleading with them to intervene due to the negative effects on her mental health and the undermining of her ability to lead the student body,” Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives at the Brandies Center, told The Algemeiner during an interview on Friday. “The harassment only intensified and continued, moving to the physical campus.”

Katz-Prober continued, “We’d like to see the university acknowledge, recognize, and condemn the anti-Zionist form of antisemitism that motivated the harassment which targeted Ms. Veksler on the basis of her Jewish identity. A statement they issued condemning ‘all forms of hate’ is just not enough given the antisemitism students are enduring in our time.”

Veksler is a senior political science major who was elected in April 2023 as president of UCSB Associated Students (AS), making history by becoming the school’s first ever Shabbat-observant student body president. At the time, Veksler told The Algemeiner that becoming president was always her “far-distant” goal. Since then, she has become one of the most recognized leaders of the pro-Zionist student movement, traveling to colleges across the country to speak to other students about the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity and the importance of resisting antisemitism.

On Friday she told The Algemeiner that the discrimination she endured derailed her presidency.

“The incidents of the past seven months were designed to make my life miserable,” she said. “They called me a ‘genocide supporter,’ ‘a baby killer,’ and pushed libel claims. So much of it was based on information that is completely untrue. People accused me of doxxing students, although I never did, and that’s something that people continue to hang on to. People have even commented on my complaint, saying it’s ridiculous that a white person is pursuing a civil rights case.”

She continued, “They don’t want to recognize Jews as a minority group that can experience hate, but if you look at any of the things that people said to me online, calling me a ‘Ziofascist’ and a ‘Nazi,’ it’s obvious that my identity makes me a walking target.”

College campuses across the West have become hubs of antisemitism since the Oct. 7 attacks. Both students and faculty have demonized Israel and rationalized Hamas’ terror onslaught, and incidents of harassment and even violence against Jewish students have increased. As a result, Jewish students, who in at least one instance were threatened with rape and mass murder, have reported feeling unsafe and unprotected.

Earlier this year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) measured the rise of antisemitism on college campuses, finding a 321 percent increase in antisemitic incidents.

“What has been allowed to happen to Tessa over many months — shaming, harassing, and shunning a student until they disavow a part of their Judaism — is shameful and illegal,” Brandeis Center chairman and former US assistant education secretary Kenneth Marcus said on Thursday. “Sadly, this is not the first time we are seeing this mob behavior against a Jewish student elected by their student body to serve. It is incumbent upon UC Santa Barbara and all universities to say ‘enough is enough.’”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post University of California, Santa Barbara Accused of Ignoring Antisemitic Bullying of Student first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Students Face Increasing Hostility as Antisemitism Surges in France, New Report Finds

Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Antisemitism in France has increasingly targeted Jewish students, exposing them to more violent rhetoric and behavior since the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war in October 2023, according to a new bombshell report.

The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews, on Wednesday released a major study on the scale of hatred and violence specifically targeting Jewish students in the country due to their religion or origin. The report, compiled jointly with the Jean-Jaurès Foundation and French media company IFOP, is based on testimonies and interviews with Jewish male and female students educated across the country.

The study comes amid a rise in antisemitism in France following Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. According to CRIF, the study’s findings highlight how everyday antisemitism, through its presence in daily language, helps legitimize more violent rhetoric and behavior.

During the 2023-2024 school year, the Ministry of National Education recorded 1,670 antisemitic incidents, accounting for nearly half of the total 3,630 racist and antisemitic acts reported.

This shows a 300 percent increase in antisemitic incidents from the 2022-2023 school year, with 400 antisemitic acts out of 1,270 total racist and antisemitic incidents reported. The proportion of antisemitic acts has also grown from less than a third to nearly half of all recorded incidents.

The study explains that the antisemitism emerging in schools stigmatizes and isolates students, particularly due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making it difficult for them to “report on the hostility they experience.”

Based on the testimonies and interviews conducted, researchers found that the school experience of Jewish students is predominantly similar, chiefly marked by an “invasive anti-Jewish hostility.”

“Faced with this hostility and in order to protect themselves, students try to remain in the background: hiding their Jewish identity or their connection to Israel, and being careful not to respond to the challenges and accusations from their peers, which are often directed at them through the figure of Israel,” the report says.

In the testimonies of Jewish students, it’s not only the Gaza war that dominates everyday conversations but also a particular anti-Israel perspective. The study found that a “demonized image of Israel” is brought into schools, and “this image is expressed through a division between two sides, one of good and one of evil.”

In response, the interviewed students said they developed a sense of distrust and feel the need to conceal their Jewish identity to avoid the antisemitic hostility they believe is directed at them.

According to a CRIF report from January, antisemitism in France continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded.

The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.

Antisemitism skyrocketed in France following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In late May and early June, antisemitic acts rose by more than 140 percent, far surpassing the weekly average of slightly more than 30 incidents.

The report also found that 65.2 percent of antisemitic acts last year targeted individuals, with more than 10 percent of these offenses involving physical violence.

One such incident occurred in late June, when an elderly Jewish woman was attacked in a Paris suburb by two assailants who punched her in the face, pushed her to the ground, and kicked her while hurling antisemitic slurs, including “dirty Jew, this is what you deserve.”

CRIF’s data also showed that 192 antisemitic acts were committed in schools, which accounted for 12.2 percent of all such incidents recorded last year.

The post Jewish Students Face Increasing Hostility as Antisemitism Surges in France, New Report Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Americans, Especially Democrats, Becoming Less Sympathetic to Israel, Poll Finds

People walk at a square where Israeli flags are displayed, amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, July 16, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Ricardo Moraes

American sympathies regarding the Middle East are sharply shifting against Israel, according to a new Gallup poll. 

The poll, which collected responses from Feb. 3-16 and released its findings on Thursday, found that 46 percent of Americans sympathize with Israelis and 33 percent sympathize with Palestinians, reflecting the lowest level of support for the Jewish state in the 25 years of the survey’s existence. The Jewish state’s previous low-point in the poll stood at 51 percent in 2001. 

Moreover, American sympathy toward Palestinians has steadily climbed over the past decade. In 2015, only 15 percent of Americans expressed sympathy with Palestinians over Israelis. By 2023, that number increased to 27 percent. 

Democrats and Republicans also hold widely disparate views on Israel and the Palestinians, according to the poll. Approximately 83 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats currently have a “favorable” view of Israel, representing a staggering 50-point partisan gap. Though Republican support for Israel has largely remained stable since the start of the ongoing war in Gaza, Democratic support for the Jewish state has collapsed in recent years, dropping 20 points between 2022 and 2025. 

This is the first year that the majority of either major political party expressed an “unfavorable” view of Israel, with 60 percent of Democrats indicating a negative opinion of the Jewish state. In addition, 40 percent of self-described independent voters indicated an “unfavorable” view of Israel. 

The recent survey by Gallup is the latest indicator that support for Israel is increasingly fragmenting along partisan lines. An Economist/YouGov survey from last month found that 35 percent of Democrats indicate their sympathies “are more with” Palestinians, and only 9 percent say they are more sympathetic toward Israelis. Meanwhile, 32 percent of Democrats responded that their sympathies are “about equal” between both Palestinians and Israelis, and another 24 percent were not sure. That same poll revealed that 60 percent of Republicans expressed sympathy with Israelis, while 6 percent expressed more sympathy toward Palestinians.

Shifting views of Israel among the Democratic base have likely influenced liberal lawmakers to stake out more adversarial positions against the Jewish state. Although Democratic politicians have repeatedly reiterated that Israel has a right to “defend itself,” many have raised concerns over the Jewish state’s conduct in the war in Gaza. Many Democrats reportedly exerted private pressure on former US President Joe Biden to adopt a more aggressive stance against Israel and display more public sympathy for the Palestinians.

In November 2024, 17 Democrats voted in favor of implementing a partial arms embargo against Israel. Every Republican senator voted against the attempted embargo. High-profile Democratic lawmakers, such as Jon Ossoff (D-GA), accused Israel of behaving with “reckless disregard” for the lives of Palestinians. Ossoff also lectured Israel to “have mercy on the innocent.” However, some Democrats, such as Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), have expressed unwavering support for Israel and have lambasted their liberal peers for abandoning support for the Jewish state.

The post Americans, Especially Democrats, Becoming Less Sympathetic to Israel, Poll Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump Administration Slashes $400 Million in Funding for Columbia University

US President Donald Trump greets Republican lawmakers before addressing a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025. Photo: USA Today via Reuters Connect.

The Trump administration has canceled $400 million in funding to Columbia University as punishment for the school’s failing to address campus antisemitism, executing an ultimatum delivered by US Education Secretary Linda McMahon this week.

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Columbia University remains one of the most hostile campuses for Jews employed by or enrolled in an institution of higher education. Since Oct. 7, 2023, it has produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, brutal gang-assaults on Jewish students, and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.

“Since Oct. 7, 2023, Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and antisemitic harassment on their campuses — only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them,” McMahon said in an announcement issued by the members of the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism on Friday. “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus.”

Leo Terrell, who leads the Department of Justice’s task force, added, “This is only the beginning. Canceling these taxpayer funds is our strongest signal yet that the federal government is not going to be party to an education institution like Columbia that does not protect Jewish students and staff.”

Meanwhile, Columbia University has said, “We are reviewing the announcement from the federal agencies and pledge to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding. We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff.”

US President Donald Trump has warned higher education institutions that failing to rein in anti-Zionist agitators could result in sustained injuries to their financial health.

As a candidate for president, he suggested taxing their lucrative endowment funds, some of which are valued at dollar amounts that equal or eclipse the entire gross domestic product (GDP) of dozens of small but prosperous countries across the world. For example, Harvard University — which recently settled a major antisemitism lawsuit it fought tooth and nail to discredit — is notably richer than the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the oil-rich nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

On Tuesday, Trump threatened to suspend federal funding to any educational institution that refuses to quell riotous demonstrations and discipline pro-Hamas agitators who foster anti-Jewish hatred.

“All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests,” Trump said in a statement posted on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2022. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”

He added, “No masks!”

Other prestigious schools have been accused of refusing to protect the civil rights of Jewish students.

In a recent “Campus Report Card” issued by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), no Ivy League institution — save Dartmouth College, whose “B” grade led the pack — earned better than a “C,” a mark given to Brown University, Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Princeton University, Yale University, and Columbia University rated lowest, scoring “D” grades.

Harvard’s receiving a “C” comes amid a period described by observers as a low point in its history. The institution, America’s oldest and arguably most prestigious, recently settled a merged lawsuit in which two groups accused it of refusing to discipline an allegedly antisemitic professor and other perpetrators of anti-Jewish discrimination, hate speech, and harassment. For months, the university’s legal counsel strove to dismiss the complainant’s charges, arguing that they lacked legal standing. Meanwhile, its highly reputed Law School saw its student government issue a resolution which accused Israel of genocide; its students quoted terrorists during an “Apartheid Week” event held in April; and dozens of its students and faculty participated in an illegal pro-Hamas encampment attended by members of a group that had shared an antisemitic cartoon.

Antisemitic outrages have continued into the 2024-2025 academic year. In November, Harvard’s Office of the Chaplain and Religious and Spiritual Life was criticized by rising Jewish civil rights activist Shabbos Kestenbaum for omitting any mention of antisemitism from a statement precipitated by antisemitic behavior. The sharp words followed the office’s response to a hateful demonstration on campus in which pro-Hamas students stood outside Harvard Hillel and called for it to be banned from campus.

Former Harvard University president Larry Summers said on Monday that the administration’s response to campus antisemitism remains unsatisfactory.

“Harvard continues its failure to effectively address antisemitism,” Summers posted on the X/Twitter social media platform. “Despite [current Harvard president Alan Garber’s] clear and strong personal moral commitment, he has lacked the will and/or leverage to effect the necessary large-scale change, and the Corporation has been ineffectual.”

The Harvard Corporation is the university’s highest governing body.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Trump Administration Slashes $400 Million in Funding for Columbia University first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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